“Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus” by Mary Shelley

Frankenstein needs no introduction. It was groundbreaking; arguably, the very first novel of speculative fiction. It has been highly influential on culture and society, and is one of the most important novels ever written.

None of that, however, is the same thing as “good.”

I’m not going to explain the premise, because I’m assuming you all know it. I will explain the plot, however, because I (as I discovered) did not. Before reading this, I would have said it was about Victor Frankenstein’s all-consuming drive to create life; he stitches together a being from parts of corpses, brings it to life, and it is shunned and hated for its appearance which drives it to a murderous rampage.

That’s only “kind of” what this is about. Spoilers for the 208-year-old book from this point.

The creation of the monster is not what the book is about. Victor does that while at university; he certainly was driven to distraction while doing it, but the book passes over that pretty quickly. The book is about Victor’s horror at what he has created, and about the monster’s horror at his own existence and rage at Victor for having created him in the first place.

What we as readers get is monologues. Lots of monologues. Very, very long monologues. I seriously do not understand where Hollywood got the “monster only talks in grunts” thing from, because the dude will not shut up. And at that he’s not any worse than Victor is.

The writing is very, very plodding. I’ve read plenty of things that are more or less contemporary to this, and a number of things that are older, so I’m not prepared to just blame it on being an older book. Shelley hoards paragraph breaks like a dragon. At one point I was complaining about it to some friends; it took me 6 screenshots from my phone to show one single paragraph in its entirety. That was typical.

And the digressions. The frame story is that Victor was pursuing the monster across the Arctic Ocean sea ice when he was rescued by a passing ship; the bulk of the book is the captain of the ship recording the story Victor told. But the frame story also has a frame story; the captain of the Arctic ship was an Englishman seeking the Northwest Passage, and is relating his encounter with Victor in letters to his sister. So we get a story within a story within a story.

But wait, there’s more! We also get long, looooooong passages that are the monster telling his story to Victor, so that’s a story within a story within a story within a story. And within that, the monster tells Victor a story, so we get a story within a story within a story within a story within a story. That story is about a family in a cabin that he was watching; they were French aristocrats, now penniless and exiled. They had been in Paris when a Turkish merchant was being unfairly persecuted because of his religion; the son of the French aristocrat was angered at this injustice, and vowed to break him out of prison. The Turk, overwhelmed with gratitude, promised the young Frenchman anything he had, including the hand of his daughter. But the young Frenchman was too noble for that, and accepted nothing; nevertheless, he and the beautiful daughter fell in love, and he asked her father for permission to marry her. But his involvement in the escape of the Turkish merchant became known, and he, his father, and sister were sent into poor exile in Switzerland, and ….

Seriously, what is the point? If it’s social commentary, it’s completely opaque to me. I suppose the important thing is that he had an onion on his belt, which was the style at the time.

In the end I’m glad I read this, because it’s a book I feel like I should have read. I recognize it’s influence and how much it has shaped modern thought about the duties of creator to created, and vice versa. But I can’t say I enjoyed reading it.