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    The Monk: A Romance
    The Monk: A Romance
    The Monk: A Romance
    Ebook491 pages7 hours

    The Monk: A Romance

    By Matthew G. Lewis

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    About this ebook

    "The Monk" is Matthew G. Lewis's 1796 novel which is the tale of a monk who is tempted by carnal desire and led down a ruinous path of ungodliness. Ambrosio, a pious, well-respected monk in Spain, is lustfully tempted by his pupil, Matilda, a woman who has disguised herself as a monk. Having satisfied himself with her, he is overcome with carnal desire for the innocent Antonia. With the help of Matilda, who is actually Satan in disguise, Ambrosio seduces Antonia, a seduction that would ultimately lead to his downfall. Recognized as one of the first novels of the gothic genre, "The Monk" is a classic tale of the tragic ruin that may befall one tempted by desire.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDigireads.com Publishing
    Release dateJan 1, 2010
    ISBN9781596749863
    The Monk: A Romance

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    Reviews for The Monk

    4/5

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    • 5/5
      This is not a fusty Victorian novel, not by any means. It is a riot of a plot, with any number of gothic adventures taking place, all centered around an adjoining monestry and convent. Written by an Englishman & set in Spain, it has all those stereotypes of the Catholic church to the fore, and all the strange goings on that the anti-papists would expect to see (and entirely disapprove of). Even Satan has a cameo role in the end, comming to claim his prize. It's a riot, it's completely unbelievable and great fun!
    • 4/5
      3.5 stars

      Dreams, magic terrors, spells of mighty power, Witches, and ghosts who rove at midnight hour.

      I read this for the Classic Horror Halloween Bingo square.
      It's said this was written by a 19/20 yr old and within 10 weeks, which if true, is amazing. The format of having a main character, Ambrosio (the monk), and then having secondary characters branch off from him and tangentially going astray and telling their stories, only to have them all come together in the end, was extremely compelling. I was expecting more creepiness, it takes until the 50% mark for a ghost to appear:

      At length the Clock struck two. The Apparition rose from her seat, and approached the side of the bed. She grasped with her icy fingers my hand which hung lifeless upon the Coverture, and pressing her cold lips to mine, again repeated, "Raymond! Raymond! Thou art mine! Raymond! Raymond! I am thine! &c.----" She then dropped my hand, quitted the chamber with slow steps, and the Door closed after her. Till that moment the faculties of my body had been all suspended; Those of my mind had alone been waking. The charm now ceased to operate: The blood which had been frozen in my veins rushed back to my heart with violence: I uttered a deep groan, and sank lifeless upon my pillow.

      Until the last 30-20% the story is really about love, lust, and jealousy. As an atheist I don't hold religious individuals, rather they be in high ranking positions in the church, to a higher regard. I don't think it is any more crazy that a monk would give into his lust than an average non-religious male. (Not talking about Ambrosio's later desire to rape Antonia; he wants her and she doesn't want him. This is a different issue than him being turned on by Mathilda who willing wants to sleep with him) Religious individuals might find this story more, I don't know, worrisome because of the themes of non-infallibility regarding sin; no one is safe from the devil.

      I did really enjoy how the author played around with the themes of religious doctrine and the hypocrisy/corruption of its supposed devout leaders, men putting the blame on women for their failings, jealousy, and power. If you read this looking for a Gothic, I think you'd hit the gold mine with it's verbiage and tone. Like I mentioned, the more creepy scenes didn't have a strong presence until the ending with the Devil making a strong appearance:

      He appeared in all that ugliness which since his fall from heaven had been his portion: His blasted limbs still bore marks of the Almighty's thunder: A swarthy darkness spread itself over his gigantic form: His hands and feet were armed with long Talons: Fury glared in his eyes, which might have struck the bravest heart with terror: Over his huge shoulders waved two enormous sable wings; and his hair was supplied by living snakes, which twined themselves round his brows with frightful hissings. In one hand He held a roll of parchment, and in the other an iron pen. Still the lightning flashed around him, and the Thunder with repeated bursts, seemed to announce the dissolution of Nature.

      This story had some twists and turns with characters having some pretty intriguing life stories. I didn't find it as outlandish as some reviews led me to believe it was going to be (a lot mention how Ambrosio lusts and rapes his sister. He didn't know it was his sister during his obsession, so calling him incestuous seems a bit unfair). I read a small amount of horror stories and watch a ton of horror movies so maybe my creep/crazy bar is set too high but I did notice two movies were made about this and Netflix has the 2011 on DVD so I'll be adding it to the queue.

