Happy Birthday Mary Shelley!

I took this picture in Totnes in Devon. It was during their carnival and I know it might be a rather cheap way to illustrate today'stopic, but here it is anyway: today is the birthday of Mary Shelley.The genius author of Frankenstein and thus the accidental mother (or grandmother?) of one of Halloween's and horror's most iconic monsters. Which in his original incarnatios has nothing to do with the popular image of its Hollywood adaptations. In other words: read the novel. On a side note, it will be my wife and my wedding anniversary very soon, so this picture is kind of fitting for that too.

Dr Frank N. Stein?

I took this picture in Totnes in Devon, during the procession of their carnival, a few years ago. I had wanted to share it one day and I thought that it would fit perfectly for today's countdown to Halloween post. I may be one of the few people who experienced Frankenstein first and foremost in the original work of Mary Shelley. Of course, I knew of the images that have been famous by the old Universal movies, but I discovered them years later. This allegorical car is of course heavily influenced by The Bride of Frankenstein, which is an amazing film in its own right. Just because it is a horror related allegorical car, and classic horror at that, because it looks nicely vintage in so many ways, because it also displays a bit of affectionate humour, I wanted to share the photo today.

Rediscovering Frankenstein

So this is today's countdown to Halloween post. I don't know if it is because I discovered last summer in the town of Marlow the home of the Shelleys, where Mary Shelley completed the writing of Frankenstein, but it seems that this year's countdown to Halloween is marked by a rediscovery of the novel. I haven't re-read it yet, but when I was in Montreal, I stumbled in a second hand bookshop upon a book of essays about the myth of Frankenstein: Frankenstein (Figures mythiques). It has become part of my Halloween reading list. And it is a fascinating rediscovery. I am maybe one of the few people who first discovered the story not through its many loosely based adaptations, but directly from the original novel, when I was a young teenager. Like I mentioned here, I don't consider Mary Shelley's most famous to be pure horror story. In fact, I think it is more supernatural tragedy with a hint of what would later be called science fiction (although I'd argue that the scifi elements are completely involuntary). Still, because of the icon that the creature and his creator has become, because it is an essential part of Halloween imagery, it deserved to be mentioned here. Still, I recommend to everyone to discover the novel in its own terms, forgetting the many adaptations.

I'm a cryptkeeper

As the official countdown to Halloween starts tomorrow (even though I did if you noticed started mine a few weeks earlier), I have again decided to become a cryptkeeper, at the invitation of the Countdown to Halloween website. For this year's countdown, I chose the patch representing the monster of Frankenstein, as popularized with Boris Karloff. No particular reason for it, albeit I hope I can write a few posts about Mary Shelley's offspring. But there will be plenty of other monsters and critters. Today is a fitting day to create a monster, all gloomy and dark. A time to read horror stories, which I encourage you to do.