Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

In keeping with the holiday spirit (a term not usually applied to Halloween, but I was feeling Halloween-y at the time), I decided to read this classic. If you know Frankenstein only through movies or pop culture interpretations, I highly reccommend reading this novel. I will also warn all potential readers that the language of this book is more advanced than any of the others novels I've reviewed so far, but for myself, it was a lot of fun to feel challenged by what I was reading.

I read the Norton Critical Edition, edited by J. Paul Hunter, which contains the 1818 first edition text, versus later editions revised by Mary Shelley. This edition also includes essays of 19th century responses and modern criticism, if anyone feels like delving into the literature world.

In this novel, Victor Frankenstein is obsessed with the secret of life and determines to create a human life from spare body parts. After months of work, he succeeds. Thankfuly, the book doesn't even attempt to address the "how" as I can only imagine how tedious that would have been (I remember my college biology class!!). Frankenstein regrets the creation of his monster and decides to destroy it, but in the morning the monster has escaped. The monster knows nothing about "self" "society" "humanity" "education" and initially lives in the forest like an animal. He finds a poor family living in a hut, and begins to learn about human life, language, and how to read. He begins reading Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther, Milton's Paradise Lost, and a volume of Plutarch's Lives. Unfortunately these books give him a distorted view of the human world-- he decides to introduce himself the the family believing they would show him kindness and benevolence like the character he read about, only to receive his first of many rejections by mankind. Ultimately, the monster confronts Frankenstein and I won't spoil the ending by revealing anymore.

Thumbs UP-- Full of literary themes, allusions, parallels to modern society, such fun.