Hi Farrah. This is such a beautiful late autumn vlog. I just adore your videos. I was up in Vermont a few weeks ago visiting with my nephew and his family, and I thought of you as I drove through New York State. I'm sorry that Frankenstein was a disappointing read for you. I think that the frame narrative--Victor's story being told within the frame of letters of Robert Walton to his sister, Mrs. Saville, in England--can be a little bit off-putting to a reader coming to the story for the first time because this isn't at all what we expect, especially since our concept of the Frankenstein story comes from popular culture. There is also no question at all that the influence of Percy Shelley is present throughout the novel, and that is not always a good thing. There is an awful lot of sort of philosophizing going on and the inserting of concerns that the Romantic poets were preoccupied with. I think that that, too, actually detracts from the narrative. I totally agree with you that the monster's narrative strains the reader's ability to suspend disbelief. It is kind of absurd to think that the creature could learn language simply from observing the family in the cabin and then become completely literate--so much so that he can read words like Milton's Paradise Lost! Of course, that's just absurd. But I think we can see that Shelley really just wanted to be able to have to the creature identify with the "first man," Adam, cast out into the world, abandoned by his creator. Although it is not quite believable, I do think the creature's story is the most poignant and creates in us a sense of empathy. As I talked about in my video on teaching the novel, I do think that some of the most interesting ideas that this novel has to offer are all related to motherhood and motherlessness. I have always felt that Mary Shelley most identified with the motherless creature as she, too, was "abandoned" through death by her own mother who died just days after giving birth to her. I think she felt both "monstrous" for having caused her mother's death and also completely abandoned at the same time. And her own difficulties with giving birth and losing so many children are also present throughout the story. That's not a reading that I came to the first time I read the novel, but the more I've read it, the more I think that this is the way into what Shelley was working out in this novel. And she was a teenager when she wrote this! Incredible!
I agree with Pat's insights. Well said, Pat. I will add that resentment and disappointment , and the dangers they impose on families, is another way of looking at the book. A father is disappointed in his son. Worse, he makes he evident. The son is understandably saddened which is turned to anger and resentment. In time, fueling animosity between the two that can't be reconciled. In recent years I've seen it manifest at funerals of family and friends. I don't think this was Mary Shelley's intention in writing the book, but it's at the heart of book at least to me when I first read it. The heart, as Carson McCuller's wrote, is indeed a lonely hunter.
Thank you Pat!! I appreciate the time you took to write all of this out for me and I really enjoy hearing your thoughts from a teacher's perspective. You made so many great points about the "first man" concept and yes, I felt a lot of empathy for the monster and I guess Mary Shelley had an amazing way of making us really dislike Victor as he never got any better throughout the story. The "motherless" concept and her feelings of guilt and abandonment are so interesting to consider when thinking about this story. I think I will try to read this again some day now that I know more viewpoints as to why many loved it. It definitely seems like a novel better enjoyed when you can discuss it with others and learn more about it. Yes, what an incredible story she was able to create at that age (or at any age). Thanks again, Pat :)
@@LibroParadiso-ep4zt Thank you! I can totally see your point about the resentment and disappointment. Victor could not look past the outer appearance of the monster; it was like he didn't listen to a single word he said when the monster was pleading with him. We know he heard it all because he recounted it to the Robert Walton and still didn't seem to show any feelings of compassion. Very interesting book and it's been nice to hear other thoughts about it from you all.
Happy Holiday season to you as well, Farrah! A Woman of No Importance sounds so good - I’ll have to pick it up in the new year. Thank you for the beautiful images of your property and the deer, turkeys and chickens. What a lovely way to start December!
Great vlog! Loved the winter images (still no snow here - maybe flurries late afternoon 🙄). The deers, the turkeys, the cute puppy... enjoy! Those 3 non-fiction books sound really interesting. Thank you for sharing and have a great week Farrah!
Thanks, Martine! Aww, sorry still no big snowfall there yet, but it's coming I'm sure. I'm glad you enjoyed all the wildllife in this video and thank you for watching! :)
Amazing picks for this month’s tag, and super neat nature footage as well! Happy to see that you haven’t missed a reading beat considering the holidays lol. I most certainly have😭.
Thanks, Adam! Oh, don't feel bad, I am still reading those 3, I didn't finish any of them yet and I also started 2 more books, lol. It will take me a while to finish any of them! Hope you're having a great week :)
I'm so glad I found your channel after seeing you on the Dr. November live shows! I'm now subscribed so I can follow your channel. I love the animal and nature footage. The spy books sound really good. I have The Woman of No Importance and plan to read it in January. I have another book by Ben McIntyre but I have not read it yet.
