Shelley, Mary: Frankenstein
Frankenstein (1818)
Written by: Mary Shelley
Genre: Horror
Pages: 231 (Hardcover)
This review is a day late and for that I apologize. But you can't blame me: I spent Halloween at a bonfire! Fun, right?
So, here is the review/discussion thread for our October Challenge. Our theme was "Classic Horror" and all of you chose Frankenstein. I'd read this book my sophomore year of high school, so this was a re-read for me. Not that I minded: I've been wanting to read this book with adult eyes for a while now, so I'm glad you all gave me the opportunity.
The premise: seems kind of silly to discuss the premise of Frankenstein, given the fact that the book and its monster is such a prominent figure in pop culture. But in a nutshell, scientist discovers the secret of life and animates a man made up of various parts of different corpses. The experiment works, but our good scientist, Dr. Frankenstein, is horrified by his creation and rejects the monster. The monster pursues, and Dr. Frankenstein's life is never the same.
Review style: stream of conscious, with questions for those of you who've read the book for the book club. Spoilers? Uh, yes. In all honesty, considering how old the book is, I really shouldn't have to call them spoilers, but some people want the warning, so here it is. SPOILERS. :)
This was a rather odd read for me. Once I started, I realized just how much of this book I'd forgotten. Little wonder: I read this book when I was a sophomore in Honors English and while I remember LIKING the book, I don't remember much else beyond that except I was supposed to walk away from it feeling sympathetic towards the monster itself, and that the human who created him (the actual Frankenstein) was more monster than man. At least, that's what I think I was supposed to remember. My reading retention back then? Pure crap.
And in truth, this is a rather difficult book to review, because I understand intellectually what this book accomplished: sure, it's a classic horror novel, but it's also the first science fiction book, like, EVER, am I right? Pretty sure, and knowing that gives me a warm feeling, given that Mary Shelley was obviously a woman. :) But I was struck, over and over again, at how BIG the issues in the book really were. I mean, giving life to an inanimate collection of objects . . . that's pretty heady stuff. Sure, it's glamorized nowadays with zombies and vampires and various forms of steampunk, but Shelley raised a question that still worth really considering today: what does it mean to give life, be it naturally or artificially? Because Frankenstein's reaction to his creation doesn't merely relate to those who create something unnaturally: as a father, he rejects his child, his creation. Translate that to natural birth and take a good look at the parents in this world, both male and female, who reject their children no matter what their children do to try and win their approval. Parents who continue to reject those children even when the child's made it clear that things will only get worse if the parents don't throw them a bone. Children who end up living dangerous lives because they grew up in an unhealthy environment without healthy social contact and/or sheer rejection.
Looking at Frankenstein through the lens of social psychology, and you really understand that Mary Shelley was ahead of her time, whether she meant to be or not.
In truth, despite all of the horrible things the monster does do in the course of the book, I never really despise him. Maybe that's my old education shining through, but it's easy to view this book through the lens of cause and effect. If Frankenstein had done so many things differently (the least of which was not creating the monster at all), things could've been so different. Why did the creation HAVE to be something bigger than man's natural state? If Frankenstein had been content with a single, whole corpse, the creation wouldn't have been quite so horrifying, would it? If Frankenstein had created the mate for the monster, would things have been better? No doubt, I understand Frankenstein's reasoning: there was no guarantee that the female would embrace her partner, no guarantee she wouldn't turn into a blood-thirsty monster, no guarantee that she'd stay away from humanity.
And that's the trick of the book: you feel sorry for both the monster and his creator, because truly, Frankenstein is a miserable man, obsessed first with his intellect and doing the impossible, and then obsessed with his ruminations and tragedy. I do like the comparison between Frankenstein and the Arctic explorer Marlow: at the time, conquering the Arctic was very much like creating life from the inanimate: something considered impossible and something that should not be done, lest you suffer great personal sacrifice. So the frame story worked rather nicely in that regard, illustrating two impossibles that shouldn't be accomplished and allowing Marlow to learn from Frankenstein's mistakes.
