Monsters

Interesting observation. I check the website of an Austrian newspaper daily to keep up to date and have a secondary view on events (instead of just the view of the newspaper we have subscribed to). So, with all the 9/11 anniversary drama, this newspaper apparently has also picked up an impressive headline for the big day.
When I checked the website last night, some time after midnight, I got a big picture with dust clouds with the title 'Is the war against terror already lost?'. I think "WTF?", because - for some reason - I found the title inappropriate. After I read the article I understood it better, since the article basically said the war is lost because Bush keeps ranting about and dramatizing terror, so people will stay afraid and therefore the terrorists will have achieved their goal.
When checking the website again today, the title had changed to "9/11 shakes US self-confidence". It's not uncommon for the newspaper to have website articles rewritten and resubmitted with a new title, but I haven't noticed it happen so often that just the title was changed.

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On my last day in Rome, while waiting at the station for the train to arrive, I bought War of the Worlds and Marry Shelley's Frankenstein. I had a book with me, but I wasn't sure if it would last for the whole journey home. Needless to say, I slept through most of the journey and didn't even finish the book I had brought myself.
So I read it at home. While War of the Worlds was a bit tedious, as written previously, Frankenstein was just the opposite. I knew parts of the story, of course, because we had discussed and read extracts in English class and I believe it also turned up in some lecture at uni. Still, my basic idea of the story was that a mad scientist created a nice, but horribly looking creature, and fled from it. And that the creature followed its creator out of duty and to get things straight. That's what Hollywood does to you.
I didn't expect the long descriptions of Frankenstein's childhood, his years as a student and his work. I enjoyed it. Unexpected parts are always good in books. I also enjoyed the landscape descriptions, which surprised me. The descriptive style in War of the Worlds got tedious. It sometimes bordered on being too excessive in Frankenstein, but overall it's a nice, distinctive feature of the book. Definitely one of my favourites now among classic literature.

I also finished watching the anime Monster. Very good one. The last few minutes of the second-to-last episode were very touching. I like the overall idea of the whole anime. Anything I could write about the story would spoil it, so I'll keep my mouth shut. I might buy the manga as well, since it doesn't consist of too many books is probably more condensed than the anime (hopefully making the story clearer by that).