Hello everybody! Here I'd like to discuss Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, which I literally just finished reading just now. The book was inspired by Mary Shelly and her friends friends who used to tell each other ghost stories around the campfire, they all decided they should all write their own ghost story and whoever wrote the best one, that one would get published. This is the only one that got done and published folks. Its quite good and inspired movie(s), cartoons, video games, and much more. The first unedited version was written and published in 1819, making this the oldest science fiction I've ever read, wow!
This book can be a little difficult to get into at first. Everybody knows the story of Frankenstein and the book only differs from the movie in some slight ways. For example, the monster here is eloquent and quite poetic, however, that is just the writing, times, and style of the book. The writing is quite formal, which is expected of the time in which it was written. For instead of thinking of the monster as eloquent, its more evident that the monster is a product of the times (1819) and that he is still quite evil despite his mastery of persuasion and making the reader feel sympathy for the state of this pathetic wretch.
The main difference from the book and the 1930s movie we've all seen is that Victor Frankenstein (the creator, mad scientist) gets a full biography and history where we learn near the end that the woman he is to marry is a childhood friend that his family took in, almost like a sister, which to me was a little incestuous but otherwise not that different from the movie. In addition, his monster torments and kills members of his family in the book, whereas in the movie the monster accidentally kills a villager's daughter. Also, the ending of the book is quite different from the movie, but I do like that after all is said and done our monster runs away like a thief into the night. It was quite a fitting ending for what could be construed as science fiction horror.
Today we look at this kind of thing and call it horror but back at its inception this type of writing would be considered science fiction. Mary Shelly's writing here is quite stylized; formal, educated, high art of a certain style. Its definitely a product of its time and I could see some people having trouble getting used to the literary style. I've found that I really enjoy these old types of science fiction writings, especially by women, they have a certain voice that men don't have. I suspect I'll learn more about this as I read more and more science fiction by female authors. I just ordered Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, which is a sort of feminist cyberpunk sort of thing. I'm looking forward to reading that next.
However, Frankenstein is a hellova novel. I liked it so much that I'll probably want to read it again in the future, probably some months or years down the line. There's a sensation of eerie evil doings alongside justice in this book and it seems to do it in a literary personable voice rather than just being sinister just because. It's great, and if you like the movie then you should definitely check out the book.
"Cursed, cursed creator! Why did I live? Why, in that instant, did I not extinguish the spark of existence which you had so wantonly bestowed? I know not; despair had not yet taken possession of me; my feelings were those of rage and revenge. I could with pleasure have destroyed the cottage and its inhabitants and have glutted myself with their shrieks and misery."
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