Frankenstein

By Joseph Pearce and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is one of the most influential and controversial novels of the nineteenth century; it is also one of the most misunderstood and misinterpreted. It has been vivisected critically by latter-day Victor Frankensteins who have transformed the meanings emergent from the novel into monsters of post-modern misconception. Meanwhile Franken-feminists have turned the novel into a monster of misanthropy. Seldom has a work of fiction suffered so scandalously from the slings and arrows of outrageous criticism. This critical edition, containing tradition-oriented essays by literary scholars, refutes the errors and serves as an antidote to the poison that has contaminated the critical understanding of this classic gothic novel.

The Ignatius Critical Editions represent a tradition-oriented alternative to popular textbook series such as the Norton Critical Editions or Oxford World Classics, and are designed to concentrate on traditional readings of the Classics of world literature. While many modern critical editions have succumbed to the fads of modernism and post-modernism, this series will concentrate on tradition-oriented criticism of these great works.
Edited by acclaimed literary biographer, Joseph Pearce, the Ignatius Critical Editions will ensure that traditional moral readings of the works are given prominence, instead of the feminist, or deconstructionist readings that often proliferate in other series of 'critical editions'. As such, they represent a genuine extension of consumer-choice, enabling educators, students and lovers of good literature to buy editions of classic literary works without having to 'buy into' the ideologies of secular fundamentalism.
The series is ideal for anyone wishing to understand great works of western civilization, enabling the modern reader to enjoy these classics in the company of some of the finest literature professors alive today.

Edited by Joseph Pearce

Contributors to this volume:
Jo Bath
Philip Nielsen
Joseph Pearce
Thomas W. Stanford III
Aaron Urbanczyk

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ignatius Press
• Release date: May 6, 2010
• ISBN: 9781681491943

Joseph Pearce

Joseph Pearce is the author of numerous literary works including Literary Converts, The Quest for Shakespeare and Shakespeare on Love, and the editor of the Ignatius Critical Editions series. His other books include literary biographies of Oscar Wilde, J.R.R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton and Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Joseph Pearce

Ave Maria University

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is one of the most influential novels of the nineteenth century; it is also one of the most misunderstood and abused. In recent years, it has been vivisected critically by latter-day Victor Frankensteins, who have transformed the meanings emergent from the novel into monsters of their own contorted imaginations. Most particularly, Franken-feminists have turned the novel into a monster of misanthropy. Seldom has a work of fiction suffered so scandalously from the slings and arrows of outrageous criticism.

Much of the problem in understanding the novel derives from the conflicting forces at work in its pages, forces that were a whirlwind of warring influences in the mind and heart of its teenage author. On a purely emotional level, the young Mary Shelley was surrounded by tragedy, including the death in early infancy of her first child and the suicide of two intimate relations. She was also battling with the monsters of modernity and struggling with the atheistic philosophy of her father and the iconoclastic musings of her lover. Within the pages of Frankenstein we see the savagery of Rousseau, the pseudosatanic manipulation of Milton, the Romantic reaction against the dark satanic mills of science and industrialism, the conflict between the light Romanticism of Wordsworth and Coleridge and the darker Romanticism of Byron and Shelley, and, perhaps most enigmatically, the struggle between the two Shelleys themselves, and perhaps the emergence of Mary from Percy’s shadow.

Since the personhood of Mary Shelley is daubed across the pages of Frankenstein in gaudy shades of angst-driven self-expression, it is crucial to understand something about the author before we can begin to get to grips with the work. In the preface to the Norton Critical Edition of Frankenstein, J. Paul Hunter describes Mary as being irritated by the torments of conventional family values.¹ Such an assessment is singularly odd considering that Mary had no experience of conventional family values—her own family and her own upbringing being anything but conventional. Her father, William Godwin, was a proponent of atheism and an advocate of the dissolution of the institution of marriage, describing marriage as the worst of all laws; her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, a protofeminist, died from childbirth complications eleven days after Mary’s birth on August 30, 1797. In 1801 Mary’s father remarried. Thereafter, the family in which Mary grew up consisted of her father, her stepmother, a stepbrother and a stepsister, and a half sister, Fanny Imlay, the daughter of her mother by Gilbert Imlay. Pace Hunter, any torments suffered by Mary Shelley must be laid at the door of her very unconventional family background.

In November 1812, Mary, then fifteen years old, met Percy Bysshe Shelley for the first time. He was with Harriet West-brook, whom he had just married. In July 1814 Percy Shelley deserted his pregnant wife and one-year-old child and fled to the Continent with the sixteen-year-old Mary, who was also pregnant. In November Harriet Shelley gave birth to her second child; in the following February Mary gave birth, prematurely, to a daughter who died within a few days. Almost a year later, in January 1816, Mary gave birth to a son, William.

In the summer of 1816, Mary and Percy visited Lord Byron at the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva in Switzerland. After reading Fantasmagoriana, an anthology of German ghost stories, Byron challenged Mary, Percy, and his personal physician, John William Polidori, each to compose a story. Byron, responding to his own challenge, began to write about the vampire legends he had heard while traveling in the Balkans. He aborted his attempt to bring the fragment to fruition, but Polidori, using Byron’s fragment as inspiration, wrote The Vampyre, which, when published in 1819, became the progenitor of the Romantic vampire literary genre. Polidori’s modest literary achievement would be eclipsed, however, by Frankenstein, which was Mary’s response to Byron’s challenge.

Mary began writing Frankenstein in June 1816, when she was still only eighteen years old; she would not finish it until the following May. The eleven months during which she was working on the novel were almost as macabre in real life as was the unfolding of the plot in the teenager’s fevered imagination. In October 1816 Fanny Imlay, Mary’s half sister, committed suicide, and in December the drowned body of Harriet Shelley was discovered in the Serpentine, in London’s Hyde Park, some weeks after she had presumably committed suicide. On December 30, only days after the discovery of Harriet’s body, Mary and Percy were married in St. Mildred’s Church in Bread Street, London. (The church had been selected because Bread Street was where John Milton had been born more than two centuries earlier.) In March 1817 Percy was denied custody of his two children by Harriet. All this happened while Mary was working on Frankenstein and the shadow of these events account, no doubt, for much of the doom-laden and death-darkened atmosphere of the novel. It might almost be said, or at least plausibly suggested, that the ghost of Harriet Shelley haunted the author’s imagination as she worked; if so, it is equally plausible to suggest that the Monster can be seen as a metaphor for the destructive power of the unleashed passion between Mary and Percy. Following the same line of deduction, it could be said that Frankenstein’s guilt-ridden horror of the destruction he had caused is itself a reflection of Mary’s guilt at the consequences of her passionate affair with Shelley. This allegorical reading of the novel would place Mary Shelley in the role of Victor Frankenstein, and the Monster in the role of the illicit and destructive relationship between Mary and Percy.