@@ariannefowler455 Hi Adrianne and thank you so much! I’m glad you enjoyed the wildlife footage 😊. I’m still reading all 3 of those spy books; they’re all good, just a slow reading week for me. 😆. I hope you enjoy The Woman of No Importance when you get to it!
I swear it is winter about 70% of the time where you are, I love winter so that good. When I lived in New Zealand Christmas was in summer and I didn't like it, it wasn't the same and the winter months there have no holiday to look forward to so it's depressing. It's a shame you didn't have much joy with Frankenstein, I had the same thing with Dracula.
Haha, yeah it does kind of feel like that! Ooh, that's cool that you lived in New Zealand! Where you there for a long time? We were in Florida one year for vacation in the beginning of December and it was weird to see people getting Christmas trees when it was 80 degrees out. Yeah, it's weird, I loved Dracula, but this one was hard for me to get through. I've learned more about the book since, though and I feel like if I read it again, I might like it better. :)
@@bookstalgic I lived in New Zealand for 2 years but then my visa ran out, it the best place. My mum has lived there for 15 or so years. BBQ and trips to the beach is what we would do at christmas, it was odd.
@@AaronReadABook that’s great you got to spend so much time there, I would love to visit there someday. I lived in Australia for 6 months, but sadly didn’t make it there during the time. I agree, I can’t imagine a summer Christmas though 😆
This is a lovely Vlog, Farrah. I love the nature snippets throughout. The livestream did go very well, and I apologize for not being able to get on the others with you. Take care!
Thanks so much, Jim! Yeah, I was sorry to miss you in the other lives too, but I'm glad my first live video was with you all, you made me feel so welcome and I'm very appreciative of that. Hope you have a great rest of your week! :)
The trail cam footage is gold. Christmases in Australia (Victoria) aren't what they used to be with the climate changing. They used to be 30-40 degrees c. Now they tend to be mid to high 20s usually. Last year it rained. I visited NYC for xmas and new year 2015/16. I was hoping for a white xmas but it didn't snow until about 2 weeks after I'd left sadly.
Thank you, Emily! I was actually thinking of you when I made my "warm Christmas" comment, so I'm glad you responded. Yeah, the weather is definitely different here than what it used to be too. I'm sorry to hear that you didn't experience the white Christmas while you were in NYC :(. I don't think I've ever been there when it's snowed either, at least not in during the Christmas season.
@@bookstalgic Probably no one has the same weather and the same time of year any more. I went over to meet a friend that I hadn't met in person. The white xmas would have been nice but I new my friend regardless. Wishing you and your family a lovey and safe Christmas.
Not read Frankenstein. I did recently read Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde and loved that. Don't worry about not getting into it (yet?). Life is too short not to be honest!
Hi Farrah. There's absolutely nothing wrong with you for not liking/enjoying Frankenstein. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but there are some authors/works that I've tried and just don't get all the love/hype. Ex: Dracula was meh (for me). And Jane Austen, all DNF's....the sacrilege! Except Northanger Abbey. I loved that one😂😂😂. Happy Holidays!
@@mrsfruity76 Thank you, Mrs. Fruity! I’m liking Frankenstein a little more now that I understand some of the themes a little better. I still haven’t read anything by Jane Austen if you can believe it! Thanks for watching and hope you have a nice week 😊
Ya know, I watched a lot of Frankenstein reviews the past 2 months, and it wasn't as well received as you'd think. Just didn't resonate with a lot of folks. Do you know what resonates with most people? Chickens with pants.
@@someothercharacter 🤣 well then, I’m glad I was able to add that footage in there to balance it all out 😂. I’m also glad to know it’s not just me with Frankenstein!
