Pea's Christmas Carol

It is required of every man," the ghost returned, "that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide; and, if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. - A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

"What the Dickens!" (I love saying this). So this is Christmas? So far all I've been doing is pining for the cold, dark streets of London and imagining being all wrapped up holding a mulled cider from the stall in Covent Garden and walking down Carnaby St. It must be said that London does Christmas phenomenally well and with all the trimmings. Last year, almost to the day today, I was walking through London's first snowfall. It was the middle of the night, the streets were deserted and I was walking home to Love Walk with my face turned up to the sky and the tiny snowflakes falling soundlessly to the ground. I'm probably not the only one who does this but I theme what I'm reading to the seasons so normally about this time I delve into the Russians (they're suitably Winterish) and you can't really beat Dickens for his festive themed reads. This year I feel though, seeing as I've reached the milestone of a quarter of a century (oh ma gawd), that I would do a little reflectin' just like Ebenezer Scrooge and think about what my Christmas Carol would look like. 

Ghosts of Christmas Past

It goes without saying that I am not a lonely, miserable miser in the same way as poor Scrooge but Christmas has always been a holiday that has never been postcard perfect either. I've always felt like a little urchin looking in at others' windows, admiring their perfect tree, all the family gathered around and the mighty feast of Christmas day. As a wee little girl my Christmases were far from this image. We never had very much money and despite the fact that my family have spawned like rabbits they were never very close or very nice for that matter. My mum, bless her heart, always tried very hard to do something special and make sure there was at least something small wrapped up for me. So, as a kid I never expected presents or never had that sense of sleepless excitement on Christmas Eve that tomorrow would be the best day of my life. I just took it as another day. 

Ghosts of Christmas Present

I may not have technically runaway from home but I might as well have. At 17 I went in search of something bigger and tried to escape the bleakness of what was a pretty hard childhood. Abroad at Christmas though was never very nice. I was a festive orphan for 8 Christmases. It was during this time however, that I was enveloped by the kindness and warmth of strangers who, without much ado, welcomed me into their homes, fed me great amounts of food and allowed me to be part of their families. It was a bittersweet realisation to come to recognise that strangers showed me the kind of feeling that one's own family are meant to but it was also overwhelming to feel that sort of love and kindness from your friends. So for 8 years, while I didn't have my beloved mum to share Christmas with, I did briefly get that card-perfect Christmas all courtesy of some of the very best people in the world. Forever may the scabbard of the Ghost of Christmas Present be empty so that peace and the goodwill of others can touch others like my Christmas orphan self.

Ghosts of Christmas Yet to Come

In a week, I return to my small, lazy hometown of Cairns for Christmas after quite a fair while away. The place is full of shadows and memories of a life I once knew, tried to run from, but one which I have come to accept has shaped me into the person I am today - stoic, happy and slightly quirky. I will spend Christmas day in 33 degree heat with my mum, the tree which she has bought for $15, and a pretty decent meal. We are still not rich people, I will still not be kept awake by excitement and won't have lots of presents to open. I will however, be with my family (aka the very best mum) and not a Christmas orphan and will have everything I need already (except for snow, I really want snow).  

I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.

Unhappily Ever After?

If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark - Shakespeare

So, without sounding like some Carrie Bradshaw wannabe, I've recently been questioning whether or not I have given up entirely on love. I think what's got me more frazzled is the idea of getting married. There's a lot behind my doubts - a family history of loveless, flailing marriages, my very own heartbreaks and let downs, the feminists out there with all their enthusiastic marriage bashing, and I've recently read Middlemarch by George Eliot. 

One of my aunts recently asked me if I wanted to get married. I pictured hanging out white, linen laundry on some green-valleyed idyll with chickens and small, brown babies running around my ankles. This ridiculous thought bubble was burst when my aunt followed up her question with 'you don't even have to love the man just make sure he's rich.' I thought of her and my uncle who have had their share of downs, two grown boys and a 5 year separation that was finally consoled on some sort of 'agreement'. I watch them from time to time and it's evident that it's a partnership without love. This is basically the marriage model of most of my relatives. How could I ever want that?

At my age my mother was a widow with an 18mth old baby who insisted on climbing everything. It can't have been easy to have a child 4ft off the ground, manage a house, hold down a job, etc and still remain sane. Then again there are people I've gone to school with who are hitched, mortgaged and have child-proofed their homes; leaving me to endure the Facebook updates of what baby ate today and bathroom renovations gone wrong (eugh). On the other hand none of my closest friends are anywhere close to having these things. 

