Frankenstein (Part Two, Chapter Six through Part Three, Chapter Three)

Although this is not exactly edge-of-your-seat can’t-put-it-down reading, the prose is quite lively and never gets tedious or pedantic.  The action keeps moving forward, with interesting changes of setting and events.  The visit of Victor and his friend Clerval to London and parts north is told at exactly the right pace, with colorful asides describing how different it all is to a couple of young men from Switzerland.  Victor’s reason for being here is to get information he needs to comply with the monster’s blackmail. 

Those old, cheesy movies that would come on late Friday or Saturday night back in the early 1960s keep coming to mind, though this story is told with a lot more style and taste.  One or more of those movies was about The Bride of Frankenstein.  I had always thought that concept was the creation of some over-imaginative director or producer – so I found it surprising to discover that creating a mate for our monster is very much a part of this section of the story!  At first, it seemed that we were definitely on our way to seeing the object of his dreams in all her big-hair-with-silver-streaks glory.  This entire section of the book has Victor anguishing over the fact that he is committed to creating the “Bride” in order to protect his own loved ones from destruction at the hands of the blackmailing monster. 

Only after going through all the trouble of traveling to London from Geneva, then to Oxford and other English destinations to the north, and up through Scotland to Edinburgh (which I find once again described, as in so many other sources, as a place of great beauty and esthetic delight!), followed by his companion’s destination at Perth, and Victor’s subsequent solitary trip up to the desolate Orkney Islands, does he start on his dreaded project of creating yet another monster.  After all this, is finally dawns on him that perhaps the result of this new creation might be worse than the consequences to himself of abstaining.  In a very unscientific turn of thought, (this is, after all the early 1800s upon time of writing) he seems to assume that the two monsters will actually be able to produce offspring!  He imagines that he might be unleashing a horde of nightmarish creatures to become the scourge of humanity.  We have to wonder if maybe he had thought of this before his trip to Great Britain, he might have been able to save himself a lot of trouble, not to mention anguish over what he perceived to be his fate. 

We seem to be giving up a lot to artistic license here, and yet – it’s all a lot of fun!  The writing continues to be very engaging and lively, though I still think it might not appeal to anyone younger than high school age.  It is “science fiction” in the actual meaning of the phrase, which is more accurately termed “speculative fiction.”  And Sci-Fi buffs are typically relentless about picking holes in the theories of their authors, who subsequently have become more conscious of getting the “science” right more often than they did early on.  Even H. G. Wells employed some very scientific-sounding reasoning in the design and theory behind his famous Time Machine.

 

All in all, “Frankenstein” is a great read, flowing along at a nice pace, which is a bonus for a relatively plodding reader like me.  I have already anticipated re-reading it at some time in the not-so-distant future, and that is a pretty rare event for me.  While some people I know read the same books over and over, apparently simply enjoying the ride, I virtually always thirst for something new to read.  It is easy to see why this work has endured, beyond the initial shock factor it had and the utter originality it offered at the time.  Two big green stitched-on thumbs up!







Next Week: Conclusion