Surely everyone has read Frankenstein? Well, I hadn't...

Of course, I was familiar with the overall idea. And I'd seen one of the film adaptations (Kenneth Branagh's 1994 version, which I thought was good, but which does mess with the story quite considerably).

But as for reading the text, which was first published in 1818, and written by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851), the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, an early women's rights advocate -- that I hadn't.

And actually I didn't read it this time, either. I listened to a narration by Dan Stevens. Who might have made the voice of the "monster" a little too soft and plaintive, but otherwise did an excellent job.

As has already come up in Imposture by Benjamin Markovits, Mary Shelley (then still Mary Godwin) spent the rainy summer of 1816 at the Villa Diodati near Lake Geneva, in the company of Percy Bysshe Shelley (her husband-to-be, but still married to someone else at this point); her stepsister; Lord Byron; and Byron's doctor, John Polidori.

The reason the weather was so terrible was the previous year's eruption of Mount Tambora on the island of Sumbawa, in Indonesia, which caused a massive shift in the global climate. Anyway, confined as they were, they grew restive, and as a distraction, Byron proposed they each write a ghost story. He himself wrote a fragment based on vampire myths from eastern Europe, which Polidori (after failing to finish some potboiler about a skull-headed lady) later developed into The Vampyre, the forerunner of the genre we now know so well.

Mary Godwin, meanwhile, began Frankenstein. The idea, she says in an Introduction to the 1831 edition, grew from a conversation between Byron and Shelley about "the nature of the principle of life".


Mary Shelley

Two things here:

The first is that this kind of subject matter was very much in the air at that point. William Abernethy and William Lawrence had debated the origins of the human life force at the Royal College of Surgeons (added spark or intrinsic energy?); Luigi Galvani had been doing experiments with electricity which seemed to make dead matter move (and his nephew took them ostentatiously further by touring Europe with a demonstration of how human corpses could be animated by electricity); resuscitation techniques were being pioneered by the Royal Humane Society; and Humphrey Davy was doing public performances of his experiments (chemistry, he wrote, had given humans "powers which may almost be called creative").

The second point is that Mary describes herself as paying attention to these conversations in the role of "devout but nearly silent listener". As Fiona Sampson comments, it doesn't seem to have occurred to any of the men at the Villa that Mary -- having already given birth twice (her first child was born prematurely, and died after just a few days) -- probably knew a bit more about such 'principles' than they did.

Anyway, after one of these conversations, Mary struggles to sleep:

"I saw -- with shut eyes, but acute mental vision -- I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world. His success would terrify the artist; he would rush away from his odious handywork, horror-stricken. He would hope that, left to itself, the slight spark of life which he had communicated would fade; that this thing, which had received such imperfect animation, would subside into dead matter; and he might sleep in the belief that the silence of the grave would quench for ever the transient existence of the hideous corpse which he had looked upon as the cradle of life. He sleeps; but he is awakened; he opens his eyes; behold the horrid thing stands at his bedside, opening his curtains, and looking on him with yellow, watery, but speculative eyes.

"I opened mine in terror. The idea so possessed my mind, that a thrill of fear ran through me, and I wished to exchange the ghastly image of my fancy for the realities around. I see them still; the very room, the dark parquet, the closed shutters, with the moonlight struggling through, and the sense I had that the glassy lake and white high Alps were beyond. I could not so easily get rid of my hideous phantom; still it haunted me...

"Swift as light and as cheering was the idea that broke in upon me. 'I have found it! What terrified me will terrify others; and I need only describe the spectre which had haunted my midnight pillow.' On the morrow I announced that I had thought of a story. I began that day with the words, 'It was on a dreary night of November', making only a transcript of the grim terrors of my waking dream."

It's hard to believe that Mary Godwin is still only 18 at this point...


Frankenstein: "I am by birth a Genevese..."

She finished writing Frankenstein in May 1817. It came out in January 1818, but this first edition did not cite Mary as the author. Many assumed it was Percy's work (analysis shows he contributed corrections that amounted to around 6 per cent of the text -- "rather less than any line editor working in publishing today").

That first edition didn't sell that well, but by the time the second edition came out in 1823, there was also a theatrical adaptation. And, as we said, a third (revised) edition appeared in 1831.

And since then, well, we know what an archetype Frankenstein has become. It remains one of the bestselling Gothic novels of all time; no fewer than 58 separate plays in the UK Theatre database have Frankenstein in the title; and the character has made an appearance in 177 television and movie productions.