Reading Middlemarch was like seeing what Sex & the City might have looked like 150 odd years ago. Love, scandal, money, propriety... but no sex. It is the women who are key to this book - Dorothea, Celia, Rosamund and Mary. 

Dorothea is at first nauseating. I almost stopped reading on account of her character. Eliot shapes her as this bleached, white angel who sweeps into a room with her Christian haughtiness-cum-perfection that makes you want to vom. She won't ride a horse because it's too enjoyable (perhaps too sexual? Victorian innuendo?) or wear a necklace because it would make her 'feel as if she had been pirouetting'. I thought only earrings had that effect. So, Dorothea is given two choices for marriage - dashing Sir James Chettam and OAP Mr. Casaubon. You can guess who she picks right? Yep, the fogie. Apparently so she can learn more as he is so very wise (yawn). I think all girls have bought the older guy t-shirt. I certainly have and lord only knows what I was thinking. Apart from the fact that he was a possessive psycho things went down a steep hill when I said that I didn't want children for at least another 10 years. Clearly not a match made in heaven but if I followed my aunt's advice it would have been perfect. For Dorothea, Casaubon is a huge let down - loveless, unable to show her affection, and has no time for her in his business and, as my horrid experience with the older man, extremely jealous. Oh and he's sickly too. Inevitably he pops his clogs but not without leaving a bitter aftertaste of spite and distrust for his child-wife to endure after he's carked it. We end up pitying her as she goes through a series of realisations and after she's come to terms with her mistakes in love and marriage. In the end her character is more real, more likeable and a stronger female model. 

Rosamund on the other hand remains throughout the book a creature to loathe. She's a top graduate of Mrs. Lemon's school for young ladies, which has clearly left a sour taste in her butter-wouldn't-melt mouth. Always finely dressed, Rosamund is like a pretty shell and swans around with empty thoughts and a disillusioned manner. The scene in which her and Mr. Lydgate fall in love is full of warning signs:

Remember that the ambitious man who was looking at those forget-me-nots under the water was very warm-hearted and rash. He did not know where the chain went...

She's a siren! A water nymph! She's going to eat you alive! Before he knows it Lydgate is unhappily married to this cretin who cares more about silver plates and jewels than the well-being of her husband, who we see become a shadow of his ambitious self on account of her character. Their relationship is a neon sign for the vows of 'for better or for worse' and 'for richer for poorer' but regardless worse is not an option for Rosamund who does nothing but make her own situation worse through her own petulance. She pouts and stamps her feet, well at least she would if Mrs. Lemon had taught her not to. Instead all she does is make a slight turn of her swan-like neck. Well we all know how maleficent swans can be. Graceful yet with the ability to stretch their wings to full span and chase you around like a chicken. Lydgate is doomed to unhappiness and Rosamund couldn't care less. Poor Lydgate, no-one wants to end up unloved. I know I don't but there's no safeguarding really except for never getting married or giving your heart up to cupid and his trigger-happy arrows. 

Then we come to Celia. She's like the pin-up girl for Victorian ladies. Married gentry, manor house, fine lace, etc. She may not have the angelic manner or religious zest that her sister Dorothea has but, nevertheless is practical minded albeit a bit dim otherwise. After marrying Sir James Chettam (Dorothea's other suitor) she is there in order for us to better highlight what could have been for Dorothea. How different her life would have been if she had married him. He certainly was more of a man than Dorothea gave him credit for. But then again you wonder whether she might have been happy with Chettam because she did actually love Casaubon. Follow your heart and let it be trampled or take Aunt's advice and disregard love or forget the whole damn thing and continue to have meaningless flings and flirtations? But then what is the use of love? 

But Mary on the other hand marries in the end to Fred, her true love. Of course, this isn't until he actually proves himself to be worthy of her. Not that Mary is painted as anything extraordinary - Fred's mum can't bear the thought of her son marrying someone so plain. But they did love each other and after Fred wasn't such a rascal it was ok for them to get hitched. 