Hi Farrah. This is such a beautiful late autumn vlog. I just adore your videos. I was up in Vermont a few weeks ago visiting with my nephew and his family, and I thought of you as I drove through New York State. I'm sorry that Frankenstein was a disappointing read for you. I think that the frame narrative--Victor's story being told within the frame of letters of Robert Walton to his sister, Mrs. Saville, in England--can be a little bit off-putting to a reader coming to the story for the first time because this isn't at all what we expect, especially since our concept of the Frankenstein story comes from popular culture. There is also no question at all that the influence of Percy Shelley is present throughout the novel, and that is not always a good thing. There is an awful lot of sort of philosophizing going on and the inserting of concerns that the Romantic poets were preoccupied with. I think that that, too, actually detracts from the narrative. I totally agree with you that the monster's narrative strains the reader's ability to suspend disbelief. It is kind of absurd to think that the creature could learn language simply from observing the family in the cabin and then become completely literate--so much so that he can read words like Milton's Paradise Lost! Of course, that's just absurd. But I think we can see that Shelley really just wanted to be able to have to the creature identify with the "first man," Adam, cast out into the world, abandoned by his creator. Although it is not quite believable, I do think the creature's story is the most poignant and creates in us a sense of empathy. As I talked about in my video on teaching the novel, I do think that some of the most interesting ideas that this novel has to offer are all related to motherhood and motherlessness. I have always felt that Mary Shelley most identified with the motherless creature as she, too, was "abandoned" through death by her own mother who died just days after giving birth to her. I think she felt both "monstrous" for having caused her mother's death and also completely abandoned at the same time. And her own difficulties with giving birth and losing so many children are also present throughout the story. That's not a reading that I came to the first time I read the novel, but the more I've read it, the more I think that this is the way into what Shelley was working out in this novel. And she was a teenager when she wrote this! Incredible!
I agree with Pat's insights. Well said, Pat. I will add that resentment and disappointment , and the dangers they impose on families, is another way of looking at the book. A father is disappointed in his son. Worse, he makes he evident. The son is understandably saddened which is turned to anger and resentment. In time, fueling animosity between the two that can't be reconciled. In recent years I've seen it manifest at funerals of family and friends. I don't think this was Mary Shelley's intention in writing the book, but it's at the heart of book at least to me when I first read it. The heart, as Carson McCuller's wrote, is indeed a lonely hunter.
Thank you Pat!! I appreciate the time you took to write all of this out for me and I really enjoy hearing your thoughts from a teacher's perspective. You made so many great points about the "first man" concept and yes, I felt a lot of empathy for the monster and I guess Mary Shelley had an amazing way of making us really dislike Victor as he never got any better throughout the story. The "motherless" concept and her feelings of guilt and abandonment are so interesting to consider when thinking about this story. I think I will try to read this again some day now that I know more viewpoints as to why many loved it. It definitely seems like a novel better enjoyed when you can discuss it with others and learn more about it. Yes, what an incredible story she was able to create at that age (or at any age). Thanks again, Pat :)
@@LibroParadiso-ep4zt Thank you! I can totally see your point about the resentment and disappointment. Victor could not look past the outer appearance of the monster; it was like he didn't listen to a single word he said when the monster was pleading with him. We know he heard it all because he recounted it to the Robert Walton and still didn't seem to show any feelings of compassion. Very interesting book and it's been nice to hear other thoughts about it from you all.
Happy Holiday season to you as well, Farrah! A Woman of No Importance sounds so good - I’ll have to pick it up in the new year. Thank you for the beautiful images of your property and the deer, turkeys and chickens. What a lovely way to start December!
Thank you very much! I'm glad you enjoyed the wildlife and hope you enjoy A Woman of No Importance if you read it :)
Great vlog! Loved the winter images (still no snow here - maybe flurries late afternoon 🙄). The deers, the turkeys, the cute puppy... enjoy!
Those 3 non-fiction books sound really interesting. Thank you for sharing and have a great week Farrah!
Thanks, Martine! Aww, sorry still no big snowfall there yet, but it's coming I'm sure. I'm glad you enjoyed all the wildllife in this video and thank you for watching! :)
Wonderful Farrah, I adored the wildlife cam 😊
Thanks, Mark :) I was hoping you would watch this one, at the very least for the trail cam part :)🎻🦌🦃
Amazing picks for this month’s tag, and super neat nature footage as well! Happy to see that you haven’t missed a reading beat considering the holidays lol. I most certainly have😭.
Thanks, Adam! Oh, don't feel bad, I am still reading those 3, I didn't finish any of them yet and I also started 2 more books, lol. It will take me a while to finish any of them! Hope you're having a great week :)
I love all your nature cam footage.
@@clarepotter7584 thanks so much, Clare :)
I'm so glad I found your channel after seeing you on the Dr. November live shows! I'm now subscribed so I can follow your channel. I love the animal and nature footage. The spy books sound really good. I have The Woman of No Importance and plan to read it in January. I have another book by Ben McIntyre but I have not read it yet.
@@ariannefowler455 Hi Adrianne and thank you so much! I’m glad you enjoyed the wildlife footage 😊. I’m still reading all 3 of those spy books; they’re all good, just a slow reading week for me. 😆. I hope you enjoy The Woman of No Importance when you get to it!
