Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus After watching the new Frankenstein movie this weekend, I decided to correct something. I’d never read the original novel by Mary Shelley. I was familiar with the overall story, but I think it came from reading a comic book adaptation at some point decades ago, one I knew was heavily abridged. A key question upfront was which version to read: the original 1818 version , or the later 1831 edition ? The Wikipedia article implies that the 1831 version was heavily revised, smoothing out some of the radical edges of the original. I decided I wanted the original sensation, the one that caused the initial stir, the version put out by the rebellious teenager, not the more refined version from someone older and perhaps more cautious. (I did skim the 1831 edition a bit, but didn’t see any immediately noticeable differences in key scenes. And Shelley herself claimed her only changes were stylistic.) I don’t usually read fiction written prior to the 1900s. Often it’s just too much of a slog. I was worried it would be an issue in this book, but Frankenstein is not long, and I didn’t find the writing difficult. The language is formal, and the dialogue stilted in that the characters make speeches rather than actual conversation. But overall the pacing works. There were a few places where Shelley seems to be writing more of a travelogue than a fiction story, but it’s usually to prolong a feeling of suspense for an event we’re anticipating. Shelley uses a nested frame structure, which starts off in epistolary mode with letters from a ship captain, then goes into first person with Victor Frankenstein telling his story to the ship captain. Later in the book we get the creature’s viewpoint when he tells his story to Victor, who in turn relays it to the captain. All of which in a modern novel would likely just be handled with multiple third person limited or labeled first person viewpoints. But when reading a two hundred year old book, some allowances do have to be made. That’s particularly true for something that’s been adapted so many times. As expected, it’s both less and more of the Frankenstein myth we’ve all become used to. Less, in the sense that a lot of what we associate with the story is absent. There’s no castle with a tower and lightning rod, and the creature isn’t assembled from body parts. It’s constructed in a makeshift lab in Victor Frankenstein’s university apartment. Of course, the movies add the other stuff to dramatize the event. That dramatization in the book comes from describing the extensive studies in natural philosophy Victor undergoes in preparation. The actual construction is narratively brief, utilizing a principle of life Victor says he discovered, but won’t reveal because the knowledge is too dangerous. Throughout the book, he refers to his “chemical instruments” as the necessary tools for creating life. It’s this focus, however brief, on the creation of life coming from discovered natural philosophy (scientific) principles, rather than reference to something occult or supernatural, that leads many to say Frankenstein is the first science fiction novel. Which is one of the reasons I wanted to read it. I do think it qualifies as science fiction, but it doesn’t feel sci-fi in the way Jules Verne or H.G. Wells’ later stories would. It’s feel in most of the story matches its traditional classification: gothic horror. The creature is also different in a number of ways from how he’s often portrayed in movies. His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful!— Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion, and straight black lips. An AI generated image based on Shelley’s description of the creature. Our view of the creature in its initial state is also very brief. Most of our exposure is to a later very articulate person, although he describes to Victor his climb from a fully grown newborn, unable to make sense of the world, into a more educated entity. He’s also more villainous in the book, a ruthless cold blooded murderer. Shelley makes clear he commits these acts only after a long history of the world never giving him a chance, of repeatedly deciding on sight that he’s a monster. No one in the book treats him with sympathy. Victor comes close at one point, but it’s glancing. Still, the murders make him less sympathetic than the movie versions. Not that Victor is particularly sympathetic either. In the recent movie this is due to his blind arrogance. In the book it comes from him being repulsed by his own creation, and refusing to take meaningful responsibility for it. He spends most of the book overwrought, feeling guilty, wringing his hands in horror, with the occasional nervous breakdown mixed in. He only regains agency after a lot of tragedy, and then his motivation is revenge. It never occurs to Victor to offer his creation protection, to come out publicly about what he is and stand by him so he isn’t alone in the world. He won’t even discuss the creature with anyone else until his revenge stage, after he has lost so much. But it’s hard to know today if that’s the reaction Shelley wants us to have toward Victor. Some of my reactions may be formed from cultural lessons after her time. Her own account in the introduction to the 1831 edition speaks to the hubris of playing God. But mostly it seemed she just wanted to create a truly terrifying tale. Given the impact her work has had, it’s hard to argue she didn’t succeed. If her book today doesn’t chill as much as we think it should, it’s only because the tale has been revisited and amplified so many times. It’s impossible for us experience it as someone in 1818 would have. Still, I was surprised by how good a read it turned out to be. #bookReview #bookReviews #frankenstein #horror #sciFi #ScienceFiction #SciFi

Thanks. I enjoyed the movie too.

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