Although the presence of this tragic backdrop pervades the work, it should not eclipse the many other elements that serve to add to the deadly cocktail of depth and delusion that makes Frankenstein such a beguilingly deceptive story. From the very beginning, on the title page itself, we are given tantalizing clues concerning the aesthetic and philosophical roots of Mary Shelley’s inspiration and perhaps an inkling of her purpose. In giving Frankenstein the alternative title of The Modern Prometheus, and coupling it with the epigraph conveying Adam’s complaint from Paradise Lost, we see the leitmotif established concerning the relationship between Creator, creature, and creativity. The allusion to the Prometheus myth conjures images of the creation of man in defiance of the gods; the citation of Adam’s complaint conjures the image of the creation of man in defiance of man:

     Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay

     To mould me man? Did I solicit thee

     From darkness to promote me?

Prometheus presumes to take powers that are not rightfully his in order to create man; Adam presumes to rebuke his Creator for bringing him into existence. It is clear, therefore, that Victor Frankenstein can be seen as a Prometheus figure, and the Monster as a figure of Milton’s Adam.

It is important from the outset to distinguish between the biblical Adam and the Adam depicted by Milton in Paradise Lost. The two Adams are very different, and it is perilous to conflate them. The biblical Adam does not rebuke his Creator for bringing him into existence; at most he blames Eve for his fall and implies, in the naked shame of his transgression, that it would have been better if God had not created her to be his mate. He never takes the prideful position of questioning the Creator’s wisdom in creating him; still less does he imply the nihilistic option of wishing his own oblivion. On the contrary, it is clear that he remains grateful to God for his existence and grateful for the gift of Eve, in spite of his adolescent defensiveness in the wake of their primal act of disobedience.

Milton’s Adam, like Milton’s Satan—and, for that matter, Milton’s Father and Milton’s Son—is a presumptive product of Milton’s own theological prejudices, divorced from orthodox tradition. It should be remembered that Milton’s quasi-unitarianism is anathema to Protestants and Catholics alike. His Father appears to be a petty dictator; his Satan, a freedom-fighter; his Son, a mere creature, cold and arrogant, who is created after Satan; and his Holy Spirit, conspicuous by his absence. It is therefore a peculiar Miltonian Christianity that serves as a catalyst to Mary Shelley’s imagination. Whether she knew it or not, she was not reacting against Christianity per se but against a pseudo-Christian heresy. As such, any reading of Frankenstein that purports to see it as an attack on Christian orthodoxy, as understood by Protestants or Catholics, is hopelessly awry.

The importance of Milton to the Romantic poets in general, and to Percy Shelley in particular, is difficult to overstate. Mary and Percy had read Paradise Lost together before Mary embarked upon the writing of Frankenstein, and Percy’s sympathy for Milton’s Satan, and his implicit disdain for Milton’s God, were evident in his essay A Defense of Poetry:

Nothing can exceed the energy and magnificence of the character of Satan as expressed in Paradise Lost. It is a mistake to suppose that he could ever have been intended for the popular personification of evil. . . . Milton’s Devil as a moral being is as far superior to his God as one who perseveres in some purpose which he has conceived to be excellent in spite of adversity and torture is to one who in the cold security of undoubted triumph inflicts the most horrible revenge upon his enemy. . . . Milton has so far violated the popular creed (if this shall be judged to be a violation) as to have alleged no superiority of moral virtue to his God over his Devil. And this bold neglect of a direct moral purpose is the most decisive proof of the supremacy of Milton’s genius [over Dante’s].²

Percy Shelley was also preoccupied with Prometheus, as his later work, Prometheus Unbound, would testify, and we see how Milton’s myth, and the myth of Prometheus, are conflated in Frankenstein to serve as the creative catalyst for the cataclysmic plot. The Miltonian-Promethean nexus can be seen to offer a multiplicity of allegorical applicability. Milton’s God conflates with Zeus as the minister of divinely deviant (in)justice (an apt conflation considering that the Miltonian God the Father has more in common with the classical father of the gods than he has with the first Person of the Trinity). Victor Frankenstein can be cast in the role of God (Zeus) as the creator of man (Titan), in which case the Monster is cast in the Miltonian role of Adam (Satan). Such a reading of the novel is legitimate, up to a point, and is, in fact, the preferred allegorical interpretation of many non-Christian or anti-Christian critics, enabling, as it does, an implicitly antireligious moral to emerge from the text (as long as we forget, conveniently or through theological ignorance, that the religion being attacked is a figment of Milton’s imagination, not the religion of the Catholic Church or the Protestant churches).

Yet such a reading misses the most obvious interpretation, an interpretation that stares one in the face upon first perusal of the title page. The novel is entitled Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, clearly equating Victor Frankenstein with Prometheus, not with Zeus—or God. Furthermore, the epigraph from Paradise Lost is clearly an ironic reference to the Monster’s rebuke to Frankenstein for having created him, equating the Monster with Promethean man, not with the creation of man by God. Frankenstein’s creature is a monster because his creation was a monstrous act of disobedience and deception, a usurpation of power beyond the bounds of legitimacy. The Monster is a bastard; he is illegitimate; he lacks the brotherhood of man because he does not have the same Father as the rest of man. He is doomed by the sin of his own iniquitous father to be an outcast from birth. It is, therefore, for this reason that he utters the complaint of Milton’s Adam against his Promethean father. He might as easily have echoed the complaint of Edmund in King Lear, ending with Edmund’s cry of defiance: Now, gods, stand up for bastards.³ In King Lear, as in Frankenstein, the rage of the illegitimate son reaps havoc on all and sundry, ending with the destruction of the illegitimate son himself. In both works, the father of the illegitimate child is punished for his usurpation of the natural order. Gloucester loses the eyes that had lusted after Edmund’s mother; Frankenstein loses his own life and is the cause of the loss of the lives of those he loved, as (self-inflicted) punishment for the life that he brought illicitly into the world.

