What can I say about The Monk except that a book over 200 years old had me gasping and yelling NO! til almost 2am every night for a week while I read it. It's compelling, immediately enchanting, written in a way that surpasses age; it's funny and bizarre and horribly grotesque at points, it's dramatic, aware of its theatrics, and plays with them all the more.

To contextualize my review a bit, I had a religious upbringing and am very much no longer religious, so the mockery of the institution of religion earns my favor immediately in most books and this was no exception. The contempt of religion I found particularly fascinating in this book though. There's the contrast of the themes of mercy versus temptation in the novel as this guiding force. That due to the act of repentance, Lewis almost argues that the church allows these evils. They may sin as much as they want if they believe their trespasses to always be forgiven with a prayer. The burden and seduction by heaven is on those who are victim to their sin:

“It is not virtue that makes you reject my offer: You would accept it, but you dare not. ‘Tis not the crime which holds your hand, but the punishment; ‘Tis not respect for God which restrains you, but the terror of his vengeance! Fain would you offend him in secret, but you tremble to profess him your Foe.”

“You will always have time to repent, and He have goodness to forgive. Afford him a glorious opportunity to exert that goodness: The greater your crime, the greater his merit in pardoning.”

There's an interesting perspective of gender here too, with the roles of the women and their experience as victims of the church's power. I really enjoyed how characters like Agnes, Elvira, and Matilda functioned to mock the Monk's supposed virtue's and immediately call bullshit on whatever moral higher ground he'd idolized himself with:

“Where is the merit of your boasted virtue? What temptations have you vanquished? Coward! you have fled from it, not opposed seduction.”

And the last, quick thing I will say is I truly loved the use of sinister hospitality in the book. The laws of hospitality in this book are used to keep people out, and the allowance of having someone enter is usually for abuse rather than generosity, the church as leader to that cloying, pretended kindness.

A bizarre and horrifying and incredibly full, plot-filled text with a wild ending. A tale of evil and how people justify their violence. I will absolutely return to this in the future to pile annotations on top of my dozens of existing ones.