Anyway, the book is great and I highly recommend a read of it. Eliot gives us an insight into womenhood and marriage which is still relevant today and she's frighteningly clever too. But I'm left feeling cynical. There are idiots like Liz Jones feeding her right-wing readership nonsense like all us women folk are stealing your boy sperm and then Kate Bolick who's brave enough to make the audacious statement that she may never marry. I mean what's the big deal with getting married? I'm all for the argument that if you want to get married you should be allowed to. The notion of not being permitted because of race, religion or sex is ridiculous. My fear is that it will turn into heartbreak or a loveless dull continuum. And then what? Perhaps after a string of unluck with my now steely heart I'm unwilling and for now any poor sod who approaches me will be told to bugger off but I've not given up entirely on love. Marriage though? Still a long way off for Pea. 

They were the mixed result of young and noble impulse struggling under prosaic conditions. Among the many remarks passed on her mistakes, it was never said in the neighbourhood of Middlemarch that such mistakes could not have happened if the society into which she was born had not smiled upon the marriage from a sickly man to a girl less than half his own age- on modes of education which make a woman's knowledge another name for motley ignorance - on rules of conduct which are in flat contradiction with it's own loudly-asserted beliefs. While this is the social air in which mortals begin to breath, there will be collisions such as those in Dorothea's life, where great feelings will take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion. (Removed/edited out last lines of Middlemarch)

Love - Smoke and Mirrors? Or shall we listen to Karen O?  

                           

 

The Stories Behind The Words

“Do you see the story? Do you see anything? It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream--making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is the very essence of dreams...”


- Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness

I won my copy of Heart of Darkness in a poker match along with a Guns N' Roses Zippo lighter. While having a cigarette and reading my new book this passage made me stop and take a long, quiet draw of my Lucky Strike. Maybe I had taken my thoughts too far into the existential realm but I was struck with the human ability to imagine and dream and weave words together to create something lucid and implant vivid images to play in our heads. Yeah, OK, I'd definitely entered into some philosophical realm and started looking at my hand and wondering whether I was real or not and what this life was all about but, you know, Conrad will do that to you. 


But, regardless of the meaning of life, I want to talk more about the art of storytelling and introduce some people who are amalgamating different forms of art, words and narrative and creating something to blow our wee little minds. 


First up is (my favourite) I Love Boxie


In my mind this is run by an artist in a dark basement somewhere in the depths of East London where the only apparatus is a typewriter, silk screen, and black and white paint. The concept behind this project is purely confessional. You're invited to go to the site and write a story about anything you like and your story could be selected to be translated into a slogan for a t-shirt, printed and (if it's your story) you get the t-shirt. Every t-shirt comes with it's own anecdote from heartache, travels, meeting strangers to more serious topics like death, illnesses and worries. It's an incredible way to convey stories about life and people as well as a great way to idle away some time reading all the stories. What's more, if there's something you want to get off your chest or you have something amazing that's happened and you want to tell someone about it you can weave your own little tale right here. Perhaps even wear it one day. I would be ecstatic with all but content with just one of their t-shirts but if i had to pick a fave it would be this one...


Next is the mighty EINE


Ben Flynn, tag-name EINE, used to be a writer which is perhaps why he can tell a great story with the fewest words. Flynn's writing career morphed into a job in street-artistry and thank the alphabet! he turned into a little bit of a vandal or we wouldn't have the pleasure of ogling his typographical work. His work can be defined as edgy and poignant - artistic street statements like 'vandals' and 'fucker' show us his rebel with a spraycan side. At the same time his signature style, reminiscent of toy alphabet blocks, which spell out inspiring taglines like 'amazing', 'happiness' and 'marvel' tell us that this artist has a bit of whimsy in him. Each of his works has a story behind it which is linked to the location, people and culture of the place. His work is iconic and promotes street-art not as vandalism but art. I'm not saying go write your name on the nearest wall but you know, kudos to the guys with skills, spraycans and street walls. 

Lastly, a storyteller with a difference, it's gum artist Ben Wilson. 

Technically Ben's work doesn't really use words to tell a story but what he does is rather incredible anyway. You know all the chewed up gum that gets masticated until the flavour runs out and then gets littered on our once pristine pavements to harden, blacken and upset local councils everywhere? Well, no longer are they unsightly signs of a culture that can't find a bin nearby. Ben Wilson turns these blobs of Hubba Bubba and Extra into miniature canvasses and tiny little paintings. His work is often dedicated to the people, monuments and events of his local area of Muswell Hill but the surrounding areas of famous landmarks are also home to his pavement art. He's painted everything from local postman, shopowners and even been asked to paint a proposal by a lovestruck boyfriend. It's a wonderful surprise stumbling across one of his works, a hell of a job trying to hunt one down and such a brilliant and original idea. 

