Andy's Reading blog

Monday, September 9, 2013

Article 2

The article here is from The New York times talking about the book written Roseanne Montillo, and the book they discuss is called The Lady and Her Monsters. It is about how Mary Shelly's Frankenstein can be related to other experiments that were conducted in real life and, also it talks about how when she was writing the book it describes her thought process. The article goes into detail about the people in the book that the author discusses, and it also goes into detail about her history and how science and philosophy influenced her book. Also it talks about how Mary Shelly is the daughter of Mary Woolencraft, an enlightened thinker who was a champion for women's rights back in the enlightenment era, and it goes into some details about the books plot points. It also talks about the scientist of the time and the grave robbing that occurred with some of the experiments that they would conduct. The link to the article is right here it will take you to the New York Times website. The Article

Mary Shellys Frankenstein the 1994 movie trailer

Mary Shellys Frankenstien the movie was released in 1994 by Tristar as a made for tv movie adaption. While I don't think it as good as the universal Frankenstein it does actually stick closer to the book then the other movie and it is a liitle scarier then the other movie. Also this one has a more accurate depiction of how the monster was depicted in the book as more of man then just a green monster. The movie does what it sets out to do whitch is make an adaptation faithul to the book, but really the movie isn't really that good either because when they adapted the book they take some of the slow creepy scene in the book and turn it into a fast action scene you would see in the likes of Van Helsing. Over all I would say you rent the movie for the faithul adaption factor but it really isn't worth paying more then two bucks for to see it. Here is a trailer for the movie to see if you are interested. Click the hyper link and the video will play in full screen.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

History lesson/ Blog 2

History Lesson: The book Frankenstein was published in 1818 for the first time anonymously by Mary Shelly in limited run of 500 copies of each volume. It wasn't till the second publication that Mary Shelly's name was put on the cover and acknowledges her as the author of the book after heavily editing the book to make it have more action. She got the idea from a dream she had were she had to write the best horror story she could and she came up with the idea that a man creates something and it grows destroys him. The book is one of the earliest known examples of science fiction even though I consider it more of a horror novel with a couple science fiction elements. There is also a common misconception that the name of the monster is Frankenstein, but no it is only referred to as the monster in both the book and the movie. Also \the book it self is now in the public domain but not the movie and the reason being is that the copy right on the movie is from 1931 and Universal renewed it some time in the past but it extended the copyright till 2026to make it copyrighted for another 25 years or so after the in initial 70 your allowed when you copyright it, but the book it self has become public domain because it was made before 1923 and anything before is automatically in the public domain. So that is how I am going to end this update on what I have learned from background research.

Article 1

The Article linked below is an article written for the Chicago Tribune talking about the life of Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein and it goes to a little detail about her life and other such things, about her and her family. It talks about how tradgic her life was and that she had so many people around her die within close succession of each other. It also talks about these letters that linked her knowing alot about politics and being very informed on the issues of her time, they even talk about how she was not a fan of Charles Dickens. It also talks about her critisism of the Americans and that she was heavily into the feminist ideas, because her mother was Mary Woolencraft an enlightend thinker and a champion for womens rights and stuff along those lines. They also talk about the book, Letters Of Mary Woolencraft Shelly, were all the letters that revealed all this sruff about her and more. The article link is to the right click it and it will take you to the Chicago Tribune. Read The Article

Cover of the book

Cover and explanation of the edition I have: The version of Frankenstein I have is an updated version that includes a history of Frankenstein and it's Author Marry Shelley at the beginning of the book, and at the end there is an index explaining the terms and filmography of Frankenstein. Also it shows that the majority of this book does take place in the snowy mountains of Geneva. The person on the cover is either Dr. Frankenstein or the monster, it is left to your own interpretation of what you think it is. The cover of the book makes it actually look quite eery, like what am I getting myself into when I read this book with this person on the cover looking relatively close death stumbling through amountain area.

Frankenstein Blog 1

Blog Update: 9/4/2013: The Book I am currently reading is Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. So far I have read the two chapters, so I can't say much about the book but so far is pretty good. The book starts out with this guy who's name is only R. Walton writing letters to his sister about how he is exploring the world. Then he meets up with this guy that he ends taking care of because when he found the guy he was half frozen and sick so while caring for him on the ship, starts to develop a friend ship with the guy. This is as far as I have gotten so far but it sounds pretty interesting and it is kind of slow but, I like the slow build up of horror, then it all comes to a breaking point, is what I like to read in my horror novels. Another thing that I want to point out that I pointed out in the last blog that none of the stuff in this prologue is actually in the 1931 movie. That is all I have to say about the book for now but I will have more to say about it in the near future.

Frankenstein 1931 trailer

This Trailer is for the 1931 film adaption and while it is not the first film adaption, the first movie was made in 1910 by the Thomas Edison film studio. Also there is supposedly one before that but it is considered to be a lost film, but back to the 1931 film. Well it wasn't the closest adaption of the book there is, because they do leave out the prologue pretty much and a couple other things I have noticed. I would still check it out if I were you though because I personally really like this movie a whole lot, and it is pretty funny and sad if you watch it today. There is also a trailer for the 1994 Frankenstein movie that I will post later on and that movie is not as good as this one but I will talk more about that later in greater detail. So just click the hyperlink and it will bring a full screen video up.