Once more, with feeling

How to start writing about one of the most famous books in literature without it sounding like an English essay? I suppose not spending precious moments deconstructing the text. It’s been done a thousand times over! With all the energy spent on analysing Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, it’s a wonder the book itself doesn’t jump off the shelf screaming ‘IT’S ALIVE'!’".

That’s not to say it shouldn’t have been or continue to be scrutinised with the intensity of a 4th year anatomy student. But we, or at least, I am not a scientist. I am a reader who prefers to explore feeling. How did a book make me feel? What emotions were provoked by the writing?

Over the years Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has made me feel inspired, furious, envious (who could ever match that originality?!). It made me fall in love with poetic writing laced with multiple meanings. It made me laugh (Gene Wilder’s Young Frankenstein is one of my favourite films of all time). It showed me that even horror can be beautiful, and that the idea of good and evil is complex and undefined. That judgement of difference is weak and that above all, empathy is the most important aspect of humanity.

All this from a story about a 19th Century, obsessed, arguably hysterical male doctor? A story about the very embodiment of Gothic era masculinity? A story, a work of art, written by a woman of such a uniquely creative mind living in the biggest cliche of our lives - a man’s world. Even the monster is named after a man. Did Mary Shelley feel that same anger as the monster did when her book was published without her own name? Did she tremble in the years that followed as her life echoed her story?

Though on the surface Frankenstein is a story about men (and I am not the first to debate whether that God-like feat accomplished by Dr Frankenstein was the ego rubbing that led to the novel’s popularity), it’s impossible to ignore the multifaceted prose and history that contribute to it being an intensely Feminist work. Mary Shelley was, after all, the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft. Could this work be her monster? Her creation, sewn together from the pieces of furious ideological thinking her mother left her?

Frankenstein is an emotional, tactile novel. You read it and sense the icy finger of lonely desolation on your nape. A women, almost alone in a thundering Swiss cabin. You can taste the bitterness of rejection and paranoia. To be in love with a man like Percy Shelley! But in reading Frankenstein, you also experience the warmth of birth and love. The pleasure of the acquisition of knowledge. The sublime feeling of reading what truly is a work of art - the words of a woman of incredible talent. To me, Frankenstein is the greatest example of classic English Literature. The layers and nuance mean that it reads differently each time it is approached. It was, and in many ways still is, way ahead of its time in content and technique. It’s political, allegorical, thrilling, intelligent and quite simply, beautiful. It made me feel something. It made me feel everything.

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Blog post written by Sophia Vassie of Bin Chicken Books, which you can follow on Instagram and Facebook.

Review - The Thirty-Nine Steps

Thanks to Kimberley for this guest review of our August Classic!

“Contrary to general belief, I was not a murderer, but I had become an unholy liar, a shameless imposter, and a highwayman with a marked taste for expensive motor cars”

Richard Hannay has just returned to England after years in South Africa and is thoroughly bored with his life in London. But then a murder is committed in his flat, just days after a chance encounter with an American who had told him about an assassination plot which could have dire international consequences. An obvious suspect for the police and an easy target for the killers, Hannay goes on the run in his native Scotland where he will need all his courage and ingenuity to stay one step ahead of his pursuers.

The Thirty-Nine Steps is not a book I would have picked up at a store and brought home with me, if I’m being truly honest. However, since I had the opportunity to read it, I’m actually really grateful I did. This is a short classic novel that packs a punch, it felt like I was on the run the entire time with Hannay as it never really lets up.

Reading the Thirty-Nine Steps is fun and exciting, which is what I was hoping for out of a mad chase throughout the English countryside. Watching Hannay escaping time and time again until a thrilling confrontation and conclusion is quite exhilarating when you allow yourself to be caught up in it, which I was.

There’s reverse psychology, the usurping of identities, and the classic case of lost evidence to keep things exciting. No longer bored of London life, he’s certainly found some much needed entertainment as Hannay pretends to be a milkman, a lower class burn on the train, and a few other identities that he honestly has way too much fun with. He meets plenty of gullible people who never seem to question him too hard and who happen to be the people he needs - talk about the right place, right time.

The novel is set pre-World War I and I think it would have been quite a thrilling adventure in its day. While I can understand that some of the concepts are a little outdated and perhaps that could be a distraction from the excitement of the story for some, I found it a great little read.

