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I read this as Frankenstein Weekly, a book club email list that was set up after the popularity of Dracula Daily last year. I'm glad, because I’ve been meaning to read this book for years but never got round to it, and having it show up in my inbox by chapter was very convenient.
And certainly the book is an interesting read. But one I enjoyed more as a historical artifact than as a novel to my tastes, honestly.
I genuinely enjoyed the part from the Creature’s pov; he was sympathetic, even if he made bad choices in the end. But the vast majority of the narrative is from Frankenstein's pov and I find him just irritating tbh. He has no drive to take responsibility for his actions ever, and not even in an interesting way! And yet Walton is entirely admiring of Frankenstein, and Frankenstein seems to be presented to the reader as a guy you’re supposed to sympathize with.
BUT. Despite all the pro-Frankenstein content, the Creature gets the last word in the book, in the end! I love that.
It strikes me that in the context this book was written, when sff didn’t exist as a genre yet, expecting the reader to sympathize with a monstrous and unnatural being was likely a big ask, and so what the book is doing is trying to show that even when people with many admirable virtues hate a being they see as a monster, that monster can still have virtues of its own and a reasonable perspective worth listening to, and shouldn’t be shunned without question. Which, hey, a moral that continues to be relevant!
And certainly the book is an interesting read. But one I enjoyed more as a historical artifact than as a novel to my tastes, honestly.
I genuinely enjoyed the part from the Creature’s pov; he was sympathetic, even if he made bad choices in the end. But the vast majority of the narrative is from Frankenstein's pov and I find him just irritating tbh. He has no drive to take responsibility for his actions ever, and not even in an interesting way! And yet Walton is entirely admiring of Frankenstein, and Frankenstein seems to be presented to the reader as a guy you’re supposed to sympathize with.
BUT. Despite all the pro-Frankenstein content, the Creature gets the last word in the book, in the end! I love that.
It strikes me that in the context this book was written, when sff didn’t exist as a genre yet, expecting the reader to sympathize with a monstrous and unnatural being was likely a big ask, and so what the book is doing is trying to show that even when people with many admirable virtues hate a being they see as a monster, that monster can still have virtues of its own and a reasonable perspective worth listening to, and shouldn’t be shunned without question. Which, hey, a moral that continues to be relevant!