I swear it is winter about 70% of the time where you are, I love winter so that good. When I lived in New Zealand Christmas was in summer and I didn't like it, it wasn't the same and the winter months there have no holiday to look forward to so it's depressing. It's a shame you didn't have much joy with Frankenstein, I had the same thing with Dracula.
Haha, yeah it does kind of feel like that! Ooh, that's cool that you lived in New Zealand! Where you there for a long time? We were in Florida one year for vacation in the beginning of December and it was weird to see people getting Christmas trees when it was 80 degrees out.
Yeah, it's weird, I loved Dracula, but this one was hard for me to get through. I've learned more about the book since, though and I feel like if I read it again, I might like it better. :)
@@bookstalgic I lived in New Zealand for 2 years but then my visa ran out, it the best place. My mum has lived there for 15 or so years. BBQ and trips to the beach is what we would do at christmas, it was odd.
@@AaronReadABook that’s great you got to spend so much time there, I would love to visit there someday. I lived in Australia for 6 months, but sadly didn’t make it there during the time. I agree, I can’t imagine a summer Christmas though 😆
This is a lovely Vlog, Farrah. I love the nature snippets throughout. The livestream did go very well, and I apologize for not being able to get on the others with you. Take care!
Thanks so much, Jim! Yeah, I was sorry to miss you in the other lives too, but I'm glad my first live video was with you all, you made me feel so welcome and I'm very appreciative of that. Hope you have a great rest of your week! :)
I'm glad to hear that, Farrah. You enjoy the rest of your week as well and the upcoming weekend. 😃
I read the spy and the traitor last year and it was soo good!! Glad to hear you enjoyed it
Thank you and glad you liked it too!
The trail cam footage is gold. Christmases in Australia (Victoria) aren't what they used to be with the climate changing. They used to be 30-40 degrees c. Now they tend to be mid to high 20s usually. Last year it rained.
I visited NYC for xmas and new year 2015/16. I was hoping for a white xmas but it didn't snow until about 2 weeks after I'd left sadly.
Thank you, Emily! I was actually thinking of you when I made my "warm Christmas" comment, so I'm glad you responded. Yeah, the weather is definitely different here than what it used to be too. I'm sorry to hear that you didn't experience the white Christmas while you were in NYC :(. I don't think I've ever been there when it's snowed either, at least not in during the Christmas season.
@@bookstalgic Probably no one has the same weather and the same time of year any more.
I went over to meet a friend that I hadn't met in person. The white xmas would have been nice but I new my friend regardless.
Wishing you and your family a lovey and safe Christmas.
@ thanks, Emily, you too ☺️🎄✨
Great vlog as usual! We just got out first real snowfall a couple days ago
Thanks Justin and that's great! Hopefully you will do a vlog too with your snowy backdrop! :D
Lovely vlog as always!
Thank you, Melinda! :)
Not read Frankenstein. I did recently read Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde and loved that. Don't worry about not getting into it (yet?). Life is too short not to be honest!
Thank you! I agree, about being honest! Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde is on my list to read some day so I'm glad to hear you liked it!
I had no idea Shelley was that young when she wrote Frankenstein... so crazy 😅
@@krisreviews I know, isn’t that crazy??
Hi Farrah. There's absolutely nothing wrong with you for not liking/enjoying Frankenstein. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but there are some authors/works that I've tried and just don't get all the love/hype. Ex: Dracula was meh (for me). And Jane Austen, all DNF's....the sacrilege! Except Northanger Abbey. I loved that one😂😂😂. Happy Holidays!
@@mrsfruity76 Thank you, Mrs. Fruity! I’m liking Frankenstein a little more now that I understand some of the themes a little better. I still haven’t read anything by Jane Austen if you can believe it! Thanks for watching and hope you have a nice week 😊
I have heard great things about Frankenstein but I just have a feeling that I will not like it..... OMG The deers are so cute 🥰🥰🥰
Yeah, I was so surprised that I didn't love it, but oh well :). And I agree, the deer are very cute! :)
Ya know, I watched a lot of Frankenstein reviews the past 2 months, and it wasn't as well received as you'd think. Just didn't resonate with a lot of folks. Do you know what resonates with most people?
Chickens with pants.
@@someothercharacter 🤣 well then, I’m glad I was able to add that footage in there to balance it all out 😂. I’m also glad to know it’s not just me with Frankenstein!