So, what are you waiting for? Go tell a story. Perhaps leave out the interpretative dance though, that's always a dead giveaway that you're a bit of a loon. 


- Pea.

Nooks, Corners & Musty Books

I'm not the kind of girl who is want to buy a new, shiny book whose pages have not yet been turned. I have nothing against the likes of big chain bookshops - I used to mill about in the  Waterstones on Piccadilly on cold, dark and rainy London days and could often be found wandering around the Foyle's on Tottenham Court Road. But the appeal of buying books from one of these stores was very little. If given the choice I guess, I would rather walk into something like Black Books and be harassed by the obscenities of a drunken, cigarette toting Bernard (actually I would love that). To me there is nothing better than stumbling around the dark corners of a musty, old, local bookshop where the books are in no particular order and are bursting from the overladen shelves. These wondrous little shoppes are like sanctuaries with their always friendly keepers, quietness and that smell of wood, paper, and smoke. I envy the bookshop owner. 

I'm always on the lookout for good bookshops but this following list is my top five:

1. The Minster Gate Bookshop

This is my favourite of favourite bookshops which I found while I was a scumbag student in York. Tucked away on a cobbled street with the background of York Minster's facade you could easily miss it in it's little corner. It seems endless with all its corridors and stairs and not a bare space of wall has been left uncovered by a bookshelf. It was here that I found a signed copy of Keats' Collected Works (which I begrudgingly gave as a present, grumble grumble). The number of 1st editions I pawed over and coveted knowing that they would never be mine while I was wearing my holey, mud-covered converses is endless. I would console myself with a dirty pint and a rollie and dream of what my bookshelf would look like when I was rich and famous. I would have a bookshelf with a ladder, I would think. 

2. Jonkers Rare Books 

If you're just a kid who looks like a grown-up than you'll love this place. There's a whole wall of fairytales - each beautifully bound, illustrated and timeless. I've never seen so many books in one place illustrated by Arthur Rackham, so many gilded covers and rare finds. A good friend of mine, also a massive geek, and I used to go in and spend hours ooohing and ahhing over the pages of these pretty little things and trying desperately to gather anything in our student budgets. I think the best thing we found there was a very early, Illustrated edition of Milton's Paradise Lost.

3. Any Amount of Books 

Ah-ha! Charing Cross Road: the booklover's paradise, the street of booksellers, the paved pavements of binding, parchment, and dustjackets! One of my pastimes in London was to get a baozi bun from Chinatown and nibble it on my way to the endless line of bookshops on Charing X Rd. I almost choked on my minced pork savoury delight as I rounded the corner to see that one of my favourite sellers had obviously been forced out and had been replaced by (puritans, cross yourselves) a disgusting Patisserie Valerie with all it's cheap cream tarts, sickening pink and brown signage, and tasteless patrons. Eugh. I thought I'd taken a wrong turn, I hoped I had but alas I was there. I'd heard that these small sellers were in trouble but this was very unexpected. It did give me more reason to keep supporting it's neighbour Any Amount of Books though. They always have a few tables outside selling books for a quid or two and I would always bump into someone while perusing the offerings on the bookshelf in the doorway. Not an ideal place for a bookshelf but you can forget about personal space in this shop. Corners, high shelves, a stacked basement, a stairwell lined with shelves....endless. They are keeping the spirit of Charing Cross Road alive.
 
4. Aldeburgh Bookshop 

Ok, so this one isn't exactly a second-hand bookshop but it is truly the best independent bookshop EVER. Unsuspectingly it sits on the main street of this (rather posh) seaside town quietly humming away at it's business then boom - the town and the shop comes alive twice a year. Firstly with its annual literary festival with a line-up of big names and aficionados and then secondly for the poetry festival again with the same enticing speakers and guests. A trip to Aldeburgh was never complete without a walk on the shingles, fish and chips, and a mosey into this bookshop. 

5. Syber's Books

After moving from London to Melbourne I was determined to find a bookshop to patronise. After a night out with a friend and losing my voice I stumbled into  what seemed to be a smallish shop and was surprised when I found that it may not be wide but it was certainly long AND it had ladders!! Yep, speechless I was, quite literally. As I surveyed deeper I found I was not alone and that a fat, ginger cat was grooming itself on a large chair. Although the cat did try biting me I did like that there was a cat. I spent about an hour in here picking up and putting down and gathering everything I wanted. When I got to the counter I tried in vain to communicate and was taken pity on, given remedies of honey and hot tea and a discount! Definitely going back there. 