The impact of the monstrous imagination of Milton on the writing of Frankenstein is matched in importance by the savage ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In particular, Rousseau’s Emile exerted a profound influence on Mary Shelley almost from infancy, through the role it played in her parents’ intellectual development. William Godwin, her father, claimed that reading Emile had changed his life. Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, considered Rousseau to be the foremost authority on education, though she criticized his views on the education of women in her own work, A Vindication of the Rights of Women. When Percy Shelley undertook to educate his untutored lover during the early days of their relationship, he began by reading Emile with her; and they read it again during the period in which Frankenstein was being written. Its influence on the novel can be seen most lucidly in the account of the Monster’s vicarious education and also in Rousseau’s attacks on the monstrous magic of technology. With regard to the former, the opening lines of Emile resonate clearly with the Monster’s education and his conclusion that the history of man illustrates that he poisons everything in which he comes into contact. Everything is good as it leaves the hands of the Author of things; everything degenerates in the hands of man. Thus writes Rousseau. He continues: [Man] mixes and confuses the climates, the elements, the seasons. He mutilates his dog, his horse, his slave. He turns everything upside down; he disfigures everything; he loves deformity, monsters. He wants nothing as nature made it, not even man.⁴ Compare this with the conclusion of the Monster after he had been introduced to the history of mankind: For a long time I could not conceive how one man could go forth to murder his fellow, or even why there were laws and governments; but when I heard details of vice and bloodshed, my wonder ceased, and I turned away with disgust and loathing (see p. 112). Here we see the Monster, cast in the role of Rousseau’s noble savage, sitting in judgment over the decadence of humanity. Yet we also see in the Monster’s words an echo of Frankenstein’s reaction to the Monster’s birth, especially if they are conflated with the words of Rousseau. In the making of the Monster, Frankenstein mixes and confuses. . . the elements; he mutilates; he loves deformity, monsters; he wants nothing as nature made it, not even man. Finally, because man disfigures everything and because everything degenerates in the hands of man, Frankenstein looks upon his creation, and, unlike God, the Author of things, he finds that it is bad. His wonder ceased, and he turned away with disgust and loathing. Compare this with Mary Shelley’s actual description of Frankenstein’s reaction to the birth of his creature: I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart (see p. 49).

If one were to seek further definitive proof of the importance of Rousseau’s Emile on the inspiration for Frankenstein, one finds it illustrated emphatically in Rousseau’s disparaging description of the attempt of chemists to hatch human life in a test tube.

Would anyone believe, if he did not have the proof, that human foolishness could have been brought to this point? Amatus Lusitanus affirmed that he had seen a little man an inch long, closed up in a bottle, whom Julius Camillus, like another Prometheus, had made by the science of alchemy. Paracelsus, De natura rerum, teaches the way to produce these little men and maintains that the pygmies, the fauns, the satyrs, and the nymphs were engendered by chemistry.⁵

Even if such a vision was only an unreal nightmare in Rousseau’s time, it would become a nightmare reality two centuries later. Human foolishness could indeed be brought to this point—and beyond. Prometheus knows no bounds.

The connection with the noble savagery of Rousseau brands Mary Shelley as a literary luddite. Like the literal luddites who were her exact contemporaries (the luddite riots took place from 1812 to 1818), she distrusted science and the encroachments of industrialism. She was at one with the earlier generation of Romantics, such as Blake, Coleridge, and Wordsworth, who wrote disparagingly of the dark satanic mills of the newly emergent industrial conurbations. This understanding of the political applicability of Frankenstein dominated earlier criticism of the novel, particularly in the early and mid-twentieth century, when ludditism was de rigeur, and when writers as diverse as Orwell, Eliot, Tolkien, Lewis, Huxley, Waugh, Chesterton, Belloc, Campbell, Sassoon, and Sitwell were railing against scientism and the ugliness of modernity. In recent years, the solid reliability of such criticism has been usurped by a generation of cynically jaundiced and jaded critics who have deconstructed meaning on the altar of idolatrous ideology and fallacious philosophy. In spite of such postmodern criticism, the traditional reading of Frankenstein as an indictment of unethical science prevails in the popular consciousness. An example of this was exhibited in the press recently with the dubbing of genetically modified food as Frankenstein Foods or Frankenfoods.

The final and most fascinating facet of Frankenstein is the extent of Percy Shelley’s influence on the work, and the extent to which the novel can be read as Mary Shelley’s emergence from the poet’s previously pervasive shadow. Is the novel a product of Shelley’s creation of Mary Shelley in his own image, or is it a symbol of Mary’s liberation from his influence? Is Percy Shelley the real Prometheus? Is Mary the Monster? Does she resent the power her creator has over her, and the way in which he has attempted to mold her into his own image? Is she horrified by the monster she has become and the destruction she has caused? Does the novel represent a cry for help, or the first whisper of defiance against the destructive influence of her lover-mentor? These questions, if answered, may contain the key to the deepest meaning of the work.

J. Paul Hunter emphasized the extent to which Mary Shelley differed from her parents and from Percy Shelley and how she was resentful of their influence and suspicious of some of their core beliefs:

Readers who know well the writings of William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Percy Shelley often notice how different Frankenstein is in spirit from their work, how much less trustful Mary is of creativity, the imagination, intellectual ambition, and writing itself. Her feelings towards her parents and lover—all three of them important mentors to her, and powerful intimidating presences—were decidedly mixed: her admiration of each was strong, but so was resistance and suspicion (not always conscious or articulated) of their lives, their stories, their values, their books.⁶

Taken together, the triumvirate of Godwin, Wollstone-craft, and Shelley—Mary’s father, mother, and lover—represent atheism, feminism, a rejection of traditional concepts of marriage and family, and a credulous belief in inexorably beneficent progress. As products of the superciliously self-named Enlightenment, they espoused an early form of the secular fundamentalism that is rife today. In consequence, their beliefs, and Mary’s reaction to them, retain a real relevance.

The most obvious and direct evidence of Percy Shelley’s influence on the writing of Frankenstein is to be found in his editing of Mary’s original manuscript. Although the editing was relatively minor, it discloses several significant instances of the way in which their respective philosophies differ. For example, it is evident throughout the manuscript that Mary is not an atheist but, on the contrary, that she assumes the existence of a sacred animating principle that it is perilous to usurp. This, of course, was as anathema to her atheist lover as it was to her atheist father. Percy undermined Mary’s notion that Frankenstein’s pursuit of the Monster was a task enjoined by heaven, adding his atheistic concept of a universe determined mechanistically by the mechanical impulse of some power of which I was unconscious (see p. 197). Mary’s proactive heaven—and, logically by extension, God—is reduced to a powerful mechanical impulse. Mary’s concept of omniscient providence makes way, through Percy’s editorial intervention, for a belief in the juggernaut of materialism.