      Man was born for society. However little He may be attached to the World, He never can wholly forget it, or bear to be wholly forgotten by it.
    • 4/5
      This was amazingly ridiculous and I loved every minute of it
    • 5/5
      ‘’I must have your soul; must have it mine, and mine forever.’’ This is one of the pioneers of Gothic Fiction, a work that defined one of the most fascinating, demanding and controversial genres. A novel written in the end of the 18th century that shocked the reading audience of its time with its last, darkness and violence. But what about the contemporary readers? Well, a few hundred years later and ‘’The Monk’’ still continues to attract us. My first experience with Lewis’ novel took place during my studies, in an exciting course called ‘’The Bible in English Literature’’. Since then, I’ve overlooked reading it and I don’t know why. This Christmas, an amazing colleague gave me a collector’s edition as a Christmas present. I think she knows me well.In Madrid, Ambrosio is a charismatic monk who dazzles the congregation with fiery sermons. A younger monk, Rosario, is his faithful shadow and confidante. However, Rosario is actually a young lady who has no other way to be close to him except disguising herself as a boy. Ambrosio discovers the truth and succumbs, because he is weak in spirit and in flesh. When his attentions turn to a young lady from a noble family, all Hell breaks loose. Literally, I assure you…‘’The Monk’’ echoes Shakespeare and the Jacobite playwrights quite clearly. The cross-dressing, the scandalous love affairs, the ambivalent outcome, the extreme depiction of violence and punishment. The action is set in Spain, faithful to the stereotype which imagine the people of the Southern part of Europe as more vulnerable and governed by their passions, within a context that breaks apart the two institutions which are supposed to provide comfort and security. The Family and the Church. Dishonesty is common. ‘’Holy’’ men break their vows, noble sons try to trick virgins into their path, parents bargain their children away. It is a world far more terrifying than any satanic involvement could ever create and it is too real. Obsession leads to crimes and Lewis paints a dark portrait of a society that is corrupted to the core. Men and women blame God for their ‘’weak souls’’ while choosing a path that leads nowhere. The atmosphere is tangible with dark sensuality and violent lust and madness, as Lewis depicts a country and an era in all their attractive paranoia.We live in the time when violence and sex are always around, often used to shock but ending up being nothing. We aren’t easily shocked now, exposed to them from an outrageously young age through TV and video games. ‘’The Monk’’ may seem to us anything but shocking. Some may say that it stereotypically places the women in the archetypal roles of the Seductress or the Virgin. Yes, well, obviously! Take the story within its historical context and you’ll have the explanation. But wouldn’t this be too simplistic to consider?We love ‘’A Song of Ice and Fire’’ (most of us, at least….), we love Stephen King and Gothic Fiction has never been better both in Literature as well as in exceptional TV series like BBC’s ‘’Taboo’’. Violence, darkness and sexual implications don’t shock us, but dark stories of quality continue to fascinate us and will always do so. And by ‘’quality’’, I mean Literature, not mass-produced porn garbage...Darkness continues to rule many a life, forming a kind of obsession that may lead to horror and despair. This is why ‘’The Monk’’ still remains an iconic creation in the vastness of Literature. I would also wholeheartedly suggest the 2011 film version of the novel, starring Vincent Cassel at his best.
    • 4/5
      I loved this book. It took me awhile, not because it wasn't interesting, but bc I'm a slow reader.I've never read Gothic novels before, but this was a great start. The language was easy to understand, and I found it surprisingly modern for 1796. The plot and twists reminded me a bit of Count of Monte Cristo, but much more abridge of course. A little soap opera-y, as it tried to shock you and some parts so melodramatic it was cheesy, but fun and engaging nonetheless. At this point in history, it's a bit campy, but I can imagine that back then disdain of religion wouldv'e been read very differently. The characters ranged from boringly clean to most interestingly horrible. I knew most of the plot before I started and I was still shocked at the end. It wrapped up nicely, and I give kudos for a 19 year old writing this.Having the beautiful marbled paper cover and creamy pages of my Folio Society edition was icing on the cake.
    • 4/5
      Wow - this book was a pleasant surprise. Written in the late 1700's, I was anticipating long detailed descriptions and sentences that are hard to parse. Instead, this was gothic horror at its scariest. The story is really about Ambrosio, a well-respected monk and his fall from grace. Lots of action, good romance and quite an incredible cast of characters, including the Bleeding Nun and Lucifer himself. Very fun.
    • 4/5
      Published in 1796, according to the introduction this is one of the foundational novels of the Gothic genre and thus horror. Interestingly, Lewis was only 19 years old when he wrote it, the same age as Mary Shelley when she published Frankenstein. The novel involves three intertwined stories: Ambrosio, the monk of the title, and his fall from grace; Don Lorenzo and his attempts to gain the hand of Antonia, and the struggles of Don Raymond and Agnes to overcome the obstacles to their union. The narrative often sounds old fashioned, and the plot is often absurd, yet the novel is engaging--enough to keep my interest through the 300 odd pages The author definitely has issues with the Catholic Church that often took the plot and many characters over the top, and there are misogynist comments at times--yet some strong female characters as well. Filled with ghosts, evil monks and nuns, bandits and pacts with Satan himself--it's also full of wit and verve, shot through with dark humor, lurid, cheesy, but great fun.
    • 4/5
      I'm not really sure what I think of this. I can see how some people would call it Gothic and some people would just call it weird. "Feel this heart, father! It is yet the seat of honour, truth, and chastity; if it beats tomorrow, it must fall a prey to the blackest crimes. Oh, let me then die to-day! ... Folded in your arms, I shall sink to sleep; your hand shall close my eyes for ever, and your lips receive my dying breath. And will you not sometimes think of me? Will you not sometimes shed a tear upon my tomb?"It does have Gothic elements, like ghosts and spooky castles/houses/abbeys/crypts/forests and innocent damsels in distress from fiendish villains. The Bleeding Nun in particular was delightfully spooky:"The spectre again pressed her lips to mine, again touched me with her rotting fingers and, as on her first appearance, quitted the chamber as the clock told 'two'."But it also has some real Horror elements, like violent murders and crypts filled with rotting corpses. And there were some things that reminded me of Sade, like the religious cynicism and rapes. (Edit to add: after looking at a few commentaries, it looks like the extra violence was inspired by the German school of Gothic stories, and that Sade did use this as an inspiration. So...)"Redouble your outward austerity, and thunder out menaces against the errors of others, the better to conceal your own. ... she is unworthy to enjoy love's pleasures, who has not wit enough to conceal them.""The prudent mother, while she admired the beauties of the sacred writings [of the Bible], was convinced that, unrestricted, no reading more improper could be permitted a young woman."I don't know. It was interesting, but I think I would have related to it more if I'd read it when I was 20 (about the age of the author when he wrote it). At this point in my life, I like my Gothic stuff to be a bit more self-aware or goofy, and my social commentary to be a bit more hopeful.
    • 5/5
      Finally, some fun in the Enlightenment. The Monk is a blast, a page-turner, chock full of insane plot twists and sinning.

