The Monk by Matthew Lewis
My friend Stacy Lewis recommended this to me at Halloween, but I was reading something else so I wasn't able to get to it until now. This is Gothic literature at it's finest. It's absolutely over the top. The language is flamboyant, the situations are outrageous; it's just a delightful pudding of sensationalism.
It begins in a cathedral in Madrid where we meet some of our main characters. There's Antonia, a beautiful young girl fresh into town. She meets Don Lorenzo de Medina, and they pretty much immediately fall in love, as you do. But then comes the priest, Ambrosio. Even holier than holier-than-thou, Ambrosio is considered by all of Madrid to be without sin. But pride is the worst of sins, because it is the root of all the others. And Ambrosio hides his overweening pride so well. Wouldn't you be a little prideful if people were clambering over each other just to get near you?
Antonia has come to Madrid with her mother Elvira because they are down on their luck and have some to seek assistance from the Marquis de la Cisternas, who has been giving them a place to stay and an allowance. Lorenzo is friends with Raymond de la Cisternas and offers to take their part with his friend, but Elvira declines, again, because she knows he wants her daughter. This is the point on which the whole story turns. The "if only".
A good bulk of this novel is told in stories, and kind of reminded me of The Decameron or Canterbury Tales. Raymond has been going under an assumed name and the reason for that, and all the adventures he experienced during that time, are related for what seems like forever. Not that his adventures aren't exciting. He falls in love with a girl named Agnes, who is Lorenzo's sister, he skirts murderous bandits, he has an odd little interlude with a ghost and a possibly undead exorcist. He's living the dream, brah. But you do begin to wonder, why is this book called The Monk? Where the hell is the monk in all this?
When Ambrosio makes his return, the crazy roller coaster takes a big old downward swing. Let's just say those Victorians, for all their uptightness, were some freaks! Sex, murder, demons, rape, incest, all the really juicy sins are saved for the end. Then we have a nice little recap, tying a nice pink bow over the bloody stump you're left with.
It's definitely unique. It's not a light read. But it is pretty damn entertaining.
It begins in a cathedral in Madrid where we meet some of our main characters. There's Antonia, a beautiful young girl fresh into town. She meets Don Lorenzo de Medina, and they pretty much immediately fall in love, as you do. But then comes the priest, Ambrosio. Even holier than holier-than-thou, Ambrosio is considered by all of Madrid to be without sin. But pride is the worst of sins, because it is the root of all the others. And Ambrosio hides his overweening pride so well. Wouldn't you be a little prideful if people were clambering over each other just to get near you?
Antonia has come to Madrid with her mother Elvira because they are down on their luck and have some to seek assistance from the Marquis de la Cisternas, who has been giving them a place to stay and an allowance. Lorenzo is friends with Raymond de la Cisternas and offers to take their part with his friend, but Elvira declines, again, because she knows he wants her daughter. This is the point on which the whole story turns. The "if only".
A good bulk of this novel is told in stories, and kind of reminded me of The Decameron or Canterbury Tales. Raymond has been going under an assumed name and the reason for that, and all the adventures he experienced during that time, are related for what seems like forever. Not that his adventures aren't exciting. He falls in love with a girl named Agnes, who is Lorenzo's sister, he skirts murderous bandits, he has an odd little interlude with a ghost and a possibly undead exorcist. He's living the dream, brah. But you do begin to wonder, why is this book called The Monk? Where the hell is the monk in all this?
When Ambrosio makes his return, the crazy roller coaster takes a big old downward swing. Let's just say those Victorians, for all their uptightness, were some freaks! Sex, murder, demons, rape, incest, all the really juicy sins are saved for the end. Then we have a nice little recap, tying a nice pink bow over the bloody stump you're left with.
It's definitely unique. It's not a light read. But it is pretty damn entertaining.
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