Perhaps the most crucial and critical difference between Mary and Percy Shelley is to be discovered in their respective understandings of creativity in general and in their understandings of the role of the poet in particular. At the conclusion of A Defense of Poetry, Percy Shelley asserts that poets are compelled to serve the power which is seated on the throne of their own soul and that this power is less their spirit than the spirit of the age and that poets are the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present.⁷ Poets, for Shelley, are slaves of the Zeitgeist and servants of the future, living for today in the belief that tomorrow will be better. The future, not the past, is the root of reality, and progress, not tradition, should be the guide to which humanity owes its allegiance. It is clear that Percy Shelley’s blind faith in the power of progress and in the irrepressible benignity of the future sits very uncomfortably beside Mary’s luddite mistrust of scientific progress and her implicit preference for traditionalism. In her own defense of poetry, as it emerges in the novel, the idealized or romanticized Romantic poet, as represented by the faithful Clerval, has much more in common with the tradition-oriented and profoundly Christian Romanticism of Wordsworth and Coleridge, or even with Sir Walter Scott, than with the iconoclastic futurism and dark egocentrism of her lover. Clerval’s favourite study consisted in books of chivalry and romance, and Frankenstein recalls nostalgically that when very young, I can remember, that we used to act plays composed by him out of these favourite books, the principal characters of which were Orlando, Robin Hood, Amadis, and St. George (see p. 28). Clerval, therefore, is presented as a neome-dievalist who gains his inspiration not from the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present, but from the traditional and romantic shadows of the past. Later in the novel, when Frankenstein remembers Clerval as his beloved friend and as a being formed in the ‘very poetry of nature’  (see p. 149), he cites lines from Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey as best exemplifying Clerval’s serene and blessed spirit, thereby connecting Clerval, unwittingly perhaps, with Wordsworth’s embryonic Christian vision. The connection with Wordsworth and Coleridge is made even more apparent when Clerval expresses his joy at being in the Lake District, the area specifically associated with Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey, known collectively as the Lake Poets. I could pass my life here, says Clerval, and among these mountains I should scarcely regret Switzerland and the Rhine (see p. 155).

Frankenstein states that in Clerval I saw the image of my former self (see p. 151), indicating that he had once shared the blessed serenity of Clerval’s light Romanticism but had slipped through pride into darkness and into a darker vision of reality. Although the parallels between Frankenstein’s alienation from Clerval and Percy Shelley’s much-publicized rejection of Wordsworth are palpable, it is questionable that the comparison was intentional on Mary Shelley’s part. Nonetheless, Clerval is, along with Elizabeth, the most unambiguously and sympathetically portrayed character in the novel and is, at the same time, the antithesis of Percy Shelley’s ideal poet. Mary’s ideal is the opposite of Shelley’s and is, indeed, its antidote.

In a similar vein, Frankenstein speaks of his pleasure in dwelling on the recollections of childhood, before misfortune had tainted my mind, and changed its bright visions of extensive usefulness into gloomy and narrow reflections upon self (see p. 29). It is difficult to read such lines and to consider such sentiments without calling to mind Wordsworth’s Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood or his immortal childlike lines from The Rainbow:

     The Child is father of the Man;

     And I could wish my days to be

     Bound each to each by natural piety.

Mary Shelley, well versed in the Romantic poets, appears to be making the distinction between the union of wisdom and childlike innocence, encapsulated in these lines of Wordsworth, and the narrow gloominess of obsessive self-reflection as exhibited in the poetry of Byron and Shelley. She seems, once again, to be siding with the older Romantic poets in spite of Shelley’s much-publicized attacks upon them.

Perhaps the most telling evidence of Mary Shelley’s sympathies with the light Romanticism of Wordsworth and Coleridge as opposed to the dark Romanticism of Byron and Shelley is in the recurring reference in Frankenstein to Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. At the beginning of the novel, in Captain Walton’s second letter to his sister, he quotes from Coleridge’s poem and states, reassuringly, that since he will kill no albatross" (see p. 16) she need not fear for his safety. In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a profoundly Christian allegory, the killing of the albatross is symbolic of sin and the taboo attached to the sinful act, and there is a clear connection between the crime of Coleridge’s Mariner and the crime of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. In each case, the misguided protagonist ignores the taboo, taking the Promethean or satanic option and paying the consequences of so doing. This is made even more apparent when Coleridge’s poem is quoted again, immediately after Frankenstein has brought the Monster to life. Frankenstein flees from the horrific vision,

     Like one who, on a lonely road,

          Doth walk in fear and dread,

     And, having once turn’d round, walks on,

          And turns no more his head;

     Because he knows a frightful fiend

          Doth close behind him tread. (see p. 51)

Mary’s choice of these lines from Coleridge’s Rime, at this critical juncture in the story, suggests strongly that she is equating Frankenstein’s heinous sin of bringing the Monster to life with the Mariner’s heinous sin of killing the albatross. Such a suggestion is strengthened further by her description of the Monster as demoniacal and as a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived (see p. 50) It is evident that Mary is working not merely on the level of physics, but of metaphysics. The Monster is not a mere product of science but is the consequence of satanic choice. It is not only monstrous, like Godzilla or King Kong, but demonic, like Satan and his servants. Mary Shelley’s work transcends the physical limitations of Percy Shelley’s gloomy and narrow atheism and enters the infinite and eternal realm of religion, making the leap from the finite to the infinite with the chosen assistance of two of the most profoundly Christian poets, Coleridge and Dante.

If the connection with Coleridge and Dante is suggestive of the traditional morality at the heart of Mary Shelley’s vision, it is made even more apparent a few pages later through the depiction of the character Elizabeth. Every one adored Elizabeth (see p. 27), we are told when she is first introduced, and she is depicted throughout as a sweet-hearted and gentle-spirited soul who combines an abundance of sanity and sanctity. Everyone adores Elizabeth because Mary Shelley intends that we do so. Elizabeth might be seen, within the wider context of the novel, as Mary’s presentation of the idealized or perfect woman, as her Beatrice or Beatrific vision, just as Clerval is Mary’s presentation of the idealized or perfect poet, who can be seen as being akin to Dante’s vision of Virgil.

The letter from Elizabeth to Victor Frankenstein, handed to Frankenstein by Clerval, contains compelling evidence of Mary Shelley’s moral vision. With adept feminine finesse and an adroitness of touch, Elizabeth seeks to draw Frankenstein away from his pride and morbidity in order to restore him to spiritual health, much as Clerval’s love had restored him to physical health. Her technique (and Mary’s) is to use her discussion of Ernest, Victor Frankenstein’s younger brother, as a thinly veiled plea to get Victor himself to change his ways. If we substitute Victor’s name for Ernest’s and see Elizabeth’s use of the words advocate (lawyer) and judge as euphemisms for scientist, her motives become clear:

My uncle and I conversed a long time last night about what profession Ernest should follow. His constant illness when young has deprived him of the habits of application; and now that he enjoys good health, he is continually in the open air, climbing the hills, or rowing on the lake. I therefore proposed that he should be a farmer; which you know, Cousin, is a favourite scheme of mine. A farmer’s is a very healthy happy life; and the least hurtful, or rather the most beneficial profession of any. My uncle had an idea of his being educated as an advocate, that through his interest he might become a judge. But, besides that he is not at all fitted for such an occupation, it is certainly more creditable to cultivate the earth for the sustenance of man, than to be the confidant, and sometimes the accomplice, of his vices; which is the profession of a lawyer. I said, that the employments of a prosperous farmer, if they were not a more honourable, they were at least a happier species of occupation than that of a judge, whose misfortune it was always to meddle with the dark side of human nature. My uncle smiled, and said, that I ought to be an advocate myself, which put an end to the conversation on that subject. (see pp. 55-56)

Elizabeth is, of course, being an advocate herself in the very letter she is writing, advocating (if we read between the lines) that Victor should give up his meddling with the dark side of human nature and pursue instead a healthier life and a more honorable occupation. It seems inescapable that Mary intends that we, the readers, should read between the lines as Elizabeth clearly intends that Victor should. Similarly, in the penultimate paragraph of Elizabeth’s letter, we see how Elizabeth (and Mary) indulge in a little gossip concerning the good people of Geneva in order to convey another message hidden between the lines. We learn of Miss Mansfield’s approaching marriage, of how Miss Mansfield’s sister

Reviews for Frankenstein

[james_knupp · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The novel that (in the minds of many) started the genre of science fiction. This original portrayal of Frankenstein's monster is much more interesting than our modern depiction of the slow, unintelligent beast. The story does hold up really well despite being 200 years old, but if you're not already a fan of 19th century prose, it's not the easiest read.