      It can't be accused of being terribly well-written, so you know that old debate between eloquence and plot? If you tip heavily toward eloquence, you might not like this as much.

      But for me, clawing my way out of a pit of Oh-So-Literary books starved for plot...it's just what I needed. The only 18th-century book that I had more fun with was Voltaire's Candide.

      This is also the only 18th-century book I've read that includes magic. All the others have been resolutely set in the real world; it was surprising to me to realize that we were actually going to be horsing around with ghosts and demons here. Weird, huh? It could certainly be that I've just missed all the magic - I'm sure this can't be the only book to include it - but in general the 1700s seemed to completely eschew the supernatural. And it's not like they had no example: Shakespeare used magic in several of his plays, and The Monk is an exploration of the Faust legend that he probably heard about from Marlowe. (Some specific similarities in a couple of key scenes point to Marlowe.) I'm not a huge fan of magic-y stuff anyway, so I doubt this is what made me dislike Enlightenment literature so much; just thought it was interesting.

      ETA: Oh, it's Gothic. Stemming from Horace Walpole's 1767 "Castle of Otrando." Okay.
    • 4/5
      What an entertaining book, overloaded and packed with the conventions of gothic horror. Admittedly, I laughed my way through some stuff, especially the long narrations by some characters, the way events seemed to go from silly to absurd, BUT, it did justice to its genre while managing to have a good poke at hypocrisy and blind faith. The ending was awesome. I could have done without the lengthy poems, but otherwise I'm so glad I read this.
    • 5/5
      Gothic novels aren't typically my genre, but maybe I should start reading them more often... I thoroughly enjoyed Matthew Lewis' "The Monk."Sure, it's book filled with depravity-- apparently the first book ever written with a priest as its villain. The book is heaped with every horror imaginable-- yet still manages to provide an entertaining story with plenty of twists and turns.(For anyone reading this edition, do not read the book jacket... it inexplicably gives away the final horrors that Lewis spent so much time building up to. Odd decision... this was the 2002 edition by Oxford University Press.)
    • 5/5
      I somehow managed to get through this much of my life, including a college class in gothic literature; without ever reading this book. How? It was great!
      Published in 1796 and written by a 19-year-old, it was a massive, bestselling success in its day - and it really still holds up as a fun, entertaining read.

      This particular edition had the most *awful* introduction EVER, though. (I will not dignify the author of said intro by even mentioning his name, which I had never heard before anyway.) It was snide, condescending, and totally missed the point, by criticizing gothic literature as a genre, Lewis as a writer and the Monk in general - and damning it with faint praise, for the WRONG things. (the intro was written in the '50's, before the new attention the gothic genre has gotten in academia).
      Anyway, the intro-writer was trying to judge the book as a Work of Literature, and an Exploration of the Fall of a Virtuous Man, and all that kind of crap.

      It's NOT.

