A Not-So-Serious Review of Mary Shelley's "The Evil Eye" (1830)

Ah, the brilliant Mary Shelley—our beloved creator of Frankenstein! I approached her short story, "The Evil Eye", with expectations as high as a pirate's flag atop the mast. But instead of a thrilling tale, I found myself shipwrecked on the rocky shores of disappointment. Sorry, Mary, I came for electrifying prose and spine-tingling supernatural or SiFi shenanigans, not a casual stroll through a bandit-infested beach!

From the get-go, I was ready for an epic saga, perhaps a dramatic showdown in the Ottoman Empire or, at the very least, a sumptuous slice of Turkish delight! But nope! Our adventure unfurls in Greece, and let's say I'm left more confused than a goat on a hiking trail. Seriously, I questioned whether I needed a GPS or a crash course in geography to understand this cultural mash-up!

Enter Dmitri, our tragically afflicted protagonist. His life reads like a Greek tragedy written by a particularly gloomy soap opera writer. Wife killed, daughter kidnapped by pirates, three years of relentless misfortune. His claim to fame? An impressive scar and the moniker "The Evil Eye," which sounds less like a curse and more like a rejected name for a heavy metal band.

Then there's Katusthius, our resident agent of chaos. After gallivanting around the globe with Barbary corsairs for what seems like a geological epoch (pirate time is notoriously elastic), he decides his brother owes him a small fortune or all of his wealth. Instead of a civilized family reunion (with, perhaps, a slightly passive-aggressive fruit basket), Katusthius opts for kidnapping and potentially murdering his brother's son. Talk about taking "family feud" to the next level! What's next, a pillow fight with swords?

Katusthius, naturally, needs a patsy for his nefarious scheme, so he conscripts our "Evil Eye" with a sob story and a reminder of past debt. Apparently, Dmitri's brother had the audacity to inherit the family fortune while Katusthius was "finding himself" (read: getting into trouble) abroad and neglecting to send a single carrier pigeon home. Now he's back, demanding his "rightful" share. Because apparently, international adventuring entitles you to a cut of the family pie, nay all of it.

Do the killing and kidnapping sound familiar? It's like Mary's literary hamster is stuck on repeat, churning out the same plotline with the subtle variations of a broken record. Either she's creatively bankrupt or playing 4D chess with irony, and we're all just pawns in her game. And when you think Mary may have lost her touch, she throws a "happy" twist at the end.

Yours humorously,

An Overzealous Reviewer Who Just Can't Help Herself