Customer Reviews

A Monster's Notes

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"A Monster's Notes" is a strange, interesting, and unique work of literary imagination. If you picked it up in a library or bookstore and started reading it, the overwhelming majority of readers would be both intrigued and confused. The novels depends upon a huge backstory that is not apparent in the text. It also employs techniques that are nonstandard for novels. There is no formal narrative or character or plot in the sense of those terms you'd use with Cervantes or Dickens or Hemingway or whomever you prefer. Instead, the work advances through a collage form: It combines letters, notes, and observations. It is truly strange, weird, and unsettled.

Because it is strange I would encourage you to read it.

Because it is weak, I would encourage you to read it while sitting in a library or bookstore, rather than buying it now or even purchasing a used paperback edition.

Laurie Sheck's literary experiment ultimately fails and does not warrant widespread careful reading once, much less twice. It starts with a superb postmodern premise - what if "Frankenstein" was not fiction, but fact - and then falls away, page after page for five hundred pages - five hundred pages of one epigram or one sentence or one paragraph of text in some instances.

Imagine that Victor Frankenstein created life and that the monster lived among us. And that the monster knew Mary Bysshe Shelley/Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin; inspired her to write; then lived past her death and the death of her circle; and lived into our times. If this doesn't start an imaginative fire in you, then your wood's wet.

But, from this striking, bright, and hot idea, Laurie Sheck produces a weak, quivering, and fragmented accomplishment that does not bear careful reading or consideration. For me.

For you?

Please scan the book in a library or store or with a first chapter on your device - Kindle, iPod, or iPhone - or thorough blog.

You could read the "Iliad" or "Don Quixiote" or . . . again, you know. But, "A Monster's Notes" is worth observation.

I picked this book up because "Frankenstein" is one of my favorite horror novels of all time [right up there with "Dracula"]. Also the premise was intriguing: What if Mary Shelley's classic monster of literature wasn't fiction, but a real character? One who visits Shelley as a young girl visiting her mother's [feminist Mary Wollstonecraft] grave? This is the premise of "A Monster's Notes", and the creature here is imagined to have survived into the 21st century, afflicted by questions regarding its identity, as what the creature understands about itself is based on the background Shelley created for it in the original story.

The book in essence, is based on the monster's musings based on fictionalized letters from Shelley, her inner circle, and two other characters [both fictional], one from the original "Frankenstein", and the other a leper in an Italian sanatorium. The letters are included in the book as part of the creature's journal, and besides the letters, there are notes on music, philosophy, and a host of other subjects.

Though the author deserves praise for taking a unique approach to the novel format, as a reader, I found myself rather mired in the the writing, which tends to get heavy-going. What I did like was the fleshing out of some of the characters, such as Shelley and her exploits. Through the convoluted letters and notes, Shelley's creature comes to gain a deeper perspective of how he came to be, though the entire mystery of the creature is never completely solved.

Recommended for those who like to get adventurous in their reading choices.

Almost two centuries ago the Monster met Mary Shelley who wrote the famous novel about him that he knows is somewhat a biography. Created by scientist Dr. Victor Frankenstein, the Monster has remained alive all this time struggling with a need to know. Mostly he is haunted by his inability to comprehend why Victor made him only to discard him.

He muses about Mary whom he met when she was nine visiting her mom's gravesite and told his story by writing letters to her late radical feminist mom Mary Wollstonecraft and her philosopher dad William Godwin. Mary also kept a diary in which she mentions the Monster, her husband Percy and her siblings. Perhaps it is because of that encounter the Monster muses that he too keeps a journal of sorts especially of his interest in the cosmos, Arctic exploration, robotics and AI, and Google as he seeks another like him. He ponders when he dies can he go to heaven or even hell since his creation is unique. However, it is Father who he worships and loathes that much of his writings always turn to as his favorite possessions are the letters from Henry Clerval who gave him his only real insight outside of the encounters with Victor.

This is a deep but not easy read as it takes a little time to adapt to the format. However, it is worth the effort as Laurie Sheck gets inside the head and heart of the Monster two centuries since he met young Mary. The story line has a whimsical amusing undertone, but is profound with the belief that a key human element is the need to belong. With religious connotations throughout, fans will enjoy A MONSTER'S NOTE as Ms. Sheck enables the audience to see the world from the perspective of a somewhat shunned outsider.

Harriet Klausner

"Laurie Sheck's "A Monster's Notes" has a great Frankenstein mash-up concept, but it's a very challenging read. Those seeking a more straightforward, action-filled and romantic re-imagining of Mary Shelley's classic might look at Gary Inbinder's Confessions of the Creature.Confessions of the Creature

In Confessions of the Creature, Frankenstein's monster survives his creator's arctic pursuit. He travels south until he meets a sympathetic Russian granny who uses magic to transform the creature into a normal looking man. The metamorphosed monster falls in love with a beautiful aristocrat, marries, has a daughter and leads the Russian armies to victory over Napoleon Bonaparte. After the war, he meets Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley and, of course, Frankenstein's author, Mary Godwin Shelley. There's also an interesting subplot involving Frankenstein's relationship to the Illuminati at the University of Ingolstadt. This might make a good companion work to "A Monster's Notes," especially for those Frankenstein aficionados who want to compare and contrast."

My interaction w/the work of Laurie Scheck has been through her poetry that has received critical acclaim. I was thrilled to see this ambitious & brave foray into mixed forms. I do not consider 'A Monster's Notes' a novel. For me it is a Proem or Prose Poem ~ in fact a collection of interactive prose poems using bibliographic - like notes, letters & author creativity to connect the universal theme of isolation.

By using arctic exploration, space exploration to 'ground the reader' Scheck introduces us to her characters taken from the semi-historical & historical sources of Mary Shelley; her family & circle, most often the marginalized Claire & thus our Monster's obsession w/her.

Scheck does a wonderful job of injecting the poetic metaphors of whiteness, coldness & blank space that so intrigues poets. Love in all its longing, & its absence, takes front stage collaging its necessary humanity against the ice & white of the Arctic & the page itself.

An author who has taken on this kind inter-textual prose poem task as his life's mission is Will Alexander. His themes and preoccupations are totally different from that of Scheck's but I believe him to be the only author who has taken on similar literary challenges as 'A Monster's Notes.'

'A Monster's Notes' will be discussed for many years to come. It is a must-read for poets interested in collage, hyper-textual techniques and prose poetry.