      It's an intentionally blasphemous, often hilarious, tragically dramatic tale, full of sorcery, devil-worship, ill-fated (and not-so-ill-fated) love, scandal, murder, ghosts, the Inquisition, cruel nuns, spooky castles, exotic locales, torture, dungeons, beautiful maidens... and of course, the particularly evil titular Monk.
      Yes, there's some pointed commentary of the hypocrisy of many religious types, as well as some quite funny social commentary (which often seems AMAZINGLY apropos for today, considering the age of the book) - but this was a book written to entertain - and titillate. It's definitely not as shocking today as it probably was then - and the plot is not quite as tightly sewn together as modern editors demand - but it's still a rousing good read.
    • 5/5
      Fantastic story of murder and lust. Nice twist at the end. The sub-plot with the imprisoned nun was fantastic and her discovery was quite stomach-turning.
    • 5/5
      Never before has an old classic been so enjoyable. As improbable as it might seem in retrospect, I studied this book in literature class among the larger topic of gothic literature and it remains one of my favorite books to this day.Lewis pushes all the characteristics of the gothic genre to their extreme until all the situations reach the limit between absurd and parody. But in spite of all its critical humor, or maybe even because of it, the book never gives the impression of mockery - the love of Lewis for writing and the genre he inhabits permeates throughout with passionate enthusiasm.Just as interesting to study for Lewis' indeniable command of style and literary codes as it is just plain fun to read for its outrageous content, The Monk is the equivalent in book form of a rave party on crack thrown in the most respectable of cathedrals.
    • 5/5
      It's hard to believe that this book was published in 1796. I can't even imagine how shocking this book was back then, because it certainly shocked me here in 2008. I bought the book because I was interested in reading The Italian by Ann Radcliffe and figured I should read The Monk first. I never expected to like it, but I loved it. I loved all the supernatural aspects of this book; it was something I wasn't expecting. This book can make you feel so many emotions as you read it: anger, sadness, happiness.There's nothing I love more in a book than a bunch of different characters whose stories intertwine with each other with everything unfolding with each chapter.I can't say anything else except: give it a read; you may be surprised how much you like it.
    • 4/5
      By most accounts, this is the beginning of the horror genre, and its heady mix of gothic settings, evil villains, innocent maidens, and horrific actions and circumstances--not to mention some supernatural witchcraft to balance everything out--comes together to make for a page-turning read. It's sometimes difficult to imagine readers journeying through this more than two hundred years ago, since it did a fine job of keeping me up late here in 2009.If Charles Dickens and Stephen King were ever to work together in heaven for a literary child, this might well be what would come up. Fun, dark, strange, and suspenseful---it's recommended.
    • 4/5
      Published two years after Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho, The Monk is still very much a gothic novel but it's also a very different style of gothic novel compared to Radcliffe's Udolpho.Whilst Radcliffe's novel focuses on creating a sense of terror in its readers (defined by Radcliffe as something that 'expands the soul, and awakens the facilities to a high degree of life'), The Monk seems intent on creating a sense of horror instead (something which 'contracts, freezes, and nearly annihilates them' according to Radcliffe). Where Radcliffe inspires terror by leaving things up to the reader's imagination, Lewis inspires horror by describing things in all their gory detail.This, amongst other things, makes Lewis' book a much more graphic and shocking read and it wasn't really a surprise to find in the introduction that Lewis had to remove all mentions of sexual activity, seductions, murder attempts and descriptions of unclothed female bodies as well as provocative words like 'lust' in later editions of the book.Perhaps because Lewis spells things out more for his readers, this felt like a less demanding read than The Mysteries of Udolpho; it was much easier to get into and moved a lot faster. Having said that, I think my personal preference is for Radcliffe's style of gothic writing rather than Lewis'.Radcliffe wrote The Italian in 1797 as a reply to Lewis' The Monk and The Italian is going to be my next gothic read.
    • 5/5
      This book was censored towards the end of the 18th century. And now I know why: it is lurid. There passion, rape, incest, sex...in the monastery, convent, garden, and mausoleum. This book would no be out of date for the present as a trashy romance story. The book is a fast read, although some readers, like me, will find that the two long digressions that appear in the book will make you go back to the beginning to remember what the other characters' names are, the original plot, what happened earlier, etc. However, the digressions make for a good gothic tale unto its self. The mini-story "The Bleeding Nun" is full of horror, ghosts, midnight trysts, murder, gloomy castles, forbidden love that I did not mind the digression that much. Ambrosio becomes enamored of a novitiate in his monastery that turns out to be a woman called Matilde. She seduces him and they have sex in her bedroom. He eventually gets tired of her and sets his sight on the beautiful, innocent, doe-eyed Antonia. Matilde helps him to take away Antonia's innocence, with a very surprising twist at the end that Satan tells Ambrosio as he holds the monk over the ravine. Meanwhile, back at the convent, Agatha's brother and her lover, by whom she became pregnant in the convent garden, are attempting to retrieve Agatha from the tyrannous Mother Superior at St. Claire's convent, who punishes Agatha and will not let her go because her connections promote as an elite convent. This book was an interpretation of Ann Radcliffe's "The Mysteries of Udolpho", who countered Lewis' "The Monk" with "The Italian." "The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk" is a good biography that later turned out to be false and a similar plot structure to Lewis' work. Going more towards the literature side of things, "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" features a priest as a villain as well. Also, if you're interested in reading parodies, Jane Austen's "Northanger Abbey" is an excellent choice. "The Monk" was also turned into a movie called "Seduction of a Priest". (Recommendations taken from Wikipedia)
    • 4/5
      What a long way we've come since Walpole! This book was actually scary in parts, and certainly gruesome and disturbing. Also a big shift from the "happily ever after" of most early Gothic novels.
    • 3/5
      This novel is all about Christian, specifically Catholic, sexual hysteria. Sex seems to determine everyone's motivation in the first volume. This makes sense when you consider that it was written by a nineteen year old for whom these obsessions were no doubt a daily occurence. Fortunately for us, he has managed to sublimate them into the form of a novel. (Which puts me in mind of E.M. Forster, who, when touched on the ass by an admirer at a tender age, promptly went home and wrote Maurice.)

      A duenna and her charge arrive in Madrid from provincial Mucia some time in the very late eighteenth century. For some reason no doubt to be made clear later, they arrive at a church where the much talked about Father Ambrosio is to speak. The father is a paragon of virtue. He has spent his thirty years entirely immersed in studies and prayer at the local Capuchin monastery. While waiting for the good father to arrive the duenna, Leonella, who is fifty-one, and her charge, Antonia, who is fifteen, are questioned by two young men and their tale of woe is gradually revealed. This is essentially a tale of Antonia's mother, seduced by a libertine, who runs away with her to the West Indies where thirteen years later he dies leaving her penniless so she must return to Spain with baby Antonia in tow to throw herself on the mercy of her outraged father.