[martialalex92 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Things I learned

1. Nothing like the Mel Brooks movie
2. Viktor Frankenstein was a weepy little bitch
3. Interesting when viewed as one of the first horror novels, yet the monster was more human than expected

[evelynnygren · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Where do I even begin with this book. Well, first off, I, having listened to the broadway musical about Frankenstein—and having heard from others what happens in this book, went into this story with quite a few set expectations. Perhaps if I had had no prior knowledge of the contents of this novel, my level of interest would have been higher, but I guess I'll never know.

What I do know, however, is that while there were a few points in the story that differed from the broadway musical, the general timeline and scope of the plot matched exactly to what I had heard about from others. The story wasn't amazing (I think this has to do with the fact that it was written in a different era and therefore the structure of the prose is much more florescent), but it was surprisingly easy to follow, which is most likely why this book is recommended when one starts to read classical literature.

All in all, the entirety of Frankenstein by Mary Shelly was just solidly good; no more, no less. I am glad I started with this on my classical-literature journey, but I was not as impressed by it as I thought I would be. I would agree with others who have read this story in saying that I liked hearing about the process of this frightening tale's creation more than I did in reading the thing itself. Nevertheless, I would still recommend people read this if only to have said you've read it and know about it.

[lpg3d · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I went into this book expecting villagers with pitchforks and torches. It's not like that at all. To me, it's a very philosophical book about what it means to be human. In some ways, the monster was more human than Victor Frankenstein.

I highly recommend this Barnes and Noble edition since the end notes add immeasurably to the enjoyment of reading this book. The forward by Mary Shelley is also very worthwhile.

[lorisbook · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Last month, I posted that I had purchased another copy of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I was recently asked about the book so I have posted some of my impressions here.Mary Shelley (then Mary Godwin) wrote Frankenstein in 1816 after being creeped out by a dream. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a horrendous monster during a scientific experiment.My estimate is I saw the movie 50 years after it was first released in 1931. I saw the movie prior to reading the book and was initially, confused as to who was Frankenstein. I thought the actor Boris Karloff was when in fact he was Dr. Frankenstein's creation."A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe they're being to me. I might in process of time (although I now found it impossible) renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption."Shelley used 3 narrators' perspectives in Frankenstein. Most people will tell you that it's created this way so one might understand the complexities of time and the structure of the novel. I believe Mary may have used 3 perspectives because she was in competition with Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and physician John Polidori to see who could create the best horror story. And Mary likely imagined each of them narrating different scenes as a way to boost her own creativity.Regardless, Mary really rocked it at 18 - not only in giving us an alarming horror story but in making us think in terms of questioning our perspective and recognizing the flaws of humanity. Victor Frankenstein repeatedly left no room for doubt that tragic events would happen by saying, “Destiny was too potent, and her immutable laws had decreed my utter and terrible destruction.” Using references to destiny, and omens of terrible destruction, lead us all to grab onto our Eyeore brain and we begin to believe that Frankenstein is destined for a hapless fate. Frankenstein might have us all believing that each species of an organism does not and cannot change. As if no alternative were ever possible. However, he could have thought, "What is my ultimate goal? How can I change so I am encouraged to experience life's possibilities?" Yes! Frankenstein could have manned up and changed his perspective and chosen a different path! Instead, he gives his creation life which wreaks havoc. As the memory of past misfortunes pressed upon me, I began to reflect upon their cause—the monster whom I had created, the miserable daemon whom I had sent abroad into the world.One parallel between Victor and the monster is that they become recluses/ social outcasts. And Frankenstein eventually recognizes his world is decaying and him along with it. Like the archangel who aspired to omnipotence, I am chained in an eternal hell.In closing, Mary lost a child in 1815 amongst controversy of that time involving living bodies versus inorganic ( dead) bodies. The following year she wrote this gothic horror story (science fiction) which was published in 3 parts in 1818.It's important to note that, Frankenstein may have recalled his mother Caroline's words on her deathbed “Alas! I regret that I am taken from you; and, happy and beloved as I have been, is it not hard to quit you all? But these are not thoughts befitting me; I will endeavor to resign myself cheerfully to death, and will indulge a hope of meeting you in another world.” In Frankenstein's final words, Yet why do I say this? I have myself been blasted in these hopes, yet another may succeed Frankenstein realizes someone will succeed at what he has failed. Perhaps Frankenstein, himself, will be awakened in another world.

[benkaboo-51322 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Summary: Driven guy takes things a bit too far and ends up creating something that destroys everything:

Things I liked.

Introducing the main protaganist through the eyes of a secondary category. This reminded me a bit of Gatsby and Nick.

Good questions/ideas: The 'Other', obsession, what is human etc. Good fodder for thinking/rethinking about what you believe.

Things I thought could be improved:

Main character is pretty whiney, and doesn't really take a lot of responsbility for his actions. It makes him hard to relate to a bit unlikeable. Given most of the story is told through his eyes that's a problem. I'd probably recommend giving him a bit more self-awareness at the end, preserving his stupidity in the main story, to increase the sense of empathy and connection with his tale.

Some of the plotting is a bit far fetched and obviously contrived to drive the story. In particular I remember when he decides to reveal his secret to Elizabeth but only 'after' their fateful wedding day. If he was going to be truthful with her wouldn't he/she do it immediately. .

Highlight:

Probably when the 'other' spoke for the first time. Hollywood had taught me to expect one thing. I was pretty taken aback and appreciated the variation.

Lessons Learned:

Chill out in life or you might find the object of your obsession ends up wrecking all the good things you have in your life.

[michael_lilly-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Ground breaking, but the style is tedious. Too much angst -- over and over.

