ghosts

Published in 1818, Mary Shelley's best-selling novel Frankenstein has become famed and celebrated annually as thousands of children dress in various monster garb for Halloween, depicting themselves as Dr. Frankenstein's creation. Although Shelley's story is sometimes slow and explicitly focused on minor details, the work presents many issues that are still being analyzed today in literature and society. This is a testament of the timelessness of this great book.

Like other authors of the time, Shelley comments on the innocence of childhood when Frankenstein says, "I feel exquisite pleasure in dwelling on the recollections of childhood, before misfortune had tainted my mind, and changed its bright visions of extensive usefulness into gloomy and narrow reflections upon self." Frankenstein's childhood was something that was precious and dear. This thought has remained popular in current literature. For example, in the television show Ed, the main character has this to say about the early days:

"Explain to me why we're always so condescending towards our younger selves. We should be looking back in awe of who we were...all that passion, all that fire, all those dreams. And then it all fades and people say, 'Oh well, that's just part of growing up.' I think that's tragic."

The fascination of the idealism of children is still quite popular, not only in modern sitcoms but in blockbuster movies like Big or classic fairy tales like Peter Pan as well. Although Shelley does not fully explore this matter, she addresses an issue that still gains press today.

Another theme of Frankenstein is equivalent of the modern day sociological issue of nature versus nurture. The creature begins his life full of love and cannot even conceive of why someone would murder another person. But as he faces constant abandonment and bitterness, the creature turns to acts that he once could not imagine. Placing the blame on his nurture, or lack thereof, the creature exclaims, "I desired love and fellowship, and I was still spurned. Was there no injustice in this? Am I to be thought the only criminal, when all human kind sinned against me?" Shelley's answer to these questions is not all too clear, although the fate and doom of Frankenstein sends a message that the scientist was partially at fault. But the answers that the creature would get in modern times are lucid and concise.

A final issue that is still prevalent in society is mankind's attempt to govern the physical world through science. The results of Frankenstein's experiment indicate that Shelley strongly believes that man should not try to play God. Stephen Hawking is currently trying to unify physics, or combine the theory of relativity with the theory of quantum mechanics. Others try to clone life using DNA. Hawking recently said, ""If we find the answer to [cloning or the unification of physics,] it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason - for then we would know the mind of God." Like Frankenstein, scientists are still trying to discover the mystery of life, and Shelley's commentary on this absorption is appropriate even today.

This book is slow at times but in the end worth the read.

After seeing at least five versions of this tale in film - one of my great childhood monster loves - I was happy to finally read the novel. As so often occurs with classics, I was as surprised as I was fascinated.

For starters, the characters are far more subtle than any of the film versions: Victor F appears as a brooding and obsessed genius, but also as a great lover of life and nature. The monster, who is an articulate and literate creature who read Goethe, is even more interesting, from his hopeful beginning to his bitter reaction at rejection and his thirst for vengence. His eloquence was vivid and his pain horribly realistic.

But the work is also fascinating as a window into the mind of the Romantics, who at once strove to reject the rationalism of the Enlightenment yet reflected it. The creature starts off empty and what it becomes is due entirely to his experience. Knowledge is not always good, etc.

Finally, the themes are timeless and full of conflict: creativity giving birth to unimaginable destruction, tampering with nature as its necessities overwhelm even genius, and the like. THe book is a kaleidescope of philosophical reflection. The pain of the creator and the monster alike are inescapably linked like father and son.

I did find the style of the book a bit difficult. It is full of florid rhetoric and lengthy circumlocutions, as the doctor and then the monster tell their stories in almost identical prose.

Highly recommended.

Frankenstein is a very inventive story. That is a must for any horror story fanatic. The mid-section of the book drags just a little (little too repetitive), but all and all it's a very good book. I could go on, but i dont feel like it. The books ok, i gave it 4 stars ..just ..because. read it u want to, if u dont want to, then dont ...whatever.