      The wholly pure Ambrosio then spends the next sixty pages undergoing two events: the first is his heartless condemnation of a nun who has allowed herself to be seduced. She is with child but Ambrosio gives her into the hands of the prioress of her order for purposes of punishment; the second event is Ambrosio's seduction by a woman disguised as a young man, one Rosario, who has shamelessly broken the sanctity of the monastery. That at least is how Ambrosio sees it before he eventually gives way to godless and all too enjoyable rutting with the woman. These pages are tumescent with hot-blooded satanic sex. It is hard to believe they first saw the light of day in 1796. What an earth-shattering fireball this novel must have been then.

      One of the gentlemen entertaining the two new arrivals at the church is a nobleman, Lorenzo. It is his sister, Agnes, who has just been sacrificed by Father Ambrosio to the prioress. Now we enter into a long divagation narrated by the sister's nobleman lover, the Marquis de las Cisternas. First there is the interlude in the forest outside Strasborg in which the Marquis walks into a nest of banditti who wish him only ill. This is a vividly described section with lots of action and blood. At extraordinary length, the Marquis survives, as he must if we are to get the story of how Agnes becomes trapped into entering a convent by a guardian jealous of her relationship with the Marquis. This section involves some decisions on the part of the Marquis that no adult man with any romantic experience would make. In other words, the crudeness here really smacks of a nineteen year old writing his first novel. Yet the vivacity of the writing somehow continues to hold the reader despite these howlers.