[christilee394 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

“I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.”― Mary Shelley, FrankensteinAfter reading Frankenstein, I HAD to read it again. Even after that, I skimmed through it because I knew I could catch more, and I didn't want to miss anything. After revisiting this Gothic, romantic classic, I zealously attacked the internet to read essays, class studies, theses… basically, anything that could take me farther in. I knew there was more I could catch; the sense of abandonment, ego, temper with new technology, obsession, revenge, sympathy, the duality of mankind (aka: good vs evil), the list can go on and on.“I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel...”― Mary Shelley, FrankensteinThere isn’t really anything I can say that hasn’t already been said about this classic. Two take aways I delighted in are, first, Mary Shelley’s vivid, poetic, stately language that shows the intensity of the emotions. Secondly, in society, unfortunately, looks do matter. Just because one can, doesn't mean one should. Respect and take responsibilities of new technologies and as a creator, whether parental or of inventions, one must take on the responsibility of their creation.This book managed to stay with me days, nights and weeks after reading. Wanting to discuss its contents with anyone that would participate. For myself, that is the mark of a GREAT read, one where long after the last page is read, my mind is unsettled and wants to devour more!“There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand.”― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

[yarb_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A few themes I especially enjoyed this time:1. Imagination and the Arctic. On the first page, Walton enthuses about the imagined North polar utopia beyond the region of ice: "there snow and frost are banished; and, sailing over a calm sea, we may be wafted to a land surpassing in wonders and in beauty every region hitherto discovered"; "I shall satiate my ardent curiosity with the sight of a part of the world never before visited"; "I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole is the seat of frost and desolation; it ever presents itself to my imagination as the region of beauty and delight." It's the perfect analogue of Victor's besetting ambition, and the first letter ends with Walton's remarks on the joys of sled travel, contrasting abruptly with the succeeding (indelible) image of the Monster driving his sled North. The polar regions are ready-made blank canvases for the imagination — c.f. Arthur Gordon Pym or The Thing, just for a start. Places of disorientation where compasses go haywire and horizons dissolve.2. The young Shelley's sublimity. She's at pains here to play up Victor's annoying rationality, his anti-Romantic habit of analysis. This is in contrast to Elizabeth who is a pure poet. "While my companion [Elizabeth] contemplated with a serious and satisfied spirit the magnificent appearances of things," Victor tells us, "I delighted in investigating their causes. The world was to me a secret which I desired to divine." Victor's tale is cautionary against the literal and rational. "Darkness had no effect upon my fancy" he reminisces — bad child, not frightened of bugaboos. Partly this is the fault of his permissive parents and liberal upbringing, his parents, "possessed by the very spirit of kindness and indulgence," allow his unnatural childhood proclivities free rein; partly it's just the way he is. If we concentrated more on "simple pleasures", even the history of the New World would be less sad: "If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections, and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind. If this rule were always observed; if no man allowed any pursuit whatsoever to interfere with the tranquillity of his domestic affections, Greece had not been enslaved; Cæsar would have spared his country; America would have been discovered more gradually; and the empires of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed." Wow!3. The horror. Amidst this novel's thematic smorgasbord, I think maybe we forget how disturbing it is. Shelley turns a couple of immaculate phrases in the service of the Weird — how about "who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave or tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay?" Bone-chilling! The way the Alpine lightning portends the Monster's reappearence in Victor's life! Or the image of the Monster lifting the curtain of Frankenstein's bed and peering in soon after having been animated! Unforgettable images. At the same time, isn't it the Monster's ugliness that's really the root of all his problems? If he weren't so misshapen and repulsive, he'd presumably be pitied and have no trouble fitting in what with his native intelligence, empathy, fidelity and good-heartedness. It's always his disfigurement that wrecks things for him. So, and not to deny the smorgasbord, isn't this at heart a simple tragedy about narrow-mindedness, petty cruelty, mistrust of the deformed or Other? Shut up, of course it isn't just that!I had completely forgotten about the Irish interlude. Like Dracula, this novel is front-loaded: the Monster's tale which occupies the central section is kinda slow and soppy. But it works. Easily one of my favorite novels and hard to think of a more influential one, or rather, one with a bigger influence beyond literature.

[ekerstein-986148 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Impressed and fascinated by this book. I would give it 5 stars although I found it overwrought at times.

It's an allegorical tale. There's much more here beyond the popular idea of a monster conceived by lightning. The birth of the monster actually only takes up one paragraph.

There's a biblical analogy to be made. Except this Adam has no Eve. A child reckoning with his maker. Reckoning with God for his imperfect form. Tormenting his maker until they both share each other's miseries.

[charon07 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I never tire of the story of meeting one's maker, whatever form it should come in. This is a classic treatment of that theme.

I first read this years ago, and my recent re-reading offered me a different perspective. I was formerly eager to find heroes and villains, and who can help but feel sorry for the poor creature, abandoned by his maker and rejected by human society? Who can help but find fault with Herr Frankenstein for his fickleness, instantly despising the creature he worked so long and so obsessively to bring into being?

Now I find the moral dilemmas less clear-cut. Still, a fascinating study about one's moral responsibilities to others, whether creator or created or just cousin on the family tree.

[jsabrina-219220 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"Frankenstein" the book is very different from the impressions of the story I'd gained from movie images. "Baron Von Frankenstein" is not a nobleman, nor a mature or near-elderly man. He's a very bright college kid who gets obsessed with the idea of understanding the secret of the life force. There is no castle, no giant lab, no lightning storm. . . just a rented room in a student boarding house. In fact, Shelley's Frankenstein is adamant about sharing nothing about how he creates his monster, lest others share his sad fate.

The "monster" is the true hero of the book -- an ugly creature abandoned by his creator in the moment of his uncanny 'birth.' Although at first animal-like, he gradually grows into the sensibilities of a man, with an instinct to do good. But his sincere efforts to be good, and to win his way into community, are rebuffed at every turn, and these disappointments hurt him to the point of furious revenge.

Victor Frankenstein spends most of the book wallowing in guilt and depression, unable to either see the capacity for virtue in his creation or provide it with the means to have a peaceful existence. The monster, his twisted mirror, is a wretch battling desperately for companionship, love, knowledge, and justice.

This is definitely a novel written in another time. The story is revealed through the letters of an ambitious sea captain who stumbles into the final chapter of the larger story. Everything is related as memory, and there are far too many pages of Frankenstein moaning about his unhappiness. It's not an adventure story or a horror story or an action-adventure. Instead, it's a moral tale played out in fantastical circumstances, leaving the reader to judge who, in the end, is the true monster.

