Rediscovering Frankenstein

So, i had certain expectations getting into Frankenstein.  The first thing I expected was a lot more lightning bolts.  I had the classic image of a dungeon turned laboratory so cemented in my head from years of the movies and the spinoffs of the movies and the references to these movies in other tv, that it shocked me to the core to find the birth of Frankenstein’s monster happening in the dead silence of Victor’s apartment.  The affair was an utterly muted event, there was no excitement, no ravings of “IT’S ALIVE!” and certainly no lightning bolts.  I felt almost as if this was a reimagining, a new interpretation of the classic; that’s how conditioned I was to the Frankenstein scene from the movies.  I also really expected the whole thing to be driven by some kind of tragedy in Victor’s life, like the loss of a loved one driving him over the edge of madness into an obessive fervor that leads to his giant mistake.  But no, Shelley’s idea was much simpler, as if Victor was just sitting around and then a lightbulb came on, and he just decided to give life to the unliving for the simple reason that he could do it.

I guess that point I’m trying to make is that I was really surprised to find the original story to be so different that what I grew up with, and I was wondering if anyone else noticed any similar differences between the actual book and the portrayal we got through media?

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