      Later, we move on to Ambrosio's repeated sexcapades with Matilda (Rosario). The prioress's lie to brother Lorenzo that his sister Agnes has died in childbirth. Father Ambrosio as he overhears the prioress's evil plans for punishing Agnes on his way to an assignation with Matilda. Father Ambrosio's attempted seduction of a the young Antonia, innocent of carnal knowledge, and his deal with the devil to gain access to her lily-white body. The satisfying denouement I will not describe. Suffice it to say that Lewis's writing becomes more assured as he proceeds. By chapter 7, more than half way through, his writing becomes, as John Berryman discusses in his introduction, "passionate and astonishing."
    • 4/5
      This is a good book. It has its faults (the poems are a little obnoxious, some of the asides can go on for rather long, the main character has zero redeeming qualities), but it's quite a story. These days the content wouldn't be at all "shocking" but back when it was written would have been very different, Lewis was making a rather large statement with this novel. In any case, I enjoyed trying to keep ahead of the twists, attempting to guess the truth of various things. Usually I managed to guess correctly, but it wasn't the annoying sort of predictable, it was that Lewis gave bits of foreshadowing that hinted at things to come. It made it so you'd guess about the hints, and then have the anticipation of waiting for the events to progress and seeing if they'd go that way or not, and how exactly it would happen. Some of it was a little silly, and there's one character you just want to throttle, but overall a fun enjoyable read.
    • 4/5
      Despite its antiquity (1796), Lewis's sordid tale still holds up after all these years. And its tale of religious debauchery is still pretty timely, and probably always will be. Turn down your threshold for melodrama and enjoy.
    • 4/5
      It's no coincidence that the opening epigraph of Lewis' one and only novel is from Shakespeare's _Measure for Measure_. Both works have pillars of public moral rectitude collapsing after encountering their first major temptation of carnality. Monk Ambrosio figures in for a penny, in for a pound, and starts the slide from mere sex to murder, incest, despair, and damnation. Lewis' streamlined prose abandons the detailed descriptions of Gothic architecture and Alpine vistas favored by his model Ann Radcliffe. And, in a plot of not two but four frustrated lovers, he crams many a gruesome incident and image. No Radcliffean rationalism for Lewis. Despite frequent criticms of the superstition of Spain during the Inquistion, this plot revels in the supernatural with curses, ghosts, Bleeding Nuns, Wandering Jews, and the Prince of Demons himself. Yet, despite the melodrama, there is an air of psychological realism in how Monk Ambrosio rationalizes his escalation of evil. Perhaps more disturbing is the mind of Matilda, his first lover, and her willingness to advise and aid his evil even after he has sexually spurned her. Stephen King's introduction is, like many such introductions to classic works, an unfortunate spoiler of much of the plot. However, most of his observations are valid and interesting though I'm dubious that all English novels before Horace Walpole's _The Castle of Otranto_ had moral purposes. (Lewis novel seems to have no serious moral statement except, perhaps, that the chaste life of the convent and monastery is unnatural.) Oxford University Press seems to have taken the typesetting of this edition from an earlier one. A lot of asterisks show up in the text without accompanying footnotes. A minor annoyance to a novel that holds up well after more than 200 years.
    • 3/5
      Quite different than most other "classics" that I've read. This story, while very slightly still showing it's age, could easily have been written for modern times. Except for the large side-story midway through, I enjoyed reading about the downfall of the Abbot Ambrosio. Quite a gothic read for sure!
    • 4/5
      This book takes a chapter or two to get into, although ti's relatively fast paced when you do. I think the plot moves along nicely and is really interested. I actually enjoyed reading it. I also appreciated Lewis' descriptive style. My only complaint is that at times it's hard to follow who's who.
