Frankenstein in Reading the Classics

May 27, 2011 Erin WV rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, on-my-shelves, digital-read, 2010

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Frankenstein is not as awesome a read as its thematic soulmate Dracula, because Dracula has more action. Victor (AKA Dr. Frankenstein) is an incredibly passive character to hang this novel on. Early on, he narrates almost feverishly about the years that he spends studying, researching, experimenting to discover how to recreate the spark of life. Then he does, and his creature lives. He’s terrified of the creature, so he runs away—literally—and when he returns to his house, the creature has disap Frankenstein is not as awesome a read as its thematic soulmate Dracula, because Dracula has more action. Victor (AKA Dr. Frankenstein) is an incredibly passive character to hang this novel on. Early on, he narrates almost feverishly about the years that he spends studying, researching, experimenting to discover how to recreate the spark of life. Then he does, and his creature lives. He’s terrified of the creature, so he runs away—literally—and when he returns to his house, the creature has disappeared. And then a year passes while he tries to forget what he did. Later, after he’s seen the creature again, and the creature has demanded that Victor build him a female companion, Victor agrees. He spends a few months arranging a trip to England to work with some scientists there. He travels there slowly—in a downright leisurely manner–with a friend. Then they spend a few months traveling the English countryside.

From Derby, still journeying northwards, we passed two months in Cumberland and Westmorland. I could now almost fancy myself among the Swiss mountains.

Really, Victor, is that so? GET TO WORK. They’re here and there and Victor keeps describing scenery—mountains and rivers and fields. Look at the men of Dracula comparatively—Seward, Harker, Van Helsing, the other guys—they’re all working, all the time. They’re staying up all night doing blood transfusions on Lucy, then they’re staking out the cemetery, then they’re planning to infiltrate the Count’s house, and they’re jumping on and off trains. They’re dynamos. I’m not saying that Dracula is an inherently better book for that, or those men inherently better characters. Victor’s ambivalence and fretting over what he’s done is complex and interesting. It just makes the book a bit less suspenseful than Stoker’s. Supposedly Mary Shelley originally composed the story to be told around a roaring fire. Maybe she put in all the aimless wandering later.

Philosophically, it’s incredibly interesting—tons of circuitous little routes to follow. The most obvious is the question of the man of science playing God. In high school, which was the first time I read Frankenstein, I wrote a paper about how the debate about technology and ethics was still relevant to the modern world, using the cloning controversy as my example. (Remember Dolly, the first cloned sheep? She was new then.)

This time, I was fascinated by the part where the monster demanded that Frankenstein make him a mate. He basically lays blackmail at Victor's feet—he says, I am unloved so I am unhappy. As long as I’m unhappy, everybody DIES. Make me a girl and you’ll never hear from us again. If you don’t, everybody DIES. I started thinking about the idea of the outcast, the pariah, and what their retaliatory rights actually are. If society disenfranchises a person (or a race, or an ethnic group, or a gender or a class, etc.) does that person/race/group have the right to turn to violence? Or should they turn the other cheek? You could trace a lot of different philosophical perspectives all congregating in this one scene.

I don’t know why Victor doesn’t just kill the monster, though. He has many opportunities; presumably one good shot to the head would do it. Then he DOES decide to kill the monster. But he waits until morning, and then he walks on the beach to think about it, and then he takes a nap. This is maybe the most meandery book I’ve ever read. Still, the hype is true. It’s a masterpiece of the English language. ...more

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Jun 09, 2011 Thomas rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classic, sci-fi-fanasty-dystopian

Frankenstein was sadly not at all what I expected it to be. I thought it was going to be a gothic horror book with the monster destroying towns and what not. But no it turned out that the monster just wanted to be excepted by mankind and have a partner to live with. The book started out slow and never really got to intense. It did however have me on the edge of my seat most of the time because I wanted something to happen. Overall an average classic novel.

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