This is the second book I’ve completed in my attempt to go back and read some classic or at least well-known books. These are books that I feel that I should have read at some point, but have never gotten around to actually picking up. Not quite a resolution, but something which was inspired by a class on ‘readers advisory’ held in January by the Queens Library system. If you’re paying attention you’ll remember that the first was Agatha Christie’s AND THEN THERE WERE NONE. As with that book I’m not going to do a review as such but rather talk about what the book brought to mind, either regarding the book or other media interpretations of the story.

Mary Shelley’s FRANKENSTEIN was first published in 1818, when Shelley herself wasn’t yet twenty years of age. Conceived originally several years previously when she, her husband (the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley) and several house guests were passing the time reading German ghost stories. Mary and two others set out to create their own stories, but only she actually completed a work. She wrote that the idea came to her as she tried to fall asleep. She said she saw the image of a young man kneeling and working on an artificial being only to have that being come to life to confront his creator. It was that haunting image which formed the inspiration for the story.

Like many folks of my generation, it was the Universal version of that monster with which I first became familiar. I was probably ten or eleven years old when I first saw the movie FRANKENSTEIN on television. During the late 1950s and early ‘60s every television market had some late night television program (likely called “Chiller Theatre” or some such) which ran on a Friday or Saturday night after the late news. From talking to others and reading the articles written by my contemporaries I think we all shared those same memories of sitting up while our parents thought us asleep. No lights save that coming from the B&W set before us, totally hypnotized by what we saw.

The version of Frankenstein we knew was a gaunt and hollow eyed giant, portrayed by Boris Karloff (and later by others including Bela Lugosi and Glenn Strange). He had a flattened head, with metal bolts protruding from his neck. His stiff, slow gait would have allowed most of his victims to escape if they hadn’t been frozen in fear at his very appearance. The creature which Shelley described was indeed horrid to look upon, but it was the yellowish tint of his skin, gigantic height (he stood close to eight feet tall) and other unnamed deformities that caused folks to be startled. In the novel, Frankenstein does not use electricity to bring his creation to life, but rather some unspecified method.

Shelley’s monster is also not mute, as Karloff was in his initial appearance. Through months of observing others, Frankenstein’s creation teaches itself to both speak and to read. Those sections of the novel narrated by the creature demonstrate that he is probably more literate and intellectually curious than most of those around him. It is because of this that we feel sympathy for his plight despite some of his more horrendous deeds.

I’ve seen enough versions on film and television, plus I read the Classic Illustrated version as a kid. Still I don’t remember actually reading the novel even back in high school, where I read just about everything I could get my hands on. I must admit though that as I read the book there were some scenes which seemed to register, as if I had read it before. Very possible that I discovered one of those ‘bowdlerized’ editions that some schools liked to have on hand for we sensitive young minds.

I was reminded as I read that the book was originally published at a time when there were still folks about with memories of the American Revolution. The War of 1812 was only a few years in the past and Napoleon was in exile on the island of St. Helena. The events which make up the story are supposedly taking place at some point in the later part of the 18th century. The movies adapted from the novel for the most part tend to place it in the Victorian era or in the early 20th century, if you look at the styles and equipment used in the Universal films. The language and viewpoints of the novel bring to mind a much different mindset than our own. An age still violent, but when men and women of intellect seemed to believe that we might move beyond the superstition and ignorance of the past. Sadly, while modern technology has advanced to a point that our forebears could not have imagined, society itself has not progressed nearly as fast or as far as they would have hoped.

The book is brilliantly written, but almost unbearably tragic. The character of Victor Frankenstein, who we generally see portrayed as slightly mad to begin with, is here driven not by madness but by curiosity and a desire to understand. Like Prometheus (note the novel’s subtitle: The modern Prometheus) Frankenstein is cursed by fate for what he has brought forth. He suffers not physical pain, but a mental anguish as he sees all he loves destroyed by the creature he brought to life.

It is perhaps the ultimate cautionary tale of man attempting to duplicate that which only nature can or should do. Almost two hundred years after it was first published Victor and his ‘monster’ have become two of the most well known creations in literature. It’s not hard to understand why the story continues to resonate after all this time.