    • 4/5
      Having just completed The Name of the Rose I thought I would continue the monastery theme with the Monk. My naive self even thought they would be pretty similar in content. Whereas The Name of the Rose is an excellent and well crafted mystery, The Monk is a creepy and suspenseful horror novel. The novel follows the story of two main sets of characters; the monk, Ambrosio and his love Antonia and Lorenzo and his sister Agnes. The two sets are connected in a variety of ways but for most of the story are kept separate. This is an excellent plot device as it juxtaposes the evil and corruption of Ambrosio and the honour and fidelity of Lorenzo. Ambrosio is the hero of the city. A pious and highly respected monk, he is the model that everyone else looks too. Even heroes, however, can be tempted and Ambrosio gives in to these temptations. Before he knows it he is overcome by passions and moves further and further away from the man Madrid thinks he is. He attention becomes fixed on Antonia, a young virgin in the city and become intent on her corruption. Lorenzo on the other hand has just come to Madrid. He meet Antonia and is determined to make her his bride. Before he can, however, he gets caught up trying to rescue his unfortunate sister from her covenant, in order to reunite her with her husband-to-be. Lorenzo is only working for the good of his sister (and her fiancee) whereas Ambrosio is only working for the destruction of Antonia. It's hard to miss who the good guy and bad guy are supposed to be. The book isn't completely straightforward though! There are some good twists and surprises at the end.The descriptions and dialogue in this novel, though flowery, are powerful and you can relate the settings and understand the motivation of the characters. Lewis' writing is poetic and I often found myself reading for much longer than I intended to. A couple times I found he got a little carried away and took the reader away from the main plot(s). The back-story of Agnes and her fiancee also seemed to go on for longer than necessary.Overall a beautifully written novel with some heroic and very creepy characters. It's a novel that's going to sit with me for awhile and I think will reveal even more on a second reading. The depiction of Ambrosio fall for piety to ruin is truly disturbing and makes one question their own motivations and ability to resist temptation.
    • 4/5
      This book was simultaneously supremely entertaining and quite disturbing. It's definitely not for the faint of heart- it has quite its share of rape, incest, torture, deals with Satan, murder, etc... The main character is Father Ambrosio, an ultra-pious monk turned raving sex fiend. It also features a couple of gallant, knightly types- Raymond and Lorenzo- and their lady loves, Agnes and Antonia, respectively. There's also the beautiful Matilda, who turns Ambrosio to the Dark Side, so to speak. The story itself focuses on Ambrosio's fall from grace, Don Raymond's attempts to rescue Agnes from crazy murder nuns, and Antonia's various misfortunes, which culminate (SPOILERZ) in her being raped and murdered by her big brother, Ambrosio. Cheers!This book does contain some rather sizable doses of anti-Catholicism and misogyny tossed into the mix, but, you know, times were different back then... Also, some of plot twists seemed a bit contrived even with the context considered, but overall it's a very enjoyable read. The language is a tad old-fashioned, but, even so, it's quite difficult to put down.
    • 5/5
      The 500 pages breeze by in this ridiculous Gothic soap opera.
    • 4/5
      Gory and incestuous. Proof that not all two hundred year old novels are boring, but otherwise not to be recommended.
    • 4/5
      Lewis writes a lurid tale of lust, deception, betrayal, and intrigue set in eighteenth-century Spain -- mostly. His writes against a backdrop of Catholic excess as well as demonism. Although he gives way to literary excesses of his own, his story keeps one interested and turning pages. His work exemplifies the English attitudes toward Catholicism and the Black Legend.

    Book preview

    The Monk - Matthew G. Lewis

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