So happy readers, I'll leave with these thoughts - 

Support your local, independent bookstores, don't pet strange cats and buy more books!

- Pea

A Penny for a Poppy

Hello readers, 

As Remembrance Day is in two days time I've written a special midweek post to mark the occasion. As a centre-left, liberal, stop-to-smell-the-roses, wannabe hippy pacifist, I've never understood war. Hell, I don't understand the existence of guns. I've fired two in my life. Once at a pumpkin which was spared it's orange flesh as I missed terribly (the concrete wall of the firing range bore the brunt of my failed marksmanship). The second time it was a double-barreled shotgun out in the English countryside where I successfully shot at the air but I was the one left wounded with an almighty bruise on my shoulder from the recoil. Guns, war, men, combat, death, fear, hate - I think these are pretty obvious, evil scars on mankind. I asked myself what the world would look like today without war because I wanted to make some sort of sense of it. I admit it's much too much for one to think that two powerful leaders of opposed countries would sit down and say, "Well chappy, what do you say we call this off and have a brew?", to which the other would say "Very well then old chap, milk and one." I suppose they'd want to throw in a few lines on borders, power, leadership, trade, etc and haggle a bit and probably drink something more like brandy rather than tea. Anyhow, this one's for those who died because others couldn't find the words to make peace and also for those who live amongst war everyday in those countries that we have grown accustomed to hearing on the news so many times that we are numbed to their situation.

A Penny for a Poppy

I'll bring the flowers,
You bring the guns.
We'll find the trouble
And kill their sons.
Your men and mischief
deep in trenches.
Tonight, tomorrow,
marching wretches.
Fool-hardy brave,

Unforgotten souls.

- Pea. 

P.S wrote this one myself after a heated debate on war, poppy wearing and respect. Thanks goes to my good friend and ally Mondonomy. 

Fireworks, Gunpowder and Revolutions

Remember, remember the fifth of November... tonight lots of people will be dazzled by fireworks and light huge bonfires. It's pyromania and literally anything you can find to mindlessly burn can be used as fuel. When I first experienced Guy Fawkes night I had no idea what the hell was going on and quite happily just went in search for combustibles to satisfy my inner pyro and was contentedly mesmerised by all the pretty fireworks. But today I thought about the significance of the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605 in relation to the world in which we live today and found that the common denominator was Power. Today everyone is questioning those who wield power - presidents, prime ministers,dictators, bankers, businessmen, etc. It's not a new question however, it seems to me that 'we/the people' have put this question under a microscope and thrown it into a pressure cooker which is inevitably going to explode. What triggered me to write this instead of what I originally thought to muse on was watching a documentary on Egypt's fight for freedom. In particular, there were three people who caught my attention - Salma el Tarzi (aka Salma in the Square), Noor Ayman Nour and Bethania Kamel. The three stood out to me as being the new voices and identities of Egypt. When Salma spoke I sobbed into my eggs; when Noor described the climate in his country, I wanted to stand side-by-side with him and fight; and when I was introduced to Bethania I pondered over whether she would make a good President for these people. Furthermore, whether she would really stand for equality, establish the democratic rights of the people and harmonise the division between the Egyptian Muslims and Coptic Christians. It also made me ruminate over two novels I've read, both of which were set in Egypt . In Laurence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet he constantly reminds us that the characters of which he describes are true Alexandrians to the point where Alexandria itself becomes more and more the main character in the series. I wondered how true a reflection this was of the identity of the city and it's inhabitants, and then thought about what sort of change it had seen and is currently going through. What was more clear and relevant were the themes of socio-political change and citizenship that Naguib Mahfouz permeates throughout his epic Cairo Trilogy (it would seem you can't have a singular novel when it comes to Egypt). Both books describe indulgence in forbidden vices, the underworld of the country, the personalities of Egypt. But most of all the way in which both the slightest and the most dramatic changes can alter everything. I thought about our changing world, the way in which protesters have taken to the streets to question authority, to reclaim freedom, to reinstate/reinvent democracy, to claim citizenship and be heard. Aristotle tells me 'where the poor rule, there you have democracy' but Orwell makes me doubt there ever being such a state. The six billionth child of our world, aged 12, said he hoped for world peace just before the seven billionth child was born in Manila a few weeks ago. In 12 years I wonder what that child will think of the world she has grown up in, what changes she will see and what hopes she will have. Anyhow, this is all getting a tad serious so I shall leave you with a few quotes, pictures and sounds. Oh, but before I do, be careful when playing with fire.  

