I read The Italian for my Gothic novel class. I enjoyed reading the book, however at times it was a little boring. At certain points in the novel, it was also somewhat scary and it gave me nightmares. The book was about a young man, Vivaldi, who falls in love with a girl, Ellena. Vivaldi's mother and father do not agree with the love interest, so Vivaldi's mother decides to do something about her. Ellena gets kidnapped. The first volume of the book is about Vivaldi and Ellena's love blossoming, and after Ellena gets kidnapped, Vivialdi goes searching for her. Of course he finds her, but than they get split up from each other. The rest of the novel is of the two lovers trying to find out if each other is alive, and trying to find each other. If i say anymore about the story, than I will be giving away the ending.

The book was written in response to Matthew Lewis' The Monk. There are a lot of similarities of the two books, however, The Italian is not as crazy as The Monk. In the next post I will be speaking about The Monk because it was such a great book, and I loved it so much.

A big theme with the Gothic literature is the idea of the church. However, instead of putting the Church in a high up place, as something special, it is made fun of. In The Italian, Vivaldi's mother uses a nunnery to "imprison" Ellena. While Ellena is in the convent, she is trapped in a room with no windows. All she has is a bed in the cell. The idea of entering into a convent, in the Gothic novels, was one of the worst ideas that people could have. Characters would rather go other places than be in the convent.

Thinking about this book, I can not recall any one point that I really wanted to write about. I guess I can mention the ending. When I finally got to the end of the novel, I was somewhat dissappointed by it. I was hoping that there would have been a bigger ending to it. Throughout the whole book, things are always built up, and the reader hopes that something good is going to happen. And then all of a sudden nothing happens. If any of you guys feel the same way, I would love to hear about it. This book has on the surface may seem like there is not a lot to speak about, but when really thinking about the novel, there is a lot involved in it. Please let me know what you thought about The Italian, and if you guys have read The Monk as well, I would love to talk to you about comparing the two of them. There are so many similarities between the two books.