Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818 version)

Date read: 12/18/21

So first off, I'm not sure how long this took me to read, because my husband finished the first draft of one of his novels and I read that also while I was reading this.

Also, a woman is killed in this novel but I am not adding it to the Violence Against Women counter because of several reasons: she wasn't killed because she was a woman, but to hurt someone else; her death was pertinent to the story and not just for it's own sake like in The Bend in the River; and finally, because the actual violence isn't depicted in the novel.

Now, to my assessment of Frankenstein, one of the most famous novels of all time. Frankly...it was kinda boring. I'm sure this was a page turner in 1818 when Shelley wrote it. Other novels of the time like The Legend of Sleepy Hollow were also frightening in similar ways. But in 2021, it was kinda bleh. Long periods of very flowery dialog and the ending is very anticlimactic.

In essence, this entire story can be summed up with "that escalated quickly". Victor Frankenstein, a Mary Sue character who can do amazing things no one else can do, decides to reanimate a corpse. Or, rather, a body made of corpse pieces. Unlike in the movie versions, there is no "It's alive, alive!!!" or lightening. In fact, the whole making of the monster is blink-and-you-miss-it. It happens very quickly and basically off-stage. You don't see it. Then, after making this monster, Victor...goes and takes a nap.

I suspect parts of this were an allegory of the book of Genesis. Given when it was written I can see where you'd want to be very circumspect about Biblical criticism. At any rate, the majority of the novel is Victor refusing to take responsibility for what he's done and take any action to fix the situation. And he ends up alone.

Given this was an early version of the horror genre, I can see where a lot of tropes we recognize now as cliches got their start.

All in all, it was an old novel that does not now carry the punch it did then.

Rereadable: probably not

Time to Read: Unsure - a few days; the version I borrowed from the library was half this novel, and half a bunch of commentary on the novel (like literally the second half of the book was commentary, which I did not read, because I wanted to form my own opinion).

Classic: Yes, if only because it was one of the first novels of this kind. Also because Mary Shelley was bad ass.