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Title: Frankenstein (Dover Thrift Editions)
ISBN: 0486282112
Author:
Mary Shelley
Publicate Date: 1994-10-21
Publish: 1994-10-21
List Price: $2.00
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Paperback
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Prescient
Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" is the most important novel of the twenty-first century. Written almost two hundred years ago by a young woman nineteen years old, this parable captures with astounding clarity the problems that heartless science has visited upon the planet earth. In brief, the story makes clear the circumstances by which human inventions control their inventors. This book is not to be confused with many of its movie versions, some of which wholly invert Mary Shelley's themes.
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2: Required Reading
I purchased this book for a history class. Of course I have seen the movie. This book is nothing like the movie. After I understood that it was written during the Romanticism period than it was actually a pleasure to read. At nineteen, how old Mary Shelley was when she wrote Frankenstein, she wrote an amazing and deeply profound story of a being that is looking for what everyone of us look for: the comfort of companionship and love of another. Human beings are meant to be in relationships of one kind or another. Mary Shelley also does an admirable job showing the anguish of Victor. You see the love,support, and concern of his family. It was thought-provoking and poignant. I found myself hoping the being would find what he so desperately craved. i felt his frustration at such an injustice, as he saw it. If you have seen the movie I strongly recommend Frankenstein. I promise, you won't be disappointed.
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3: The Making of a Monster!
The novel is as complex in its vocabulary, its ability to elicit emotion from the reader and its horror.
There are better places on the 'net and elsewhere to give you a summary of the plot. See the Cliff Notes site for the best rendition: [...]
The book starts out on a ship that is exploring the extreme north, where ice floes and freezing temperatures are the norm. The captain sees a figure on a dogsled going across the landscape. He thinks this is weird. Then he later finds a man on an ice sheet near death.
The captain, Robert Walton, pulls him aboard and is amazed at his articulate manner (I guess hanging out with sailors all day for weeks does that to you). His name is Henry Frankenstein. Henry finds that Robert has some interest in bringing things to life, etc., and experimentations of that nature. Henry freaks out and says no, let me tell you my story.
And so it goes.
Though Shelly's language is at times a bit of a chore to get through, I was impressed with the flow and style of the story, her commentaries on family, Nature, the poor, and Man daring to act the role of Creator.
The details of Victor creating the creature are a bit weak, but understandable. After all I'm sure Henry did not want to give all the details otherwise we'd be setting up shop and doing it ourselves!
There are not secret labs, no big electric machines and no maniacal servants or criminal brains. There is plenty of secret work, as Victor, through use of chemistry and alchemy texts, creates the "spark of life." But, he is so horrified at what he has done, that he suffers a nervous breakdown and takes months to convalesce.
The creature, with no guidance and his master abandoning him, wanders the countryside as he learns to survive. He starts out noble and appreciative of nature, but also finds that Man rejects him utterly.
Unlike God's creation of Adam, and Genesis' exclamation that His creation was "good", Victor's creation is found to be evil.
The creature holes up in a cottage where he can spy on the people therein. There, he learns the language and the behaviors of the three people within. Here Shelly makes much about the unfairness of prison justice and the squalor being experienced by the common folk of the time. Living during the time of the Industrial Revolution, it is understandable she would make comments along the lines of destitution and that machines alone can degrade Man. Quite interesting.
As the story progresses, the creature decides that he will avenge himself against Man and against his creator for making him ugly and wretched.
And so the horror begins. Victor tries to make a life for himself but the creature has other plans as the creature kills his little brother William.
Victor finds the creature and they make a bargain: create a female version for the creature's companionship and he will go off to South America and leave him forever. And if he does not, the creature will make his life a living Hell.
What a choice, huh?
Anyway, Victor tries to make a woman for the creature, but then changes his mind and rips it to shreds. He is afraid that they will reproduce and populate Man with these demons. (Why he didn't just make the female version incapable of giving birth, I'm not sure.)
And so the story goes: through the wretched squalor of poor villages, through the injustice and inhumane prisons and tribunals, the death penalty for an innocent, and further death of Victor's father, the murder of his wife Elizabeth and Henry Clerval.
The struggle and horror between the creature and Victor is ameliorated by Victor's view of Nature, in the Swiss Alps, and his travels along the Rhine and in England, Scotland and Ireland. Interesting how Shelly shows that Nature, or God's creations, will create a positive joy, but Man's abominations will not.
Shelly makes many comments not only on the society of her time, but philosophical concepts of science gone made, of horror and squalor, and of the justice systems of the time.
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4: Original
The plot and perhaps the character itself of Frankenstein has been manipulated and perhaps even corrupted by the passage of time. Few of those that dress as "Frankenstein" for Halloween know the true story behind the creature. This is unfortunate as Mary Shelley's classic is among the best books ever written. More than a monster story, it raises questions of morality and ethics.
When Dr. Frankenstein sets to create the creature, it is to set his stamp on science. But in many respects, he took on the role of a deity by creating a new life. But that new life is neglected and shunned by his creator, causing him to reject his deity. As this morality play progresses, the frightening reign of terror begins. Dr. Frankenstein is faced with a moral dilemma that could halt the creature. He must weigh the risks of this dilemma against the benefits. Though quite predictable in terms of the plotting, Frankenstein set a standard in its time. The creature is cunning in the traps and scenarios it lays for his creator making the villain more frightening.
Shelly's writing also causes the reader to feel sympathy for the creature. It is a struggle to maintain this feeling, but Shelley is able to meet this challenge. In this respect the daemon is less demonized.
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5: It is a classic but not perfect
I admit that this novel holds a special position in English literature and rightly so, but it was not as good as I had hoped. When the monster finally speaks in the story I swear his "voice" sounded just like his creator's. How could two characters from vastly different life circumstances sound indistinguishable? One was an adult born in to an educated well to do family and the other was recently and suddenly "awakened" to live in the woods as a hiddeous outcast. The monster taught himself to read Paradise Lost? Seriously? Actually that was the major flaw in the book. All the characters seemed to be interchangeable even though they should have totally different personalities.
Another thing I didn't care for was the use of multiple narrators in the story. I know this was common practice in literature of the time, but not to this extent. The main narrator of the novel is telling a story to his sister about the story Frankenstein told him about his monster's story that he heard about the exploits of the family in the cottage. What is that like 5th person narration? I think this distances reader from what should be a very intense and personal story.
I don't want to dismiss the contribution this has made to literature and popculture I just think that the story of how Mary Shelley wrote the story is much more interesting than the actual story Frankenstein.
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