Something else I'd forgotten aside from particulars of the plot (how Frankenstein is arrested for the murder of his best friend, the frame story with Marlow himself, the frame of Justine for the murder of young William) was how the use of weather served so often as a metaphor for the narrator's inner state of being. Nowadays, it's a cheesy and overused device unless used very carefully, but back then, it was a quintessential expression, and one that worked. I found myself smiling remembering this, and knowing that nowadays, it's a device best left untouched because, simply put, it's too obvious of one. You know, rain during funerals, sunshine for weddings. Obviously, Shelley was going further than that, but still. It's a device to be wary of in modern fiction, but back in Shelley's time, it worked wonders.
What else can we discuss? For those of you who read this book for the first time, what surprised you about it? What preconceptions were overturned? For those of you re-reading it, what had you forgotten? I know I forgot a lot, but what I found interesting this go-around was the discussion leading up to the creation of the monster and how Shelley never truly explains how it's done, though there's enough hints that Hollywood's been able to run with it in the movies. Also, there is no dramatic scene with seeing the actual creation of the monster. One moment, he's inanimate, and the next, his eyes are open. But that works when you consider this book frames a memoir, albeit a fictional one. Victor Frankenstein did not want anyone to duplicate his efforts, so his efforts are never explained or revealed in the text.
Truly, there's so much more that this book offers that I'm not even beginning to touch. I'd intended to review the analysis in the Cliffs Notes, but I just truly didn't have the time. But hey, you might find some interesting stuff there, so check it out! Little known fact: in high school, I always read the Cliffs Notes version IN ADDITION TO the text, so that I'd have a leg up on the analysis and so that if I misread anything, the Cliffs Notes summary would set me straight. :)
My Rating
Glad I Borrowed It: that rating's a kind of cheat, but let me explain: 1) I read my husband's copy, which means I didn't spend money for my own copy and 2) it's hard to rate a re-read, let alone a book that's a classic. I firmly believe that Frankenstein is a book that ALL science fiction and horror fans should have under their belt, because it simply says so much and it has most certainly earned its pedestal in both genres. I'm glad to have re-read it, but I feel the same about it now as I did back in high school: it's a good book, but it's not an absolute favorite or anything. It's the writing style that keeps me from connecting, and now that I've read it once, it's easy to see where the book is going in terms of its message and what happens in the plot. Still, the fact that Shelley tackled such huge and heavy topics in her time astounds me, and I have nothing but respect for her. I can only hope that other fans of the genre do too.
Cover Commentary: so the cover shown in the review is not the actual copy of the book I read. It is, however, the copy I would've read had I been forced to purchase my copy. And I rather like this cover, with the diagram and drawings of all the disembodied arms. Very appropriate. The cover of the edition I read is rather boring, see? Green cloth, with a clear, plastic dust-jacket with the title printed on it. Very literature-looking, but still, very boring. The covers I really appreciate are these two: this one, which is my one of my FAVORITEST paintings EVER (Caspar David Friedrich's The Wanderer) and this one, which is close enough to The Wanderer that I like it just as well. But it's just not the paintings that I love, it's the fact that BOTH convey a very particular scene in the book, which makes the covers all the more appropriate.
Further Reading: since the theme was classic horror, with a focus on monsters, here are some other titles for you (and me) to enjoy:
Victor Hugo: The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Gaston Leroux: The Phantom of the Opera
Robert Louis Stevenson: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Bram Stoker: Dracula
H.G. Wells: The Invisible Man
Book Club Poll: this is the only way I can really track participation, so if you follow this journal, answer, okay? :)
Poll October Participation
If you started but couldn't finish it, please comment and talk about the reasons why. What turned you off from the book? How far did you go before throwing in the towel?
Since this review is late, the November Book Club selection has already been announced: Alaya Dawn Johnson's Racing the Dark! I really, really want lots of participation, so please, give the book a shot! Details may be found here.