Book Review: 'Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus' by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

cover art by Bernie Wrightson

I like to read what is considered a 'classic' every once in while, and as I never got round to reading it in its double centenary year, now was a good a time as any to pick up Mary Shelley's classic tale.

My previous experiences with Frankenstein were the classic Universal Studios movie with Boris Karloff as the monster and Colin Clive as Frankenstein, plus the Mel Brooks spoof starring Gene Wilder, so I thought I kind of knew what to expect, but as I read through the story, I was surprised how much the movies have bastardised and distorted the plot from the original novel.

'Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus' is a story of when someone decides to play as God, but the result comes back to haunt him. Victor Frankenstein is a genius that is driven by his passion and ambition to unlock the secrets of nature. And he does this when after weeks of focusing on his project, he creates life, a living human creature, in his laboratory. But when the creature rises (there's none of the infamous "he's alive!" or lightning scene that the movies portray here) and confronts his creator, Frankenstein is so horrified at the 'wretch' he's created. His lack of compassion and hatred towards his creation makes the creature feel abandoned and alienated, when he was only looking for love and understanding, and drives him to commit the acts of violence he does in retribution against his creator, stalking him like a serial killer and murdering those he holds dear. His cruelty and anger against the creature, in effect made Victor Frankenstein the real monster of this story.

The narrative is in the style of someone recounting the story back to a listener. In this case, after Frankenstein is picked up in the Arctic wastes by a ship (we do learn why he's there later in the story), he tells the ship captain the whole sorry tale, including an eloquent story from the creature in his own words. It's a formula that works very well and pulls you deep into the story. The prose seems to very much of the time it was written and has an almost lyrical quality to it, very elegant but still descriptive of what's going on. It does slow the pacing down at times, especially when Frankenstein starts to wax poetical every so often, lamenting his situation (which he brought on himself, so no sympathy from me really), but it wasn't enough to ruin the enjoyment of reading the novel.

It's a well written novel that raises the questions of how far knowledge and science would go and the consequences of playing God could lead to. As Dr Ian Malcolm once said in the movie Jurassic Park, "... your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should!" Something that Victor Frankenstein should have paid heed to.

A classic story that is very much recommended.

Available to read for free from the Project Gutenberg website.