"Frankenstein" by Mary Shelly

As an aside from the review, this year has had a rough start for me reading-wise. I’ve read bits and pieces of books, but it took me until now to actually finish one. I’m happy to say I’ve started with a good one.

I’ve always struggled with books written before around 1930 or so. There have been exceptions — “The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckel and Mr. Hyde,” comes to mind — but there’s always something about the pacing and word choice that grates on me. I don’t mean that in the sense that these books use a lot of words that I don’t understand, (this does happen) but rather that the sentence structure and word choice feels archaic in a way that’s hard to concisely describe. Things change over time, my point is that I’m a bit biased against several aspects of books like “Frankenstein,” due to their slow openings, slow overall pacing and how dated aspects of them are.

It was a pleasant surprise for me, then, when the immediate parallels between Victor Frankenstein and Robert Walton were obvious to me. The book isn’t particularly subtle, and if you don’t pick up on it at the beginning, it makes sure that you know by the end. It takes a long time for Frankenstein to start his story, and longer still for him to get to a point where something interesting happens, but the fact that he takes the time to directly state his thesis gives me a specific lens to view the story through. Entering the story primed for specific takeaways retroactively made the opening more enjoyable after I’d had time to think about it. At the same time, I felt a bit let down that Walton’s decision at the end of the book to turn the ship around read as if it was driven by his crew instead of him recognizing his own situation in Victor Frankenstein. I had hoped that it would all come together with Walton realizing he was following a parallel path to his unexpected friend, and while Walton seems somewhat aware of the similarities in their trajectories it’s not enough to deter him. Maybe that in itself is the point; Walton is able to avoid a nasty fate because he is beholden to others in a way that Frankenstein never was.

There are so many interesting ideas present in the narrative which I’m sure makes for interesting analysis. The idea of beautiful characters being good and ugly characters being evil is nothing new now, and I doubt it was at the time, but in “Frankenstein” said idea is an explicit theme. Elizabeth explicitly is raised out of poverty because she is pretty and blond. Frankenstein’s Monster is ugly (although never described as green) and therefore is spurned by his creator. Beauty is an interesting theme across the entire book, and “Frankenstein” makes a large point of the Monster being a product of his experiences, and not inherently evil due to his appearance or nature.

Victor is an unintentionally funny narrator because at one point around halfway through the book he says “I was guiltless” in between talking about how guilty and responsible he feels for the consequences of his actions. His inability to accept responsibility and acknowledge his misdeeds despite his guilt is a constant; Victor operates with the rigidity and stubbornness of a villain. “Victor is the real monster” is an entirely lukewarm take, and while I do agree with it, it’s more difficult to grapple with how responsible the Monster is for his actions. Ultimately the Monster is capable of making decisions, of feeling empathy, pain, regret, and anger. The Monster shields itself from responsibility by decrying itself as a victim of circumstance, and while it’s correct in identifying itself as such, a being that understands right and wrong is beholden to said concepts regardless of circumstance. The Monster parallels his own creator in that way, as he mourns at Victor’s deathbed, acknowledges his actions, but refuses accountability. Victor Frankenstein and the Monster are both guilty of their sins, despite each decrying their own actions as outside of their control. Like father, like son.

Though, honestly, is it my place to judge either of them?