T.E. W. (terez93) reviewed Frankenstein: The 1818 Text (Penguin Classics) on + 273 more book reviews
I've read sections of this nineteenth-century masterpiece on several prior occasions, but I've never actually read it in its entirety, until now. There are, in fact, as in the case of many books we often see as completed and uncontroversial wholes, multiple editions. This is the earliest, the 1818 edition, which I wanted to read first. Maybe I'll get around to reading the 1830s one at a later date.
First and foremost, I definitely notice the stark contrast between novels of the previous century and those of the modern day, where the former are full of complexity and often consist largely of a (sometimes veiled and sometimes an overt) exploration of the human condition, especially the human psyche. In short: they are full, replete with nuance and subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) allegory, which, in my opinion, is so lacking in the vast majority of modern fiction. There are some exceptions, to be sure: I've been devouring Kurt Vonnegut, Truman Capote and John Steinbeck novels recently, which are as replete with nuance and powerful messages as their nineteenth-century predecessors, but that's a rarity in anything much published in the last decade or so, in my opinion. Perhaps that's why they're classics: no matter the subject matter, they speak to generations facing many of the same questions as their Victorian predecessors. Maybe modern fiction has something to offer as well in that regard, but I'm just not acknowledging it, or that it serves the same purpose, but in a different way. I wouldn't call most of these century-old novels pleasure reading, either, although they are highly important and contribute to the way in which we conceive our world and ourselves, and, that's probably the point.
On the whole, to me, this masterful novel speaks to underlying tensions between "the sexes," but in a covert manner. A fair amount of the content focuses on the subject of life, creation, and man's perversion of nature by transgressing the realm of woman to bring about new life, with devastating consequences. At the same time, it applies to the main character, VF, many of the stereotypical failings attributed to women of that era, such as blaming others for their own follies, as in the case of the character Victor F., who blames his father for some of his misfortunes: his father had tried a little harder to dissuade him from reading the works of Cornelius Agrippa, "it is even possible that the train of my ideas would never have received the fatal impulse that led to my ruin. But the cursory glance my father had taken of my volume by no means assured me that he was acquainted with its contents, and I continued to read with the greatest avidity."
It's difficult to tell sometimes whether she's surreptitiously criticizing the view of women, or whether she accepts the social views of their virtues: she describes, for example, "Elizabeth L," described as uncommonly "affectionate," graceful, light, airy, seeming without substance, other than for her fair nature, docile, good-tempered, fragile, whom the VF "loved to tend on her, like I would a favourite animal." But there is also the great ambivalence and disquiet that man is incapable of giving life, seemingly the realm of women, an ability they lack, and here attempt to atone for, with devastating consequences when one perverts nature to transgress its boundaries. F even notes as much: "It was a most beautiful season; never did the fields bestow a more plentiful harvest, or the vines yield a more luxuriant vintage: but my eyes were insensible o the charms of nature." Only occupied with the profane, the perverse, ignoring the subtle signs of the propriety of nature which was ceaselessly engaged in the timeless, ancient cycle of birth and renewal, of a reproduction of the natural rather than unnatural kind F is involved in, concealed in his attic "workshop of filthy creation." He is blind to nature's warning, occupied only with his own perverted self-gratification and aggrandizement.
A cautionary tale: how can one stand in the light of discovery and not act? The reasons are here within. The maker's intent: "if I could bestow animation upon lifeless matter, I might in process of time (although I now found it impossible) renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption." Good intentions gone astray. As the "monster" notes, "how dare you sport thus with life?" An innocent at birth, without language or understanding, but seeking that which all beings desire: love and acceptance, affection and human interaction, but, because of its monstrous form and deviation from nature, the creature is rejected, and turns to the most base evil and vengeance on the one who created it.
Does not describe the process of bringing the creature to life, or provide any specificity as to how F managed it; it's almost like after thought, the details of the process, because the real point is the larger picture of F's monstrous acts, which he even acknowledges are contrary to nature and obscene.: "now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart." This eerily mirrors Shelley's own dream of her lost child, a daughter who died shortly after birth. She wrote of this dream in her diary, in 1815, that she dreamed that her baby came to life again when she was warmed by the fire, but when she awoke, there was no child to be found.
-----------NOTABLE PASSAGES----------
I shall commit my thoughts to paper, it is true; but that is a poor medium for the communication of feeling.
A human being in perfection ought always to preserve calm and peaceful mind, and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquility.
It is certainly more to cultivate the earth for the sustenance of man, than to be the confidant, and sometimes the accomplice, of his vices: which is the profession of a lawyer.
Nothing is more painful to the human mind, than, after the feelings have been worked up by a quick succession of events, the dead calmness of inaction and certainty which follows, and deprives the soul both of hope and fear.
Why does man boast of sensibilities superior to those apparent in the brute; it only renders them more necessary beings.
