The Monk: a Romance by Matthew Lewis has vaguely been on my radar for years. When my husband was recently in the ER, I got it from Project Gutenberg and started reading because waiting in the hospital is both boring and unnerving. And I had a charger.
What I like about horror is that it lets me explore the fun creepy things that I know are not at all a danger to me. I enjoy vampires because they are not real. I am far enough from the things that happen in The Monk, but some things were closer than I ever would have guessed. Retrospectively, I probably should have gone with something else. But anyway.
To summarize, I’d say it’s about two things.
First, a pious and good man – the titular monk- sees a single pale boob and turns evil.“ The weapon’s point rested upon her left breast: And Oh! that was such a breast!” Thus begins Ambrosio and Matilda’s adventures in depravity. These parts were fun. Matilda and her left breast were the highlight of the book. Ambrosio’s solo depravity was less fun. Instead of gothic trash horror, it was very real feeling sexism, resentment, and assault. It was still compelling and I’d even say well done.
Second, some boring characters just kind of hang out and talk about their boring selves. Maybe I’m being unfair to these characters because I was distracted and not in a good place during my reading, but Lorenzo & Co’s parts made me wonder why I was wasting my time with this at all.
Overall I enjoyed it. I probably won’t pick it up again as a whole, but I probably will return to Matilda, a queen among the temptress queens.