The Monk

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Calling all Gothic Novel fans: you have to read The Monk - this is the Texas Chainsaw Massacre of Gothic novels which will "unjade" the most jaded.

Ambrosio, the abbot, is the perfect monk, head of an abbey in Madrid, and the idol of the city, a young, handsome, charismatic man, with a spellbinding voice, that thrills the congregation at his church.

All the people flock to it, to hear his sermons, five minutes after the bells ring, the church is overflowing, and the noble families are there, silently the assembly listens, a living saint, they witness, the proud people are ecstatic, in this modern age (the 1700's), God has sent them Ambrosio

The Capuchin Friar (an order of independent Franciscans), the Monk, is not what he appears to be, everything, a mirage, the orphan, found at the door of the abbey, as an infant, raised in the monastery, never leaving its grounds, nobody knows where the child came from...

Now evil thoughts permeates his curious mind, lust and debauchery, after thirty dull years, the Monk, wants to have some fun, the deadly boredom must end soon, risk his reputation, if only the abbot had a chance...

The vile protagonist degrades himself on every level.

He gets "seduced" by his trusty novice sidekick Rosario, who turns out to be a woman named Matilda (and how's a man supposed to resist a PRETTY woman), but really his capacity for sin was there from the start, it was only, truly, a matter of time before he fell and in his vanity and stupidity forgot how to get back up. So the first sin is committed by sleeping with a dying Matilda Of course, because she's a woman, and not a helpless simpleton, she doesn't die.

Instead of shunning him and leaving the monastery to seek greener pastures she offers to help him seduce his new target, the pious, innocent Antonia.