The most incredible footnote to me concerning Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, written in 1818, is that she wrote the story when she was nineteen years old (what kind of nineteen-year old thinks like this)?
Mary Shelley was by no means your ordinary teenager. She married poet Percy Blythe Shelly and hung out with intellectuals such as William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge (good guys to have in your book club). The book was actually inspired by Percy Shelley to his circle of intimate friends when he challenged them to write the best ghost story that they could conjure up. Guess who won?
The Frankenstein story itself addresses a number of issues which are still relevant today. From my point of view its main theme is really about alienation and isolation. The so-called monster has been thrown out into the world by Dr. Victor Frankenstein with no place to go and the reader soon empathizes with his lonesome soul. The aftermath of our modern day technological revolution has spawned a generation of similar isolated individuals who stare blankly at their computers every day in Frankenstein–like desolation. The difference is that Frankenstein is damned in his immortality: we are not.
Immortality raises another modern day conundrum. With time warp technology advancements of stem cell development; just how long are we supposed to live? Could it be that Shelley had such far reaching insight?
Frankenstein sees beauty all around him but he when sees his grotesque reflection in a pond, his anguish and hopelessness of being forever damned to walk the earth in isolation and deformity transforms him into the “monster.”
Everyone has seen the Frankenstein movies (the remake with Robert Deniro is the best one); but how many of you have read the book? In honor of Halloween, sit down and read this classic: You will remember it for the rest of your life.