'A mighty flame followeth a tiny spark.' - Dante, Inferno

'The duty common to all human beings is perpetual revolution, and that is nothing other than an unceasing effort to further the will of life represented by its progress towards the ideal.' - Mahfouz, The Cairo Trilogy

'At every corner the violet shadows fell and foundered, striped with human experience – at once savage and tenderly lyrical. I took it as a measure of my maturity that I was filled no longer with  despairing self-pity but with a desire to be claimed by the city, enrolled among its trivial or tragic memories – if it so wished.' - Durrell, Justine

- Pea.  
(this entry is dedicated to those who drive change, revolution and ask questions)

Gil Scot Heron lyrics poster goes to Anon Camberwell COA

 

Trick or Treat?

It's Halloween! For some strange reason we people types seem to have some fascination with scaring the bejeezus out of our selves. When I was a nerdy twelve year old I used to hoard horror novels and read them before I went to bed and then be too frightened to sleep. And still to this day I will insist on watching The Shining. Alone. In the dark. The scene with the twin girls gives me shivers just thinking about it, not to mention when the kid starts chanting 'redrum' (murder backwards) in some sort of crazed, psychic trance. In terms of modern horror there's definitely some renaissance we're experiencing with vampires and zombies. In print we've got all that Twilight garbage (yeah, that's right, garbage) of teen vampires and in film the living dead keeps coming back to life in various forms on the silver screen every year. I think the most notable foundations in fiction we have of these two phantoms are Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Bram Stoker's Dracula. Zombies v Vampires. Hotly debated in nerd circles worldwide. I've always maintained that people either love one and hate the other when it comes to these two classic Gothic novels. I clarified this theory with a girl who was sitting next to me on the tube reading Dracula and asked her what she thought. She was very much enjoying Stoker's offering and didn't much appreciate it's zombie counterpart and carried on to tell me that her boyfriend had the opposite opinion. Well, I'm with the boyfriend on this one. I was so desperately bored by Dracula that I got 9 pages away from finishing it and just couldn't be bothered with the rest. Sure, Stoker was all modern with using different narrative styles but crikey did he lather on all the Victorian schmuk! All this my lady Lucy, oh I will come to your rescue, never fear you poor young woman, blah, blah, bullshit. Utterly tiring. I'll admit, the first 4 chapters are good. These are Jonathan Harker's diary entries and where we get the chilling sense that the Count is not who he seems:

What manner of man is this, or what manner of creature, is it in the semblance of man? I feel the dread of this horrible place overpowering me. I am in fear, in awful fear, and there is no escape for me. I am encompassed about with terrors that I dare not think of.

These are Jonathan's thoughts when he witnesses the Count creeping down the steep, exterior walls of the castle face down and on all fours. But then the book descends into my dear this, my dear that, and turns into Victoriana hell.

Frankenstein is by far, in my books, the superior. Even the way in which Shelley conceived the plot has elements of horror. Whether true or not (it's much disputed but I'm given to hoping it's true) it was a dark, stormy night in the Swiss mountains where Shelley, husband Percy, and good friend Lord Byron were holidaying. Confined to their log fire and own imaginations they had a competition to see who could come up with the scariest story. Shelley came up with Dr. Frankenstein and his monster. The dead brought to life by a bolt of lightening. The creator shunning and despising his creation. Revenge, rejection, remorse! The book is made timeless because it delves into human nature - our judgments of others, our differences, kindness, rage, deceit, death, consciousness, happiness, existence, loneliness, justice, fragility, knowledge - Shelley crams all the vices, virtues and truths of man into this novel while still being true to the Gothic narrative style. I find it all the more convincing and frightening because man exists.

"Cursed, cursed creator! Why did I live? Why, in that instant, did I not extinguish the spark of existence which you had so wantonly bestowed? I know not; despair had not yet taken possession of me; my feelings were those of rage and revenge. I could with pleasure have destroyed the cottage and its inhabitants and have glutted myself with their shrieks and misery.

Mwahahahahahahahaaaa. Hahahahaha. Hahaha ha. Ha. 

- P.  

The best thing to have come from Dracula.