***

The book starts out with a series of letters to Mrs Margaret Saville, the sister of Captain Robert Walton, who is an explorer attempting to find the fabled Northwest Passage. Already Walton is demonstrating ambition and over-confidence: "What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man?"

Sailors on his ship spot a gigantic figure speeding across the ice that presses closely in on them. The next day they rescue a European, in a dog sledge, adrift on a large fragment of ice. This man is Victor Frankenstein.

Walton speaks to him enthusiastically about his project: "One man’s life or death were but a small price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which I sought, for the dominion I should acquire and transmit over the elemental foes of our race." But his guest rebukes him: "Unhappy man! Do you share my madness? Have you drunk also of the intoxicating draught?... You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been. I do not know that the relation of my disasters will be useful to you; yet, when I reflect that you are pursuing the same course, exposing yourself to the same dangers which have rendered me what I am, I imagine that you may deduce an apt moral from my tale, one that may direct you if you succeed in your undertaking and console you in case of failure."

So this is the framework. It's a tale that warns against over-ambition and the failure to foresee negative consequences (these characteristics are underlined by the subtitle: The Modern Prometheus).

From here, the story is told in the first person by Frankenstein. He has had a happy family life. He is destined to marry Elizabeth, the young woman adopted into his household. He has a good friend, called Henry Clerval.


The National Monument, commemorating Geneva's entry into the Swiss Confederation in 1814, just a couple of years before the conception of Frankenstein

But Frankenstein is interested in science. He first pursues the somewhat antique variant that verges on magic; he later takes up the empirical, enlightenment-driven version, whose practitioners "have acquired new and almost unlimited powers".

At Ingolstadt, he studies anatomy, death, and decay (this is a very Gothic little section), and then: "After days and nights of incredible labour and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life; nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter."

But his collection of lifeless matter is not prettily obtained: "I collected bones from charnel-houses and disturbed, with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets of the human frame. In a solitary chamber, or rather cell, at the top of the house, and separated from all the other apartments by a gallery and staircase, I kept my workshop of filthy creation... The dissecting room and the slaughter-house furnished many of my materials; and often did my human nature turn with loathing from my occupation, whilst, still urged on by an eagerness which perpetually increased, I brought my work near to a conclusion."

It's Chapter 5 that brings us the spark of life. It's not as dramatic as some of the movie versions make it, but it's still pretty horrifying: "With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs."

So, he's made his super-sized being, composed of a collection of body parts, come alive... But -- and here is the central tragedy -- he is disgusted by what he has made. He flees, utterly appalled by its ugliness.

He's laid low for a long time with the kind of fever that seems to opportunely beset 19th-century literary figures. And then, when he has started to recover, he hears that not only has his brother William been murdered, but Justine, the servant who has become a respected part of his family's household, has been accused. She is sentenced, and executed.

Victor feels terrible, but says nothing that could elucidate the matter. Then he encounters the "abhorred monster" in the mountains. The creature is a total outcast, his ugliness and stature making him terrifying to human beings, and ensuring that he will never be part of any community.



From Chapter 11, we have the being's story, told in his own words. We hear of his struggles, his attempts to learn. We hear of the family he observes -- and covertly helps. He tries to gain the confidence of the old man, who is blind. But then the others arrive, and are -- predictably -- repulsed and petrified. So he goes from hope to rage and revenge.

It is actually very moving, very plausible. How can you live if NOBODY loves you? How can you NOT turn bad under those circumstances?

The family flees. Bereft again, the creature resolves to seek out his creator. On the way, he rescues a child from drowning. But the person with the child shoots at him: "This was then the reward of my benevolence!" He swears vengeance on all mankind.

He runs into William by accident, but the child lets slip his name: "'You belong then to my enemy...' The child still struggled and loaded me with epithets which carried despair to my heart; I grasped his throat to silence him, and in a moment he lay dead at my feet." He leaves the little portrait the boy is carrying with the sleeping Justine, having figured out that this will incriminate her.

Then the being demands that Frankenstein create him a partner: "I am malicious because I am miserable... If any being felt emotions of benevolence towards me, I should return them a hundred and a hundredfold; for that one creature’s sake I would make peace with the whole kind!" And Frankenstein initially consents.

So, although it is agreed that it's time for Victor and Elizabeth to marry, he first begs for a period of travel (with the goal of finding a quiet place where he can fulfil his promise).

Down the Rhine. Through Holland. On to England.