If our impulses were confined to hunger, thirst, and desire, we might be nearly free; but now we are moved by every wind that blows, and a chance word or scene that word may convey to us.
So much does suffering blunt even the coarsest sensations of men.
First and foremost, I definitely notice the stark contrast between novels of the previous century and those of the modern day, where the former are full of complexity and often consist largely of a (sometimes veiled and sometimes an overt) exploration of the human condition, especially the human psyche. In short: they are full, replete with nuance and subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) allegory, which, in my opinion, is so lacking in the vast majority of modern fiction. There are some exceptions, to be sure: I've been devouring Kurt Vonnegut, Truman Capote and John Steinbeck novels recently, which are as replete with nuance and powerful messages as their nineteenth-century predecessors, but that's a rarity in anything much published in the last decade or so, in my opinion. Perhaps that's why they're classics: no matter the subject matter, they speak to generations facing many of the same questions as their Victorian predecessors. Maybe modern fiction has something to offer as well in that regard, but I'm just not acknowledging it, or that it serves the same purpose, but in a different way. I wouldn't call most of these century-old novels pleasure reading, either, although they are highly important and contribute to the way in which we conceive our world and ourselves, and, that's probably the point.
On the whole, to me, this masterful novel speaks to underlying tensions between "the sexes," but in a covert manner. A fair amount of the content focuses on the subject of life, creation, and man's perversion of nature by transgressing the realm of woman to bring about new life, with devastating consequences. At the same time, it applies to the main character, VF, many of the stereotypical failings attributed to women of that era, such as blaming others for their own follies, as in the case of the character Victor F., who blames his father for some of his misfortunes: his father had tried a little harder to dissuade him from reading the works of Cornelius Agrippa, "it is even possible that the train of my ideas would never have received the fatal impulse that led to my ruin. But the cursory glance my father had taken of my volume by no means assured me that he was acquainted with its contents, and I continued to read with the greatest avidity."
It's difficult to tell sometimes whether she's surreptitiously criticizing the view of women, or whether she accepts the social views of their virtues: she describes, for example, "Elizabeth L," described as uncommonly "affectionate," graceful, light, airy, seeming without substance, other than for her fair nature, docile, good-tempered, fragile, whom the VF "loved to tend on her, like I would a favourite animal." But there is also the great ambivalence and disquiet that man is incapable of giving life, seemingly the realm of women, an ability they lack, and here attempt to atone for, with devastating consequences when one perverts nature to transgress its boundaries. F even notes as much: "It was a most beautiful season; never did the fields bestow a more plentiful harvest, or the vines yield a more luxuriant vintage: but my eyes were insensible o the charms of nature." Only occupied with the profane, the perverse, ignoring the subtle signs of the propriety of nature which was ceaselessly engaged in the timeless, ancient cycle of birth and renewal, of a reproduction of the natural rather than unnatural kind F is involved in, concealed in his attic "workshop of filthy creation." He is blind to nature's warning, occupied only with his own perverted self-gratification and aggrandizement.
A cautionary tale: how can one stand in the light of discovery and not act? The reasons are here within. The maker's intent: "if I could bestow animation upon lifeless matter, I might in process of time (although I now found it impossible) renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption." Good intentions gone astray. As the "monster" notes, "how dare you sport thus with life?" An innocent at birth, without language or understanding, but seeking that which all beings desire: love and acceptance, affection and human interaction, but, because of its monstrous form and deviation from nature, the creature is rejected, and turns to the most base evil and vengeance on the one who created it.
Does not describe the process of bringing the creature to life, or provide any specificity as to how F managed it; it's almost like after thought, the details of the process, because the real point is the larger picture of F's monstrous acts, which he even acknowledges are contrary to nature and obscene.: "now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart." This eerily mirrors Shelley's own dream of her lost child, a daughter who died shortly after birth. She wrote of this dream in her diary, in 1815, that she dreamed that her baby came to life again when she was warmed by the fire, but when she awoke, there was no child to be found.
-----------NOTABLE PASSAGES----------
I shall commit my thoughts to paper, it is true; but that is a poor medium for the communication of feeling.
A human being in perfection ought always to preserve calm and peaceful mind, and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquility.
It is certainly more to cultivate the earth for the sustenance of man, than to be the confidant, and sometimes the accomplice, of his vices: which is the profession of a lawyer.
Nothing is more painful to the human mind, than, after the feelings have been worked up by a quick succession of events, the dead calmness of inaction and certainty which follows, and deprives the soul both of hope and fear.
Why does man boast of sensibilities superior to those apparent in the brute; it only renders them more necessary beings.
If our impulses were confined to hunger, thirst, and desire, we might be nearly free; but now we are moved by every wind that blows, and a chance word or scene that word may convey to us.
So much does suffering blunt even the coarsest sensations of men.
