HELLO. I am going to basically liveblog/recap my thoughts as I go, as an interesting experiment in ‘I haven’t sat down and read this in a decade since I studied it at school’, although I have read a lot more ~around it now, contextually. It isn’t my favourite classic, but I do think it is one of the most daring and revolutionary novels of the era. And the Shelleys, obviously, are my favourite people of all time.
I’m reading the 1818 text, if anyone cares. xD
OKAY. OKAY. This is more powerful when the themes become more apparent, but that Mary dedicated this book to her father (WHO CAST HER OUT!!!) murders me.
Mary casually invents the concept of “science-fiction” by trying to do something, instead of straight gothic supernatural, that has its roots in the cutting edge of science at the time. I also love that there is this ‘creation myth’ developed for the creation myth that she wrote... the ‘Summer of 1816, Geneva’ is essentially the most legendary spooky sleepover ever, when you remember all these kids were Youths. So anyway, they task everyone with writing a scary story, and while Percy Shelley and Byron fuck around scaring themselves shitless about “women with eyes instead of nipples on their breasts”, and no one cares about Dr. Polidori and step-sister Claire didn’t even get to play, Mary delivers.
AND SO WE BEGIN... LETTER ONE with a cheeky polar explorer, as yet unrelated to the main ~Frankenstein plot. Robert Walton is writing letters back to his sister in England while he heads off to the far north. (This is also very sci-fi for the era, because polar exploration was as extreme and unknown as people going into space. People thought there was an ‘Open Polar Sea’ once you broke past the ice with a tropical climate and a way straight across to the opposite side of the globe. The poles were also mythologised as a ~spooky, spiritual, godless place. Think Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner.)
Anyway, Robert Walton is a romantic and a Romantic about the north, and has delusions of being a hero or a god or whatever, about ~going beyond the limit. He tried to be a poet first and didn’t get famous, so obvs this was Plan B.
LETTER TWO: Also he’s pretty alone in the world and just wishes he had a cool kindred spirit who would understand these desires. Oh wait...
(LETTER THREE: All well.)
LETTER FOUR: Stuck in the ice and they rescue a man on a sledge! Man gets wrapped in blankets and fed soup, aww, and confesses he’s chasing after someone who’s fleeing from him. Walton doesn’t ask questions about the weird cryptic things he says, but immediately begins to love him as a brother. ‘He must have been a noble creature in his better days, being even now in wreck so attractive and amiable.’ (Sure you don’t have a little crush, Walton?)
Walton continues to wax poetic about how intelligent and pitiful and eloquent and adorable and miserable this random guy is. Random guy gives off manic-depressive vibes. They chat about True FriendshipTM. Random man has been through too much, doesn’t deserve a new friend now. Walton calls him a ‘divine wanderer’. He’s totally in love.
On August 19th Random Man finally decides to share his story of woe with poor patient pining Captain Walton. Walton is going to jot it all down in a manuscript, because in this era in fiction authors loved a good in-universe explanation for why the story is getting told lol.
I’m reading the 1818 text, if anyone cares. xD
PREFACE
OKAY. OKAY. This is more powerful when the themes become more apparent, but that Mary dedicated this book to her father (WHO CAST HER OUT!!!) murders me.
Mary casually invents the concept of “science-fiction” by trying to do something, instead of straight gothic supernatural, that has its roots in the cutting edge of science at the time. I also love that there is this ‘creation myth’ developed for the creation myth that she wrote... the ‘Summer of 1816, Geneva’ is essentially the most legendary spooky sleepover ever, when you remember all these kids were Youths. So anyway, they task everyone with writing a scary story, and while Percy Shelley and Byron fuck around scaring themselves shitless about “women with eyes instead of nipples on their breasts”, and no one cares about Dr. Polidori and step-sister Claire didn’t even get to play, Mary delivers.
THE LETTERS
AND SO WE BEGIN... LETTER ONE with a cheeky polar explorer, as yet unrelated to the main ~Frankenstein plot. Robert Walton is writing letters back to his sister in England while he heads off to the far north. (This is also very sci-fi for the era, because polar exploration was as extreme and unknown as people going into space. People thought there was an ‘Open Polar Sea’ once you broke past the ice with a tropical climate and a way straight across to the opposite side of the globe. The poles were also mythologised as a ~spooky, spiritual, godless place. Think Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner.)
Anyway, Robert Walton is a romantic and a Romantic about the north, and has delusions of being a hero or a god or whatever, about ~going beyond the limit. He tried to be a poet first and didn’t get famous, so obvs this was Plan B.
LETTER TWO: Also he’s pretty alone in the world and just wishes he had a cool kindred spirit who would understand these desires. Oh wait...
(LETTER THREE: All well.)
LETTER FOUR: Stuck in the ice and they rescue a man on a sledge! Man gets wrapped in blankets and fed soup, aww, and confesses he’s chasing after someone who’s fleeing from him. Walton doesn’t ask questions about the weird cryptic things he says, but immediately begins to love him as a brother. ‘He must have been a noble creature in his better days, being even now in wreck so attractive and amiable.’ (Sure you don’t have a little crush, Walton?)
Walton continues to wax poetic about how intelligent and pitiful and eloquent and adorable and miserable this random guy is. Random guy gives off manic-depressive vibes. They chat about True FriendshipTM. Random man has been through too much, doesn’t deserve a new friend now. Walton calls him a ‘divine wanderer’. He’s totally in love.
On August 19th Random Man finally decides to share his story of woe with poor patient pining Captain Walton. Walton is going to jot it all down in a manuscript, because in this era in fiction authors loved a good in-universe explanation for why the story is getting told lol.
look ANOTHER beautiful bee!set <3