From the Bookshelf of Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy…

Frankenstein

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Start date: September 22, 2011

Finish date: October 18, 2011

Discussion: Book Discussions

Discussion leader: Connor Kinkade

Why we're reading this: Group discussion Oct 2011
Connor is reading it for his British Literature class.
#20 on NPR's Top 100 SF/F …more
[close] Group discussion Oct 2011
Connor is reading it for his British Literature class.
#20 on NPR's Top 100 SF/F novels of all time (2011 poll) http://www.npr.org/2011/08/11/1390858...

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Oct 23, 2009 Danielle The Book Huntress rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: gothic-fiction, owned-copy, classic-horror, angsty-read, zombie, antihero, winter-cold-setting, all-things-autumn-challenge, 2011-reading, classic

Mary W. Shelley explored themes that still resonate today in her proto-science fiction work, Frankenstein. Themes of the relentless drive and search for ultimate (even forbidden) knowledge; intellectual arrogance; the desire to create something enduring; the need for love and recognition; and a study in how bitterness, hatred and rage can destroy a person. What separates men from God? What separates man from monster? Can a so-called monster have the heart (the humanity) and the accompanying need Mary W. Shelley explored themes that still resonate today in her proto-science fiction work, Frankenstein. Themes of the relentless drive and search for ultimate (even forbidden) knowledge; intellectual arrogance; the desire to create something enduring; the need for love and recognition; and a study in how bitterness, hatred and rage can destroy a person. What separates men from God? What separates man from monster? Can a so-called monster have the heart (the humanity) and the accompanying needs and desires of a man? Does beauty or ugliness penetrate deeper than the skin? Can one expect good to come from an act of utter selfishness?

Frankenstein is very much a philosophical work. Although there are some primordial science fiction elements, they are merely the impetus--the laying of the groundwork for this story. For it is not about how Frankenstein makes his creation. It’s about the aftermath of that act. This is a moving work of fiction that skirts the edges of horror, but the horror is more of a psychological sort. The horror is that a man would take knowledge to create a man from unliving flesh. A man so hideous in visage that people turn away in horror. This man chases after his creator, demands his love and tender regard, to merely be noticed and acknowledged by his creator; and if not that, at least the right to have a companion in his lonely life. Many times, I was deeply affected emotionally by this story. I felt so much sympathy for the creature. To be brought to life and abandoned by his creator seemed so cruel. He couldn’t help that his external appearance was ugly and a constant reminder of the unspeakable act his maker had perpetrated. He had not been given the opportunity to prove that he was something more, something worthwhile; that he was capable of deep emotions, an ability to appreciate beauty in life, to love and to give to others. This made me so very sad. There were times when I truly felt disdain towards Frankenstein. For his arrogance, for his selfishness. Although Shelley couldn’t have known about the capabilities of science now, the caution about science and its ethical considerations couldn’t be more timely. Should we create something just because we have the knowledge and skill to do so? And how often do we truly count the cost of such an action before it’s too late? Although I felt great enmity towards Frankenstein at times, I certainly didn’t condone the creature’s actions. I felt a profound sense of horror when the created man committed acts of violence to innocents around him in vengeance against his creator. I was still angry at Frankenstein for bringing it on himself, but I also felt sad for him to lose everyone he valued in his life. Surely, he couldn’t have known how horrible the results his creation act would result in. When he is given the ultimatum to create a mate for the creature, I could understand his terrible dilemma, and I still question whether his final actions were the right ones. Finally, I was back to feeling pity for the creature, deeply empathizing with him in his loneliness, how his desire for love and understanding turned into selfish rage that he truly regretted and repented for in the end.

Mary Shelley doesn’t give the answers to these moral dilemmas. She merely presents these profound queries in this narrative. Where does it place the reader in the end? Deeply entrenched within this tumultuous, roiling cauldron of emotions—fear, love, rage, regret, hope, and despair. One simply cannot be detached when reading this book.

I found this to be very readable despite the fact that it was written about two hundred years ago. I only found my interest wavering in the moments of the somewhat excessive travelogues of the natural surroundings. In my opinion, this took up too prominent a role in the narrative, and it was distracting. Despite that small shortcoming, this was powerful reading, not comfortable, but deeply involving. No easy answers, but lots of questions for each reader to process and come up with their own conclusions. I won’t forget this book.

4.5 stars.
...more

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Apr 20, 2012 Andrea rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-horror, fiction-scifi, read-sorted, list-1001-books

2017: Excellent moral dilemmas are discussed through the conflict between an irresponsible creator and his misunderstood creature. Also, it mentions my hometown, which is the first time I encounter such an occurrence in fiction. It's a sci-fi book written by a woman in the age when only men were supposed to be creative and smart enough to spew words on paper. I'm only taking a star away because the novel should be re-titled Frankenstein, or Where Characters Complain A Lot. ...more

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Oct 19, 2012 Jim rated it liked it

Shelves: 2fiction, 1paper, scifi, 3classics

The story is excellent, a real must-read, & entirely different than most of the movies, but the writing bores me to tears. Nothing is ever said with one word when a paragraph will do. I liked an edited for kids copy that I read with mine much better, although that changed a lot of the story as well.

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Apr 21, 2012 Timothy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-read-for-school-college, horror-weird-fiction, classics

An enduring classic. A foundational novel for students of horror, science fiction, and romantic literature. A work steeped in allusion to early literary periods and the timeless myths of antiquity. A book that should not be forgotten, no matter how many scholars have plumbed its pages to exalt it on the altar of criticism. It leaves the reader wondering, who in this tale is the greater villain, and to whom do we pay our deeper sympathies?

*SPOILERS*

After all, whose crimes were the worse? The doc An enduring classic. A foundational novel for students of horror, science fiction, and romantic literature. A work steeped in allusion to early literary periods and the timeless myths of antiquity. A book that should not be forgotten, no matter how many scholars have plumbed its pages to exalt it on the altar of criticism. It leaves the reader wondering, who in this tale is the greater villain, and to whom do we pay our deeper sympathies?

*SPOILERS*

After all, whose crimes were the worse? The doctor for engaging in his unhallowed experimentation and abandoning his duty to his creation? The creature, for his murder of a young boy and for framing an innocent woman for the crime? Does it weigh again more heavily with the doctor, who kept his silence and allowed that innocent woman to hang? Is it back to the monster for his calculated assaults on the friends and family of the man who condemned him to a life of solitude?

Or, is it, as the monster says, the fault of all mankind for rejecting that which is outwardly hideous? Our own prejudices are uncomfortably exposed to us as we read the creature's own account of his experiences with the dispossessed nobles eeking out survival in the mountains. But perhaps the answer is that it is humanity's ego that is to blame--for after all, both Victor and Mr. Walton (in the framing tale) strive for knowledge that is beyond their ken.

Like prometheus, Victor sought that which was the province of God and paid the price with a lifetime of misery. Like Icaraus, he reached too far and fell. Yet Mr. Walton, Victor's savior on the ice and recorder of the saga, also seeks knowledge that no one else possesses, no matter the cost. But in the end, he abandons his quest to save his own life and the lives of those around him. But perhaps he is not to be commended for humility. When confronted with the awfulness of Frankenstein's creation, he too firmly reviles the creature without pausing to consider the misery that its creator inflicted.

But then, maybe, the monster was ultimately responsible for its own actions... ...more

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