Book: Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”

In 2018 I’ve attempted to read more older books than I have in the past. Back in the early 2000s I devoured 1-2 dozen classic books like “Tess of D’Urbevilles,” “The Jungle,” “Ethan Frome,” and “Heart of Darkness,” just to name a few. One that I never got around to reading was Mary Shelley’s “Frankestein.” Given that it is October, and Halloween is upon us, I decided to give it a go and recently finished listening to the audiobook.

The language was very repetitive.

One word that stuck out at me was the word “livid” which she only used three times, but in ways not typically used today.

In Chapter 5, “her lips, they became livid with the hue of death,” in chapter 7, ” I discovered my lovely boy, whom the night before I had seen blooming and active in health, stretched on the grass livid and motionless,” and finally in Chapter 21, “I was seated in a chair, my eyes half open and my cheeks livid like those in death.” I typically consider the word “livid” to mean angry, but with Shelley’s use, the word is associated entirely with death.

Another word she used a lot was “indefatigable” which is as hard to say as it is to read correctly the first time you see it. *lol* It’s another word only used three times in the book, but it’s a word not often used today and so it also stood out for me.

The third word she enjoyed using was “ignominy” or other form thereof, using it five times. Two of those times were in subsequent paragraphs, which seems like a lack of creativity.

And yet the writing itself was incredibly creative and so much more expressive than what passes today for literature. For instance, in Chapter 23 she writes:

“I trembled with excess of agitation as I said this; there was a frenzy in my manner, and something, I doubt not, of that haughty fierceness which the martyrs of old are said to
have possessed.”

If that had been written today, I would have been a much more simple, “I shook as I spoke, with rage only known by scapegoats of the past.” Is that creative? Sure – but nearly as creative as Shelley’s description.

It was an interesting read, in that it was a triple-decker story (picture the movie “Inception” with a dream within a dream within a dream). The story begins with a man on a ship writing letters home, and mentioning picking up a man on the ice. The story than moves to the man on the ice (Victor Frankenstein) telling his story which culminates in his reason for being on the ice. But during HIS storytelling, the Monster he created tells HIS story. And the story I enjoyed the most? The Monster’s. Although the Audible reading, done by Dan Stevens from “Downtown Abbey,” was a bit distracting because the voice he used for the Monster sounded a lot like Enrico Colantoni as Mathesar in the movie “Galaxy Quest.”

Should you read the book? I think yes, it was interesting enough that I’m happy to add it to my “completed” column. I’d also be curious to see a film more closely reliant on the source material than the versions that are out there now that stray tremendously far from the original.

What other classic should I read?