Fucking Frankenstein [Paperback]

Mr. Matt R. Allen (Author), Mary Shelley (Author), Dorothy Baxter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 20, 2009

While doing research on Mary Shelley's novel, "Frankenstein", for a film project, I came across one of the most peculiar and earliest works of fan fiction in history. A rabid fan of Shelley, Dorothy Baxter (1802-1861) started writing fan letters to the author shortly after the publication of "Frankenstein" in 1818. In fact, she sent Mary Shelley more than two hundred fan letters and even got to meet the famous author. Then, in 1823, Dorothy gave birth to a stillborn child. The experience apparently traumatized her beyond consolation and within months had become a full blown opium addict. She lived on the streets of London where she panhandled, and continued to prostitute herself. In 1827, she was committed to Kensington Metal Hospital. It was here that Dorothy Baxter wrote the following version of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. It was never officially titled by Baxter, however we are publishing it under the title, "Fucking Frankenstein".

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Matt Allen is a screenwriter, inventor and part time super hero living in Los Angeles.

Product Details

• Paperback: 210 pages
• Publisher: CreateSpace (May 20, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1442185740
• ISBN-13: 978-1442185746
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,613,996 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This gem actually got me to read an american classic., June 15, 2009

By 

Caleb Wilson (Santa Monica) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fucking Frankenstein (Paperback)

Frankenstein is obviously a great piece of american literature, and it is always a treat to expand my horizons and indulge in truly great literature (particularly one that has had such a resonance in American history; in literature, cinema, pop culture etc.)

My problem was this: I had no desire to sit down and read this great piece of writing. No incentive, no will...nothing. And so sadly, for 36 years, i have never been exposed to the fantastic story of Frankenstein...UNTIL NOW.

Matt Allen's F*****G FRANKENSTEIN got me to order the book, and yes, it got me to read the book. I can now say I have read the classic FRANKENSTEIN when before i may very well have wasted this time watching mindless television or just generally staring off into space wondering why I didnt read more. And why you ask? Because he added a componant that made me giggle, and made me turn each page with great anticipation. God bless you if the original Frankenstein was enough for you, I applaud you and am envious of your literary prowess. You know, some people like clean comics. Personally, I prefer when they swear. Its funnier to me, and it makes me smile...and the word f**k is such a part of my vocabulary, and it holds just enough taboo to make its use just the amount of imact that brought Frankenstein to life and into my hands and now into my arsenal of books i have read.

Most importantly what Matt Allen has done is he has gotten a new person to read and expose them to great literature. Matt Allen's F*****g Frankenstein promotes literature, literacy and laughter, and I think we can always use more of all three.

So thank you Matt. I have already given copies to friends who initially told me they had no interest in reading "Frankenstein". When I asked them if they'd read F*****G FRANKENSTEIN, they gigled, and said "yeah, you know I guess I'd read that". So if you like to laugh and want to promote literacy where perhaps it wouldn't previously exist, I'd have to recommend this book...and I'd also like to add that the story of Frankenstein was actually really really good...something I never would have known if not for Matt Allen's F*****g Frankenstein.

Enjoy!

- Caleb Wilson

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Four Letter Literary Revolution, June 15, 2009

By 

Mr. Amazing "I'm HUGE." (ny, ny USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fucking Frankenstein (Paperback)

Ostensibly a madness-addled perversion of "Frankenstein" by an 1800's slattern, Matt R. Allen's "****ing Frankenstein was created by Mr. Allen to be something of a "Pet Rock" in paperback form. But "****ing Frankenstein" goes beyond mere novelty, and enters the twin realms of the meta and the transgressive.

Although surface comparisons to the recent "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" can be made, "****ing Frankenstein" takes the concept of interpolating modern sensibilities into classic fiction, and reduces it to one simple word. A word that, as Mr. Allen will proudly let you know, is used over a thousand times.

The word in question smashes through Shelley's prose the way Frankenstein's monster smashed through the lace-curtain veneer of Victorian culture. The effect is at once shocking, unsettling, and ultimately hysterical.

Much in the same way that the punk movement of the late 1970's rebelled against stadium rock by shunning technical acumen for poorly strummed chords and drunken, profane lyrics, "****ing Frankenstein" is a heady "**** You" to literary snobs the world over.

Like a mustache painted on the Mona Lisa, it is a reclamation of a "great work of art" by the common man; Reducing it to a sophomoric joke, while at the same time allowing the viewer to reevaluate what makes it great art in the first place. Perhaps it's a stretch to say that "****ing Frankenstein" enhances Shelley's original text, but it certainly casts it in a brand new and wholly unique light.

So successful is it in fulfilling its objective (That is, to insert the "F" word into "Frankenstein" over 1000 times), whether one regards "****ing Frankenstein" as novelty or sacrilege, it cannot be denied. It is what it is, and leaves the rest up to the reader. In that way, it jolts both book and reader back to life, in a way that would leave Dr. Frankenstein himself envious.

It's that ****ing good.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Modern Prometheus Indeed, June 16, 2009

By 

Jonathan L. Davis - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fucking Frankenstein (Paperback)

In 1831, Mary Shelley created a monster when she published Frankenstein. Much like her protagonist, Victor Frankenstein, she did not know what havoc she would unleash with her creation, what social mores upended, what ideas rethought, what literary trends rebuked. A memorable lesson: when we finish creating our work, we become powerless; our creations have their own journeys of which we are no longer a part. Victor Frankenstein imbued life into something inanimate. He released a monster. And so too did Mary Shelley - with Frankenstein, a monster of literary endurance, living on for almost two centuries. But for how much longer?

Enter writer Matt Allen. What Matt Allen has done here is revolutionary. He inserted the word "f***" and its gerund "f***ing" into the text. This is not sedition; this is galvanism. "Galvanism" is the term Victor Frankenstein used to describe his scientific method when reanimating life. Matt Allen - with the surgical precision of a cardiologist - galvanizes our interest in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, breathing new life into its barely beating heart with the scalpel of the crude.

To dismiss Allen's placement of profanity into the novel as "blasphemy" or "sacrilege" is to miss the point. In 1831, critics denounced Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as a "horrible and disgusting absurdity" (Quarterly Review). Frankenstein has a long history of subversion and what Matt Allen demonstrates here is a coy understanding of Frankenstein's true scholarly tradition. Much like Mary Shelley's subtextual warnings of the evil of the industrial revolution, Matt Allen, in his profane Frankenstein, exposes the same dangers of the information age. While old Manchester coal mines sooted up the streets with black and phlegm, digital media perverts the literary landscape with cut/paste and search/replace.

Matt Allen may not be the last to put his learned fingerprints on a literary classic, but he may be our most canny academe. To read "F***ing Frankenstein" is to read the real Frankenstein - a modern Prometheus, as Mary Shelley so artfully describes. For what is Frankenstein if not immortal, shifting, complex? Would Mary Shelley approve of Matt Allen's version of her text? Does it matter? She created a monster.