Frankenstein (Conclusion)

Victor is aware that the monster intends to kill off all of Victor’s loved ones, but each time it happens, it’s a surprise.  Not that he can do anything about it; the monster seems endowed with supernatural powers!  I mentioned previously that when I was a kid, the Frankenstein monster didn’t seem so scary to me because he was always depicted as being very slow, wobbling back and forth stiff-legged with his arms stretched out in front of him.  The literal monster here, however, is not only more powerful than any mere man, but much faster as well.  When Victor makes a thing out of spare parts, he doesn’t fool around! 

He has already decided not to continue his Build-A-Bride project and to depart the desolation of the Orkney Islands of Bonnie Scotland, when disaster strikes.  He takes a little sailboat out onto the placid sea at night in order to dump the Bride’s body parts overboard, and on the way back he is so relieved (and emotionally exhausted) that he lays down in the sailboat and falls asleep.  Oops.  He wakes up to a violent sea, no land in sight, and sure that he’s out of luck, only to eventually come to shore in … Ireland.  (And apparently, southern Ireland, as he later takes a short trip to Dublin later in order to leave the country.  Of course, these British Isles look so tiny on the globe…) He is met here with hostility and eventually accused of a murder.  Not just any murder, either, but the murder of his friend Henry Clerval, whom he left and last saw in Perth, Scotland.  Clever monster! 

The monster continues to taunt him, promising to be with him on his wedding night.  This is a warning that when he marries his betrothed, Elizabeth, the monster will attack again.  Somehow it doesn’t occur to him that she is the intended.  Victim.  So on his wedding night, he sends her into the bedroom by herself while he prepares to do battle with the monster.  Oops, again.  This genius who created the world’s first AI (sci-fi acronym for “Artificial Intelligence”) can’t seem to get with the program of victims.  Her screams from the bedroom remind him once again that he is only the indirect target of this menu of mayhem. 

If I seem to be making fun of this excellent work, well, that’s just me.  Any classic can be picked apart like that, (I love the Mad magazine spoofs on modern-day cinematic masterpieces!) but it remains to be said that I thoroughly enjoyed reading this one.  The fast pace keeps it moving forward; many of today’s best-selling authors would do well to take this aspect to heart.  The historical significance of this work cannot be over-stated – it really was way ahead of its time.  The fact that its publisher felt it had to be toned down to avoid offending the sentiments of the readers of that time is fascinating; I have a very hard time finding anything in this that I would have felt necessary to change, if I were Mary, trying to please the publisher.  I had honestly expected a lot more gruesomeness, especially in the initial collecting and assembling of the body parts.

 

So Victor pursues the monster to the end of the earth (literally, almost to the North Pole) to try to destroy him, but dies on the stranded ship in the ice.  The monster’s work is done.  Only destroying himself remains, which he plans to do by burning himself in solitude; apparently not “at the stake” because there would be no one to tie him to it.  The captain of the ship decides not to grant Victor’s last wish and destroy the beast himself.  Good decision, since he has no idea how to go about doing that!  And the monster jumps ship and disappears into the night - leading to all the cheesy sequels that kept us awake after the late night movies we watched back in the day!

Join us next month for November’s book of the month; “Big Red Tequila,” Rick Riordan.  We will take an extra week to recover from the pre-diabetic sugar binge of Halloween, and begin on November 9th! 

 

Riordan has loaded his first mystery with lots of genre baggage: this story about a man coming home to San Antonio, Texas, to rescue his old girlfriend and solve the 12-year-old murder of his sheriff father is a virtual homage to James (The Last Good Kiss) Crumley. But Riordan writes so well about the people and topography of his hometown that he very quickly marks the territory as his own. Tres Navarre has put behind him the teenage days when he and his friend Ralph Arguello would cruise through San Antonio, drinking a ferocious mixture of cheap tequila and Big Red cream soda. A University of California Ph.D. in English plus a fascination with t'ai chi ch'uan led Tres naturally enough to work as a private investigator in San Francisco. But one call from the love of his early life--the mysterious and captivating Lillian Cambridge, now trapped in dangerous work and love relationships--and Tres gladly trades his trendy Peet's coffee for the stronger brews of home.  

Winner of the 1998 Shamus Award for Best First Novel and the 1998 Anthony Award for Best Paperback Original!

"A standout...A crooked construction company, corrupt cops, old enemies--you can almost feel the summer storms rolling over South Texas."
---Publishers Weekly (starred review)