[librolindsay · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I admit that I approached Frankenstein with a little apprehension. I have the unfortunate and somewhat unfounded tendency to assign most books (esp. British Lit) written before, say, 1850 or so with an assumption that they will be stuffy, slooooow-going, and filled with archaic language. How wrong I was! Even through an English degree, this book somehow eluded me. I'm really glad to have finally read it, and I think I might consider it to be one of the most engaging and provocative of the "classics" I've yet read.
My familiarity with Frankenstein, or Frankenstein's monster I should say, was restricted mostly to Halloween images. I haven't seen the classic film (which I am now more enticed to view), so my idea of Frankenstein was of a somewhat beastly but overall gentle oversized man with lots of stithces. This book, as I thankfully found, paints a much more vivid and complex picture, and I found myself constantly going back and forth in sympathizing with Victor and the monster. I ultimately side with the monster, but the book confronts very complex sociological issues of creation, parenting, and responsibility that necessitates a lot of reader involvement to really understand the characters and issues. Despite that I could guess just about every major event and that some of the language was a little dated (of course is was written in 1818), the story still hooked me along to the very end, creating an avid curiosity in the plight of every character. No longer will what I once viewed as "stodgy" classic literature deter me!

[sarahlh-41506 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I can't believe it took me this long to read this!

(It's more of a 3.5 than a 4 but sshhhh, don't tell Mrs. Wollstonecraft.)

It kept me riveted, but god, I can't imagine having to sit in a boat on a choppy sea and listen to Dr. Frankenstein alternate between an elaborate recollection of his ENTIRE LIFE and violently crying for what was probably at least an hour, if not more, of his life.

[eurohackie · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A lonely English sea captain sets sail for the North Pole from his base in Russia. As he grows closer to his destination, his crew rescues an emaciated form from the icy waters. Their mysterious guest slowly recovers his strength, then relates (to the captain, at least) an incredible story: he is chasing a monster - a demon - of his own creation, with a mixture of fear, vengeance, and determination.I was surprised to find a frame story; though why, I'm not sure - quite a few novels from this time period are constructed thus. There is a hint of Dracula as well, with the epistolary style of this frame. But of course the meat of the work is in the 23 chapters between these letters, one in which Victor Frankenstein confronts quite a few existential questions around the idea of what it means to play god.This is quite a compelling tale, not the least reason being that its written in such a manner as to suggest that Frankenstein is insane, and has been for most of his adult life. The fact that he falls into illness the very same night that he gives his horrible creation life, and continues to have these spells of illness any time he has a 'confrontation' with the creature, gives pay to that idea. The fact that he, alone, is aware of the creature's existence and is the only one who ever speaks with him is another reason for thinking thus. I spent most of the book trying to decide if this was some sort of phantom delusion or if his personality had somehow split into two conscious entities. Either way, the idea that he was blaming himself for his monster's crimes from the start, and pursuing him to the literal ends of the earth, makes the idea of him literally chasing himself into craziness all the more likely.I'm no great critic of literature, so I suppose no matter how you interpret it, there are still lots of thought-provoking ideas and questions here. What does it mean to create another sentient being? Do you have a charge to care for it? Can you really close Pandora's box after opening it? What does it mean to be an outcast on the basis of qualities you can't control? Does a complete absence of love or support lead to a life of evil and vengeance? There's certainly lots to chew on.I never read this book when I was a kid, and have grown up with the popular culture ideas of Frankenstein('s monster). I'm not sure I would have truly appreciated it without a bit of life experience behind me, so I'm glad I'm reading it for the first time as an adult.

[fence_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Just as with Dracula most of us are familiar with the story of Frankenstein and his creation, even if popular culture often refers to the monster by that name. It probably suffers a little because so many of us think we know the story, why should we read something that we already know about. But it is worth a read.

Framed by the letters of an Arctic explorer to his sister, the main body of the novel is made up of Frankenstein relating his past to Capt. Walton. Frankenstein urges Walton to listen to him, and to learn from his mistakes, to not let his passion take over his life. It may be the end of him, as Frankenstein’s has destroyed his. He tells of his childhood in Geneva, of growing up a happy child, of heading off to college in Germany where his ambition first surfaces. He believes he knows how to create life. And so, of course, he sets his mind to doing just that, only for this passion and enthusiasm to ruin his life.

I had read Frankenstein as a teenager, but I’ll admit to remembering very little of it, and reading it this time around I just couldn’t get over how selfish the good doctor is.

I know, it is a first person story, so obviously we are going to get his point of view, his thoughts and emotions. But he never even tries to put anyone else first. At more than one point in the story he mentions that another character is sad, or tormented, but each time he follows up by saying that if only this character knew how bad he himself were feeling they would be put to shame. No one could possibly *feel* as much as Frankenstein.

And never once does he take responsibility for his own actions. He created the “monster” and promptly abandons him, yet, while he acknowledges guilt (although that may just be him putting himself at the centre of the entire world) he later says that he is blameless. Blameless!

Despite Frankenstein’s flaws this is a great read. Or possibly because of his annoyances, they certainly make him more of a character, its just a pity that there is no one else in the novel to balance him out. Yes, the monster gets to tell his tale, and you can’t help but pity him, despite his actions, but he isn’t enough to truly balance out Viktor’s influence.

[booklove2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

First, this book shoulda coulda been called 'Frankenstein's Creature' or 'Frankenstein's Monster' to prevent the endless confusion about the name on the cover.  Also, it just sounds better.  Most Frankenstein projects seem to focus on the creation of the creature, but in the narrative itself, it is mostly bypassed, which as I reader, I'm not sure if that's a positive or negative.  This book has many more layers than any iteration of the story that I've seen before.  BUT since the book is so short, possibly those layers shouldn't even be there.  For example, the cottagers history seems extra and takes focus away from Frankenstein and his monster.  But I love the first part, sailors on a ship surrounded by ice seeing one sled go by, then the next day, seeing the other sled go by.  Then the ice breaks apart.   So mysterious and haunting.  But reading this now, since the story is so embedded in everything, 200 years later, readers know who is on those sleds!  The story is short and sometimes scattered, with the narrator somehow mostly needlessly bookending Frankenstein's story and then the monster's story.   Most of the book I was wondering if Frankenstein had been imagining the monster, as most other characters don't see the monster at all.  But I was proved wrong on that theory.  I'm glad to have this foundational classic under my reading belt.

[zoes_human · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Yes, it's a classic with a kernel of genius in it, but it is also long-winded, pedantic, and tiresome. DNF at page 34.

[david_masumba · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a gramatically powerful book that is set in Geneva and has a very dark romance about it. It does enlighten you to the sadness of the view of outsiders.

[jzacsh-533759 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I loved the story, I just hated the book. Ok, let me rephrase. I loved the plot, the overall concept, the characters, the sub-stories that take place. They were all fun. I hated how long it was. It could have been written in ½ or less of the length seen here. So much of the book is just the main character talking about his inner feelings repeatedly and with only the slightest variation.

If it weren't for that (feeling it was dragged out), I'd give it 3-4 stars. Not 5 stars, because I found the main character unbelievably helpless and lacking in any planning capability. I don't just mean in the obvious reaction to Frankenstein about taking responsibility for your creations, but the fact that he's told repeatedly what his adversary's actions will be. Instead, Frankenstein plans zilch and then is devastated when his adversary follows through exactly as promised. Come on.

