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Frankenstein

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Start date: October 1, 2018

Finish date: October 31, 2018

Why we're reading this: Revisit the Shelf Classic Read, October 2018

Previous Group Reads:
Revisit the Shelf Classic Read, October …more
[close] Revisit the Shelf Classic Read, October 2018

Previous Group Reads:
Revisit the Shelf Classic Read, October 2016
Revisit the Shelf Classic Read, October 2014
Old School Classic Group Read, October 2013

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Apr 09, 2014 Everyman rated it really liked it

If you have not read this book yet, then probably much, perhaps most, maybe even almost all of what you know about the Frankenstein story is wrong.

An old grey-bearded alchemist? No. A mad scientist? Nope. A gothic tower? No. A hunchbacked assistant? Nope. A laboratory buried deep in a forbidding forest? Not at all. A bolt through the neck? Not. A lightening storm at the moment of creation? No. A cruel, terrifying monster bent on destruction? Only very sort of.

Victor Frankenstein is a Swiss stu If you have not read this book yet, then probably much, perhaps most, maybe even almost all of what you know about the Frankenstein story is wrong.

An old grey-bearded alchemist? No. A mad scientist? Nope. A gothic tower? No. A hunchbacked assistant? Nope. A laboratory buried deep in a forbidding forest? Not at all. A bolt through the neck? Not. A lightening storm at the moment of creation? No. A cruel, terrifying monster bent on destruction? Only very sort of.

Victor Frankenstein is a Swiss student interested in ancient mystical philosophy and alchemy who goes to study at the University of Ingolstadt in Upper Bavaria. There he finds professors who interest him in more modern scientific studies. For two years he isolates himself in his room until, at the end of that time, he has discovered the secret of life. He gathers body parts from here and there, assembles a human, and animates it with life. The actual process of constructing the creature and bringing it alive are barely described at all, but there is no great flash of lightening, no assistant, no mysterious laboratory, just a young (apparently late teens or very early twenties) student working in his rooms in the city to bring this creation to life.

At this point, any further details would risk being significant spoilers. Suffice it to say that the creature is indeed ugly, but apparently not in a deformed or mechanical-looking way. And it is the response of both Frankenstein himself and of the humans the creature meets to his ugliness that shapes his character, turns him to evil, and impels much of the action of the book.

The book is not by any means a "mere" ghost or monster story. It is far more than that. It is a story of creation, of human community or the lack thereof, of love and hate, of nature vs. nurture, among many other themes well worth discussing.

The book has its faults, but the issues it raises are well worth putting up with its faults to engage with. And the central take-away of this review is that if you haven't read the book but think you know the Frankenstein story or legend, my bet is that you're very wrong, and that if you engage with the book you will appreciate the very great difference between your incorrect conception and the reality. ...more

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