The Monsters We Deserve - Marcus Sedgewick

"'Do monsters always stay in the book where they were born? Are they content to live out their lives on paper, and never step foot into the real world?'

The Villa Diodati, on the shore of Lake Geneva, 1816: the Year without Summer. As Byron, Polidori, and Mr and Mrs Shelley shelter from the unexpected weather, old ghost stories are read and new ghost stories imagined. Born by the twin brains of the Shelley's is Frankenstein, one of the most influential tales of horror of all time.

In a remote mountain house, high in the French Alps, an author broods on Shelley's creation. Reality and perception merge, fuelled by poisoned thoughts. Humankind makes monsters; but who really creates who? This is a book about reason, the imagination, and the creative act of reading and writing. Marcus Sedgwick's ghostly, menacing novel celebrates the legacy of Mary Shelley's literary debut in its bicentenary year. "

This is a novel, and it isn’t a novel. This is a literary essay, and it isn’t a literary essay. It’s a book about how books are written (and how monsters are born.) It sounds like a odd combination doesn’t it? It works though, strangely enough. Taut, tense, immersive and unique. Written in a sort of easily accessible stream of consciousness, the story delves into the act of creation and relationship between the author and his work.

It’s about a horror writer who is undertaking some soul searching. He’s fed up of writing stories that simply scare people and has reached the conclusion that such dark writing gives nothing decent to society. He now wants to write something good and beneficial for his readers. He wants to talk about the natural world and monsters and people and everything in between. So he does. 
 

The book questions the act of writing, itself a form of creation. It questions the rigid nature of publishing and how writers are forced to shape their project according to reader expectation instead of letting the writing be what its wants to be. It’s a book that celebrates the natural world with its sharp descriptions and emphasis on the beauty of life. My point is, this book is lots of things at once. It’s fragmented and experimental, though it is also very perceptive and extraordinarily clever.

The element that will appeal to most readers is the way the book talks to a dead writer and her characters. Mary Shelley haunts the steps of the writer. She visits him as does her pompous (not my words) protagonist Victor. They discuss monsters and how our books come to shape us, establishing and defining us as a certain type of person: a writer of horror, for example. Through the interaction this slates Frankenstein heavily; yet, for all that, it made me laugh. All the criticism are fair and in a way, they add to the original work because they firmly establish how the book was a product of its time. Any narrative weakness only highlights how naïve and young the novel was during the early nineteenth century. Frankenstein is far from perfection, though it will always remain a literary marvel because of the themes it tackles head on.

I personally found what would have elevated this book would to include and discuss many classical horror books rather than focus so intently on one which leads to the book feeling a little one dimensional. I truly did enjoy the open ending and the up to you interpretation of the entire book. Did this man really see the ghost of Mary Shelly or was it one lonely guilt ridden man's decent into existential madness. I stand with the latter. 

I’m absolutely in love with the book design. It’s so simple and so precise, full of illustrations that accentuate what’s being said. More book covers should be this exact rather than attempting to be too flashy and intricate: it’s crisp, clean and effective.

Age Rating 13+. Nothing untoward but the writing style is philosophical and soul searching, touching on abstract concepts a younger audience might not appreciate.