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Jenny	229700.  Sun Nov 11, 2007 9:52 am I remember reading Samuel Richardson's Pamela and Clarissa when I was an English undergraduate (many years ago...) and you're right - that's worse. Don't you find reading those old Gothic horrors gives you a better appreciation of Northanger Abbey though? They've got to be good for something.
King of Quok	229724.  Sun Nov 11, 2007 12:12 pm Jenny's right. Kitsch and trashy though a lot of Gothic may have been, you can' deny the influence it had on nearly every other writer in its wake. I think The Monk has its moments, even though it is excessive. If we're going to start proscribing texts because they have trashy, gothic-y bits, you'd end up chucking out a hell of a lot of good stuff, including a lot of the Brontes, Dickens and even, dare I say it, some of Shakespeare's wobblier moments, though he pre-dates the Gothic proper! I think part of the appeal of Gothic, in any case, is often the inevitably cliched denouments and the excessive gory abandon of the descriptions, in which case The Monk would score a better read than, say, Hogg's Confessions of a Justified Sinner. And it coulc be a LOT worse. You could have to read Hobbes' Leviathan.
ElizabethSterling	229800.  Sun Nov 11, 2007 5:46 pm King of Quok wrote: Jenny's right. Kitsch and trashy though a lot of Gothic may have been, you can' deny the influence it had on nearly every other writer in its wake. I think The Monk has its moments, even though it is excessive. If we're going to start proscribing texts because they have trashy, gothic-y bits, you'd end up chucking out a hell of a lot of good stuff, including a lot of the Brontes, Dickens and even, dare I say it, some of Shakespeare's wobblier moments, though he pre-dates the Gothic proper! I think part of the appeal of Gothic, in any case, is often the inevitably cliched denouments and the excessive gory abandon of the descriptions, in which case The Monk would score a better read than, say, Hogg's Confessions of a Justified Sinner. And it coulc be a LOT worse. You could have to read Hobbes' Leviathan. I'm not entirely sure where the idea I'm writing off the entire gothic genre has suddenly stemmed from... all I'm really saying is that all in all I found the monk too ridiculous to enjoy. I'm well aware of how the genre has had an impact on literature its self too and I'm not at all against the occasional bout of slightly cheesey gothic writing.
djgordy	280122.  Tue Feb 19, 2008 3:11 am Frankenstein: The bride of Frankenstein: http://www.anorak.co.uk/royals/princess-diana-inquest/180884.html Regrettably, Mr. Al Fayad seems to have been confusing the name Frankenstein with that of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Gl%C3%BCcksburg
interestinglit	958000.  Sat Dec 22, 2012 11:19 am I know QI has already addressed Frankenstein in the 'Green' episode, but I thought it was worth mentioning Stephen Jay Gould's excellent essay on Frankenstein which appeared in his book Dinosaur in a Haystack. He makes the point that the idea that the novel is about 'man playing God' is misguided; the real problem with Frankenstein is that he abandons his creation, and is a 'bad parent' to the creature. I discuss the novel, and Gould's interpretation, over at my blog, if anyone's interested: http://interestingliterature.wordpress.com/2012/12/04/frankenstein-the-most-misread-novel/

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