♥
Remember when I told you that I’m an incredibly slow reader?
Well, if you didn’t believe me then, you will now; I started reading Frankenstein before Halloween and I finished it today. Part of that is the fact that I’m busy all of the time and feel a little guilty when I sit down to read because I think about what I should be doing instead { cleaning, working, etc. }. But another part of it really is that I’m a slow reader. Either way, I will make it through the reading list I came up with, and polishing off this piece has gotten me one step closer to the end!
Here’s what I thought of it:
When I first lifted the cover of this story, I was full of expectations. Throughout my life I’ve continuously seen images of “FRANKENSTEIN” the green tinged zombie with a flat head and a bolt in his neck. I knew that Frankenstein was actually the name of the monster’s creator rather than the creature himself, but that was about all I knew of the book. Anything else I thought I knew was a complete fabrication. Wasn’t Dr. Frankenstein supposed to have a sidekick named Igor? Wasn’t the creature supposed to be a big dumb oaf? Didn’t it all take place in a huge stone castle at the top of a mountain where the weather was constantly stormy? I thought all of this to be the case, so when I was a chapter or two in and following some guy named Walton who was sailing a ship toward the North Pole, you can imagine my confusion. Turns out the book was completely different than I had expected!
But I was pleasantly surprised. I swooned over the fondness of nature that Shelley described through the eyes of her main character. His affection for Switzerland was tender and sweet, and made me sick for my own home. When I wrote my novel this fall, I struggled to describe the autumn foliage that burns with colour, but provides no warmth. Every day that I wrote, I searched within myself for the appropriate words to capture this phenomenon, but came up empty handed or with a little something compromised. Shelley, I have now found, had already written the very words I was in search of. She described exactly what I hoped to, with infinitely more eloquence than I could ever hope to muster. She wrote: “…the sun shone on the red leaves that strewed the ground, and diffused cheerfulness, although it denied warmth…”. And that wasn’t the only occasion. Several times her words struck a chord with something I had felt a million times while walking through my native woods, but never known how to put in English. Bravo for that, Mary!
And she describes terrible things, too, with the same accurate descriptions. For in this story, there are many terrible things. That, I will leave for you to discover.
What a comment on humanity, necessity, and religion this piece was! What exactly is the relationship of creator and created? What do we as humans really need to survive — just shelter and nourishment, or also affection and companionship? All of these grand questions could be gleaned from her story even if it takes you months to finish. So, really, you should give it a try. I highly recommend it.
See you tomorrow, friends!
xx.