Frankenstein travels through Matlock, although -- as I noted here -- it's actually Matlock Bath that is being referenced

Up to Scotland, to "one of the remotest of the Orkneys". And Frankenstein sets to work. But then he changes his mind: What if he creates something even more evil and vindictive? His original creation might agree to go off and inhabit the remote parts of the world, but would his partner? And what if they hate each other? Would that not make them more destructive? And even if none of that happened, and they went off together to a region where they could do no harm, surely they would have children? Who could answer for what those offspring would do? "Had I right, for my own benefit, to inflict this curse upon everlasting generations? ... I shuddered to think that future ages might curse me as their pest, whose selfishness had not hesitated to buy its own peace at the price, perhaps, of the existence of the whole human race."

So he breaks his promise. The "monster" is furious, and vows vengeance.

And now Clerval is dead... And Frankenstein is accused. Another fever. For two months he's on the brink of death. But he still makes no public avowal of his role in all these events. He tells his father that William, Justine, and Henry all died by his hand, but his father -- understandably -- doesn't know what to make of that.

Victor is still planning to marry Elizabeth, but he's very conscious of "the threat of the fiend" to be with him on his wedding-night. The would-be bridegroom writes to Elizabeth, telling her he will confide to her a secret -- but not until they're married (which is the kind of grossly unfair thing you can really only get away with in novels).

After the marriage ceremony, the couple set out to sail to Evian. Once landed, they walk a little. Then, Victor sends her back to their room. WTF?? He has not checked it out!!! Not done any of that penguin stuff where you go swivelling around into all the corners, shouting "Clear!"

So he's out inspecting the corridors -- the corridors, dammit, when we KNOW he should be doing the room! -- and he hears a scream... Of course he does... And she's dead: "While I still hung over her in the agony of despair, I happened to look up. The windows of the room had before been darkened, and I felt a kind of panic on seeing the pale yellow light of the moon illuminate the chamber. The shutters had been thrown back, and with a sensation of horror not to be described, I saw at the open window a figure the most hideous and abhorred. A grin was on the face of the monster; he seemed to jeer, as with his fiendish finger he pointed towards the corpse of my wife. I rushed towards the window, and drawing a pistol from my bosom, fired; but he eluded me, leaped from his station, and running with the swiftness of lightning, plunged into the lake."

Once back in Geneva, Victor goes to a magistrate, and makes a clean breast of the whole business. But the judge won't believe him... Well, it does sound strange... So he goes off to pursue his adversary by himself. But he lost track of him up in these Arctic wastes, foundered, and was rescued by Walton and his crew.



From this point, we return to the captain's letters (Walton having transcribed Frankenstein's tale). The ship is now beset by ice floes, and the crew are determined that once (if?) they're released, they should sail for home. Frankenstein tries to rally them (not wanting to lose sight of his quarry). But Walton -- good on him -- errs on the side of caution: "The die is cast. I have consented to return if we are not destroyed."

Frankenstein is disappointed, but he's too weak to do anything, and rapidly succumbs. Which is when the being turns up again. Walton goes into the cabin where his body lies, only to discover "a form which I cannot find words to describe". He's plucky, though, old Walton. He doesn't run off, but faces the being, and calls on him to stay. The "monster" is full of remorse. But the captain is not convinced: "You throw a torch into a pile of buildings, and when they are consumed, you sit among the ruins and lament the fall. Hypocritical fiend! If he whom you mourn still lived, still would he be the object, again would he become the prey, of your accursed vengeance. It is not pity that you feel; you lament only because the victim of your malignity is withdrawn from your power."

The creature admits he is a wretch: "But your abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself... I shall ascend my funeral pile triumphantly and exult in the agony of the torturing flames."

He jumps out of the cabin window. "He was soon borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance."

It's a great story. Yes, it has its flaws. The insert story (about the family that Frankenstein's creation gets to know) becomes more complex than it needs to, and few of the characters are fleshed out to any degree (in fact, they're hardly even characters).

But the imaginative achievement is remarkable. And it leaves you with lots to ponder:

-- The horror of creating something that you then can't control.
-- The horror of creating something that you find you abhor.
-- The terrible pain of being created and then rejected.
-- The dangers of overweaning ambition -- and the difficulty in deciding what separates the laudable pursuit of aspiration and progress from that perilous, gone-too-far condition.
-- The dangers of NOT COMMUNICATING!!

There's so much here that we still haven't really figured out. Really, for anyone engaged in any intellectual or or scientific or political activity, it should be compulsory reading...