From the Bookshelf of Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy…

Frankenstein

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Start date: September 22, 2011

Finish date: October 18, 2011

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

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-scifi, fiction-horror, 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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Dec 16, 2008 Alex rated it it was amazing

Shelves: romantic, gothic

There can't be many great authors who lived a life more steeped in literature and philosophy than Mary Shelley. It's sad that she never got to know the woman who gave birth to her, the great Mary Wollstonecraft, author of one of, if not the most noted tracts on feminism “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,” a notorious book in its day, but she was certainly a great influence on her life. She was raised by William Godwin, one of the foremost political thinkers of the time and a notable author o There can't be many great authors who lived a life more steeped in literature and philosophy than Mary Shelley. It's sad that she never got to know the woman who gave birth to her, the great Mary Wollstonecraft, author of one of, if not the most noted tracts on feminism “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,” a notorious book in its day, but she was certainly a great influence on her life. She was raised by William Godwin, one of the foremost political thinkers of the time and a notable author of many great works including Caleb Williams and St.Leon. If this were not enough she went on to marry and befriend the most notable, and politically radical poets of the day Percy Shelley and Lord Byron (and famous writer/critic Leigh Hunt). Literature, writing and politics then were at the core of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's life, but even so it's a surprise that anyone could write such a radical or accomplished novel at the age of 19. I can't pick up or think about Frankenstein without pondering what a staggering achievement this short novel represents, being as it is a rumination on all things related to power, achievement, passion, writing and science. Shelley's novel covers the breadth of human achievement and compares it to the wonders of nature and I'm left wondering if she finds humanity wanting or capable of overcoming the challenges faced before us; if deficient, is it because the weak emotional core at the centre of our souls, too focused on attaining goals with too little care for the value of others will ultimately always hold us back?

Frankenstein, at its heart, is a book about writing and it's appropriate, then, that the oft-mentioned Chinese-box structure of the novel is elegance of structure itself. I'm always drawn to books that ponder meta-textual ideas about writing and those that contain stories within stories within stories tend to be my favourite. There's something mysterious and rewarding about peeling back the layers of a tale to find greater depths underneath and, in the case of both the epistolary sections and the reportage of Frankenstein, something fascinating about being drip fed important events in an impassioned 1st person voice and watching on as they all link up to form, not just a greater tale, but to reveal complex relationships between the main protagonists. Most readers and critics, understandably, tend to focus on the relationship between Frankenstein and his creation but equally important is Walton and his desperate quest to find both the North Pole so that he might achieve glory for himself, but also companionship and friendship, aware that these achievements are nothing if he has no-one with which to share them. In Frankenstein he believes that he has found his soulmate but actually whilst the two share similar hopes and dreams it turns out that their eventual approach is the polar opposite. The novel starts and ends with Walton's quest and this is to highlight how Walton has been changed through hearing Frankenstein's tale. When Walton's ship becomes stuck in ice the sailors beg the captain to turn round and go home; to have a care for their lives. Frankenstein's pep talk, which sums up the character he has become is both impassioned, but misguided.

” ye need not have come thus far and dragged your captain to the shame of a defeat merely to prove yourselves cowards. Oh! Be men, or be more than men. Be steady to your purposes and firm as a rock. This ice is not made of such stuff as your hearts may be; it is mutable and cannot withstand you if you say that it shall not. Do not return to your families with the stigma of disgrace marked on your brows. Return as heroes who have fought and conquered and who know not what it is to turn their backs on the foe. “

