Frankenstein: Important, Influential, and Utterly Exhausting

This blog post might have the grapes to get both Sci-Fi and classical fiction fans angry at me. But we need to have a conversation about Frankenstein. More specifically, Mary Shelley’s novel that bears that title. I am on a successful hot streak of knocking down books from my backlog that I never read, or read once as a child and feel I would appreciate more as an adult. So far those include The Shining, Carrie, Letters from a Stoic, Meditations and yes, finally, Frankenstein.

I read it once as a child, never really got to grips with the nature of the material because of childish distractions like Nintendo, RuneScape and the chance to maybe see boobs on the internet. Well, now I have picked it back up and after a week or so, have once again finished it. So what did I take away after closing the final page of Mary Shelley’s acclaimed masterpiece?

It was a massive disappointment.

In one way or another, it just never gets going. And when it threatens to get going, it shoots you right in the face with a flood of over-descriptive and often irrelevant detail. (Looking at you Felix.)

Before you pick up your pitchforks (which isn’t in the book) or burn me in my castle (which isn’t in the book) or threaten to torture me like some malformed grave-robbing assistant (which isn’t in the book) please understand that I absolutely love the narrative being told in this novel. It is a sinister and utterly depressing tale of man playing God and thus becoming the spiteful creature in the image he casts away from his laboratory, or darkened cellar. It is a phenomenally important piece of writing in the world of fiction and without it, I dare not dream of what the landscape of modern horror and science fiction would look like.

But on the flip side of that coin, did it have to be so relentlessly insistent. Certain scenes are described in great detail, and then described again in great detail shortly after that, and then again shortly after that. Before the chapter is closed, I might have heard of the outskirts of Geneva being described as tranquil and dreamlike perhaps fifteen times in excruciating detail.

What really broke my enjoyment, despite the fact that I liked the story at its core, was the unengaging manner in which the writing comes across. It is a product of its time, a time capsule of the wealthy lives that thrived in quaint hamlets on snowy evenings while having writing competitions with dukes and romantic poets of the realm.

It is a crucial piece of writing that everyone should read. But sweet merciful creator, why does it have to be so unenjoyable to enjoy.

Mary Shelley, you broke the mould and for that I am thankful. But with that comes the shame I feel for mocking a work so beloved and so integral to the genre I myself write in. This was a labour, and not one of love. Frankenstein may have endured the ice caps, and I, in my soft fabric recliner, have endured the soul-crushing story you birthed that changed the world forever.

If you enjoyed reading this and haven’t forsaken me forever as some heathen of the horror sphere, let me know. I might keep reviewing books. I might not. I am entirely smitten with reading these days and thus far have been swept away into the tainted halls of The Overlook Hotel, the blood-soaked home of Carrie White and the never-ending search for the vile wretch Victor Frankenstein unleashed.

Next up from the backlog, The Fog. Let’s hope it is not too dense.

I’ll be leaving now.