Review - It's Raining in Mango

It’s Raining in Mango is a family epic, spanning several generations of one family and their lives in Far North Queensland. Their stories are told in vignettes, and we’re left to fill in the gaps. The novel tackles so many themes and issues - there’s lots to talk about!

Chronologically, the story begins with Cornelius Laffey and his two attempts to build a life in North Queensland in the mid 1800s. The first attempt ends rather quickly when his unpopular journalistic opinions about the treatment of the local Indigenous people see him driven out of town. The second attempt involves dragging his wife and children from Sydney, and begins four generations of Laffey family stories in, and around, the fictional towns of Reeftown and Mango.

To be honest, this novel was difficult to get into. It was originally written as a series of short stories and I think it shows. The stories, contained in themselves, overlap and leave gaps in the larger story. I thought the choice to begin with a list of characters and their deaths was curious, but I found myself referring back to it throughout the novel. I believe that the introductory chapter was written when the stories were collected together and I found it quite confusing the first time around. Re-reading it for this review, the introduction has actually helped to fill in gaps and link the stories, and I enjoyed it much more now that I’m familiar with the characters.

However, as linked short stories, this book is full of gems. I loved the unique perspectives and voices of each of the characters, their desires and flaws clearly on display. Some standout stories included Jessica Olive letting rip at the visiting priest and his misogyny, and the tale of a brothel in a flood. Some other stories made me feel distinctly uncomfortable, but that's something I appreciate in short stories in particular, as their length gives more space to pause and think through my discomfort.

Various stories tackle issues of sexism, racism and homophobia. The more Indigenous voices I read, the more wary I become of white authors writing about colonisation and the interactions between Europeans and First Nations peoples. However, given that this book was written in the 80s, it was refreshingly blunt about the horrific attitudes and actions of white settlers. Our main characters stand apart from their neighbours in their attitude toward the Indigenous people, but they still carry a lack of understanding of a non-European way of life.

I happen to be reading Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray by Anita Heiss as I’m writing this review. It has been interesting to compare the two novels. They’re both set in colonial Australia (though different parts of the country), but where It’s Raining in Mango is written by a white author about a white family, Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray is written by an Indigenous author with an Indigenous protagonist. Both stories have a mix of horribly racist and then generally-well-meaning-but-still-a-product-of-their-racist-times characters, but we’re given a much richer story of the life and culture of the First Nations people by Dr Heiss. In fairness, Astley’s novel is centred on the white family and she does a fair job of portraying the Indigenous side characters, but I have certainly enjoyed the non-white perspective of colonial Australia from Dr Heiss. (Sidenote: if you’ve not read Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray, I highly recommend it!).

All in all, I enjoyed reading It’s Raining in Mango, but I think I recommend re-reading the introduction after you’ve finished the book, to clear up a lot of confusion!

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It’s Raining in Mango featured in the July 2021 Classic parcel. Past parcels are available for purchase here. Subscribe for next month’s parcel here.

Review - The Jungle Book

Thanks to Kimberley for this guest review of our June Classic!

“A man-trained boy would have been badly bruised, for the fall was a good fifteen feet, but Mowgli fell as Baloo had taught him to fall, and landed on his feet”

I have been reading the Disney version of the Jungle Book to my 3yr old a lot lately and was excited to be reading the original classic this month. If all you know of The Jungle Book is the film adaptions then you may be surprised to know that the book is an anthology of short stories and songs - only a few of which relate to Mowgli, our lost little man-cub.

Also different in the movie are the characters of Bagheera, Baloo and Kaa. Baloo trains the wolf Cubs and is just as rough with Mowgli as he is with the Cubs as he teaches them the law of the jungle. Kaa too, the sneaky snake I thought always wanted to harm Mowgli, is actually an ally!

In the other short stories are the tales of Rikki Tikki Tavi - a loveable mongoose, Toomai, the elephant boy, and Kotick, the White Seal. Exploring themes like courage, loyalty, friendship and love, Kipling’s showcases these animals in an interesting and enjoyable way.

They always say the book is better than the movie and while I don’t think that’s completely true in this case (sorry, Kipling), there were definitely interesting moments from Mowgli’s stories that I enjoyed. It was intriguing, a little magical, a little nostalgic in places, and perhaps a little boring in places too. All in all, a nice little read.

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The Jungle Book featured in the June 2021 Classic parcel. Past parcels are available for purchase here. Subscribe for next month’s parcel here.