Frankenstein's tale sees his character transform from impassioned romantic with a thirst for knowledge to an embittered soul bent on destruction and revenge. This final speech reveals the heart of what he once was, but even as his doomed soul plummets towards destruction, even as Frankenstein has recognised that he – through the creation of his double, the monster - is responsible for the deaths of his wife, friend and brother, he still pursues greatness and still only understands life through the nobility and glory of his achievements. He has become swept up in a sea of internal, selfish emotion and fails to understand that real human achievement comes through considering others also. The monster too, perhaps the tragic victim of the novel, still shoulders the blame in failing to understand that knowledge and the subsequent power that comes with it will tear one apart if not approached lightly. He too, when cursorily rejected by the society he wishes to integrate with, turns to power and intimidation as a means to get what he desires. Ultimately, he and Frankenstein are the same and the Monster acknowledges that once he stepped onto the path of murder and revenge there was never to be peace in his soul. Both Frankenstein and his monster are acutely aware of the failings that manifest in the other, but the tragedy of their tale is that an ability to examine themselves inwardly would probably have created a friendship between them, as strong and well-bonded as Frankenstein's is with Clerval.

Frankenstein, then, is ultimately about the power of storytelling inasmuch as it is the power of Frankenstein's story, and his thirst for knowledge, power and revenge that dissuade Walton from becoming the man he thought he was destined to be. Walton eventually rejects his quest in consideration of his crew's lives. But it is also a book about storytelling due to the clear metaphor of Frankenstein as an author's creation. Hen one writes a poem or a novel one has given life to something beyond one's control. It can initially look beautiful, but will turn ugly to one's creator once unleashed upon the world and, whilst an obsession or a passion while being created, once it is out there it can become that part of oneself that haunts and condemns you. What approach Shelley is trying to advocate I am unsure, but the text is surely, on so many levels a cautionary one, not asking us to refuse our drive to success, but beseeching a certain amount of care and responsibility in the way we approach achievement of goals. Frankenstein was a brilliant genius, but he didn't stop to think, preferring to isolate himself from others and their emotion and opinions.

It's easy enough to situate Frankenstein in the gothic horror tradition and in horror terms it represents a marked and interesting shift from both the female-gothic of Radcliffe with its castles, imperilled heroines and evil barons (although she takes the European backdrop and obsessive descriptions and wonderment of nature), and the male-gothic of Matthew Lewis' The Monk, with it's overt sexuality, evil devils and temptations. Frankenstein imbues the politics and sensibilities of perhaps her father (the novel reminds me somewhat of the obsessive pursuit-revenge at the centre of Godwin's Caleb Williams) and her husband and uses the horror mode to turn them into a narrative. It's not really a horror or a gothic novel, but I find the narrative, nevertheless, to scare and haunt me probably more than most novels I've read. Death and murder in the book are swift and brutal and have serious psychological implications on both Frankenstein and monster-as-killer. And that's quite scary. But if you're going to read Frankenstein don't read it as "the novel that's about that monster I heard of from Boris Karloff, or Hammer Horror," and don't read it as "that book that people talk about as being a famous horror novel like Dracula." As a work of literature it has little do with either Universal Studios horror or Dracula, and everything to do with the sensibilities and politics (of which, sadly, I'm mostly ignorant) of the early 19th century.

This book has a fascinating genesis and is a fascinating piece of storytelling on every level and stands tall as one of the great works of romantic fiction. ...more

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Apr 10, 2009 Diana Marques | Papéis e Letras rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: own, on-paper, gothic, classics, favourites, 1001-to-read-before-you-die

I was really excited and had high expectations when I started to read this one and it didn't dissapointed me! I loved this one because it plays with the notion of trying to play God by creating something that, suddenly, goes out of your hands and control and how dangerous it can be. Another literature classic. And Shelley wrote this when she was just 19 years old... ...more

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Dec 06, 2011 Vincent Darlage rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: horror, classics, gothic

The story is amazing. It's one of my all time favorites. This particular edition is easy to read, but, as with many Watermill Classics, the cover is fairly plain, but it has held up pretty well over the years. This is the copy I usually loan out, and it has had a lot of abuse, but this edition has weathered it all well. ...more

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Mar 10, 2010 Vincent Darlage rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: horror, favorites, classics, gothic

I am pleased to say that this book still resides in my heart as my favorite book; in my youth it thrilled me, in my teen years, it consoled me, and as an adult, it engages me.

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