Of course, I think some of these things are just the book being from 1818, so I'm guessing if I'd have read it then, I'd have enjoyed it 5-stars much.

[kimmeyer-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I know this is classic, but it is also boring. Frankenstein, the doctor, is whiny and single-minded. He's the villain of the book from my perspective. The monster at least exhibits some personal growth and emotional depth, but he's absent from much of the book. I was just reading words on a page much of the time without engagement and only made it through thanks to it being a buddy read.

[ragwaine · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It took me 50 years, but I finally got around to reading this classic. It was totally different than what I expected, which was something more like the movie, which I watched in its entirety for the first time after I finished and have to say that I liked the movie better than the book. I can imagine Shelley turning in her grave when the movie came out since the monster in the book was very articulate and it had so much more meaning. I love flowery writing, but wow she could go on and the self-hate of both Frankenstein and the monster got really repetitive and boring; it was like hearing someone whine about self-made stress over and over again.

[mbmackay · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

In 2015 The Guardian published a list of the 100 best novels published in English, listed in chronological order of publication. Under Covid inspired lockdown/social distancing, I have taken up the challenge.Everyone knows "Frankenstein" but I was under the mistaken impression that the name referred to the created monster, while I now know it to be the name of the creator. The "monster" doesn't seem to have a name.Mary Shelley published the book at 21 years of age. It is an amazing feat. While it is a little patchy, and the tone inconsistent, the book is a great read, and is famous and remembered for good reason.

[booktsunami · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Somehow, over all the years I have managed to escape reading Frankenstein. Of course I knew the general idea...mancreates monster but I was unaware of the moral complications introduced into the plot.Yes, it's a horror story originally developed as a "ghost story" by Mary Shelley, laid up in Geneva with husband and Lord Byron as the next door neighbour. (As an aside, I have a feeling that I've seen Byron's name carved into the dungeon wall in the Chilon Castle at Montreux on Lake Geneva). Ah yes...I just checked up on it and that's correct but he wrote a poem about a prisoner in the dungeons here...and signed his name.I felt I know the area around Geneva that Mary was writing about ...and the lake etc because I've spent a bit of time in Geneva and grown to like it. Also I've travelled across the border to Chamonix ...another site where Frankenstein met up with his monster creation.Mary has actually written quite a thriller. It did keep me on the edge of my seat wondering about what twist the plot would take. And I must admit I had some sympathy for the monster created by Victor Frankenstein who was abandoned at birth by his creator. He really wanted to be good ...and had some good natural instincts but was abandoned by his dad/creator and never given any decent sort of upbringing. Maybe he might have turned into a good citizen if Victor had "done the right thing" as a creator/dad.I found myself questioning the possibility of the monster being to lie secluded so close to the family of Felix without being discovered....then realised I was questioning this trivial aspect of the tale without really questioning how Victor in a few short years had acquired sufficient knowledge to create a living being. Actually, not a bad story ....hope that it doesn't give me nightmares. I give it four stars.

[bell7_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A man traveling to the North Pole by boat recounts in letters to his sister how he came across one Victor Frankenstein, a young man who told him a wild story of creating life - only to be horrified by his creation.Frankenstein is one of those books whose images from the movies have probably impacted our our pop culture-driven perception of what they are about more than the original subject matter. That being the case, I was frequently surprised by the text itself and exactly how things played out. Despite relaying the story to a sympathetic listener, Frankenstein comes across as really weak and cowardly in his inaction though much of the story. This reader's sympathy was much more with the creature who did not ask to be made and was given a miserable existence of being feared and hated wherever he went. The flowery language of its time took some getting used to, and I certainly gave my brain a bit of a workout trying to wrap my mind around some of the long and involved sentences. An engaging read that, at just over 200 pages, isn't too daunting of a classic to try.

[beauxarts79 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The seedbed for all our contemporary posthumanism, but I could have done with a happier ending.

[lucky2loki · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The nesting narrative is very effective, and the story -- considering its time, and of course the lack of the archetype 'Frankenstein' in previous literature -- is perhaps surprisingly inventive. It rarely goes in the directions one might at first expect, even when familiar with the basic story beats. The intertextuality is also intriguing to me (thankfully this edition had elaborate endnotes for a lot of these references), and I'm particularly fascinated with the monster's self-identification with both Adam and Lucifer from "Paradise Lost". The novel is additionally quite short, making for a brisk read. That said, it also has a lot of meandering. Dr. Frankenstein's constant dread and anguish takes up a lot of pages (understandably), the monster's (admittedly great) soliloquies the same, as do small side-stories and travel descriptions (less understandably and less great), and this combine to making the plot feel a bit slow at times by my 2020 standards. All in all a novel I found to be good enough to be worth reading for its immeasurable impact on not only popular culture but the world in general, but probably a bit too dreary and dragged out for me to ever decide to revisit now that I've read it once.- Loki

[bobbybslax · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The writing seems stiff at times, but maybe that's just the time in which it was written. Whatever the case, the story and characters present a complex emotional tragedy.

[nodosaurus · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The story is well-known, but differs from the movies. The story is mostly about Dr. Frankenstein’s reaction to his creation, it is verbose but well-written.The first parts of the book seemed long and slow, it gets bogged down in long Victorian dialogs. I almost gave up on it. But once the monster is created, the story improved dramatically.It is all about the relationship between the monster and Dr. Frankenstein. It is a love-hate relationship on part of the monster, and repulsion from Dr. Frankenstein. This gave me some problems as Frankenstein started as a scientist with a purely rational approach to the work. Once the monster is created he became immediately repulsed without getting to know or understand the monster, he is completely driven and consumed by his emotions. It felt out of character given the first part of the book.Unlike the movies, the monster is very intelligent and capable. He learns to survive on his own, then teaches himself language. Driven by the cruelty of man, his one goal is to find love. I found the monster much more interesting than Frankenstein. He eloquently tells his tale and wins he heart of the reader, but not of Frankenstein who continues his revulsion to the monster.It is an interesting read. Like many books of the day, in my opinion, it would do well with an update to the characters and dialog. But it is worth the read.

[thetruebookaddict · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I can't believe I waited so long to read this book. I've read Dracula three times. I recently watched the film, Mary Shelley. I immediately picked this up to read. While somewhat more wordy than Dracula, in my opinion (I enjoy Dracula's epistolary format), I liked its insight and observations on mankind. How we so often have difficulty looking beyond the physical appearance to what the person is like inside. How we judge and underestimate on appearances alone. I would even go so far to say that Shelley's "monster" was symbolic of women and how they were treated in her time. Judged by gender/outward appearance; believed not capable of anything beyond typical womanly tasks. Certainly not capable of writing a novel such as Frankenstein!

I will definitely reread at some point. I bet there is a great audio version available.