Cleopatra and Frankenstein
Cleopatra and Frankenstein —Cleopatra and Frankenstein, by its original English title, is the first novel by British author Coco Mellors. The work was published on February 8, 2022 by the Fourth Estate publishing house. The same year, she was nominated for a Goodreads Choice Award for Fiction and Debut Novel. Although he did not manage to win the award, he did achieve great success, both nationally and internationally.
Subsequently, it was translated into Spanish by Daniel Casado Rodríguez and marketed by the Letras de Plata publishing house on January 24, 2024. After its release, Some critics have compared Coco Mellors' style and nascent career to the brilliant Sally Rooney., known by titles such as Normal people.
Synopsis of Cleopatra and Frankenstein
The importance of the little things
Mellors' novel starts from a central premise: how small actions can be capable of changing the environment forever. It's a kind of Butterfly effect, but with more artistic pretensions. The plot is built through Cleo and Frank, a couple that could not be more different, although they share some peculiarities, such as addictions, emotional instability and mental problems.
She is a twenty-four-year-old young woman, British and a painter at heart, while he is a forty-year-old tycoon., New Yorker and owner of one of the most important advertising agencies in the city. They both have obvious conflicts, although hers are more immediate: her student visa is very close to expiring, and everything that New York offers her is slowly slipping out of her hands.
The beginning of the disagreements
While Cleo exhibits her existential debate at countless parties, without knowing anyone, without even having to buy tobacco, meet frank. He seems to be surrounded by all the success, opulence, and excess that she lacks, and he is willing to offer it to her. At first, he gives her the opportunity to be happy, the freedom to paint and the opportunity to apply for a residence permit.
At the same time, Cleo offers Frank a world full of art and beauty, as well as a reason to drink less. For the moment, they are what the other needs, their motivation, the answer to the question of why they get up every morning. Their relationship, characterized by lust and infatuation, not only elevates them, but their small but particular group of friends.
How long can a butterfly live?
The kind of bond Cleo and Frank share is chaotic., fresh, but it is also capable of becoming desperate very quickly. The couple gets married six months after meeting each other, something that any modern psychologist would dismiss without much consideration, because, in all honesty, whirlwind marriages usually live the same life as butterflies.
With this concept in mind, Coco Mellors creates a novel of characters. The plot is almost non-existent. These are just some people whose lives are affected by small phrases, moments, discussions, loves, among other elements. The work focuses on putting them through a series of situations from which they do not emerge unscathed, so, in theory, it is a book about the evolution of human connections.
Structure and narrative style of the work
Cleopatra and Frankenstein is one such romantic novels long contemporary. It is told in the voices of all its protagonists, so it is possible to know a little about each of them, although not enough to become attached to any of them. On the other hand, Coco Mellors' narrative style is similar to her own book: it's a bit confusing, but the disorder seems to be planned.
Cleopatra and Frankenstein It's a story about how small things make big changes.. For this reason, the chapters, paragraphs and sentences often feel like pieces of a puzzle that do not quite fit together, like the time alluded to in the novel. Is it set in the 30s? In the 2000s? Well no: try to emulate a near past.
Comparisons with Sally Rooney
A curious fact about Cleopatra and Frankenstein and the repetitive comparison made of the first work of Coco Mellors with the literary concepts previously exposed by the author Sally rooney. This is because, in essence, both writers They get to play the same songs, although with different techniques. How do they really differ?
At the same time Rooney worries about creating millennials hipsters With first-world problems that — at the same time — feel plausible, Mellors has been criticized for trying to do the same, but without the social brilliance and emotional maturity of the former. Nevertheless, It is necessary to emphasize that this is only Coco's first novel, and that she probably has other cards up her sleeve.
About the author
Coco Mellors grew up between London and New York. In the latter city, she obtained a master's degree in Fiction from the homonymous university, developing both her writing skills and her technique when creating fictional scenarios. Her first novel, Cleopatra and Frankenstein, was positioned as a great bestseller of the Sunday Times, being translated into more than fifteen languages to date.
Likewise, this book is currently being adapted into a series format by Warner Bros and Brownstone Productions. After the shocking rise of his debut feature, Mellors wrote and published Blue Sisters, a novel that, like the first, achieved an astonishing reception by the Sunday Times in the United Kingdom. The volume will be released on international shelves starting in September.
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