Splat.

[sartorias]

I've come to the end of "Time of Daughters" book two. Emotionally and physically exhausted--and I can't even contemplate all the stuff I shoved aside to get this done

Comments

[shirebound]

those of us not geniuses need editors.

So true!

[whswhs]

One of the things I find interesting about Frankenstein: or the Modern Prometheus is its criminological views. It seems to be a very early presentation of the view that criminals are driven to crime by poverty and social stigma: The creature is initially inclined to sympathy and good will, but his attempts to do kindnesses frighten people because he's huge and ugly, and this embitters him. Mary Shelley's father, William Godwin, might have been the first advocate of this view of crime in the history of Western thought, so she had an obvious source for it. In contrast, Frankenstein and most of the films that follow it have the creature turning to violence because he has a defective brain, which seems more to reflect the views of late nineteenth century criminologists who believed in "atavism" and hereditary criminality, about as neat a conceptual inversion as one could ask. All that seems to make it (a) properly sfnal in that it engages with scientific theories and (b) an example of "social science fiction" in its being a way of writing

[sartorias]

That's an excellent observation about Swift.

I never saw any of the film, or Dr Moreau in any form, as they were all horror/monster movies, but that's interesting.

[whswhs]

I'm not a big fan of the standard monster movies, though C and I have watched a few in a phase of "classic movie" viewing. But I like The Bride, which is a romance and almost has a fairy tale feel at some points-and a beautifully witty scene where the Bride and Dr. Frankenstein argue over who wrote Prometheus Unbound.

[sartorias]

lol! That almost sounds worth watching!