It’s become a cliché to bemoan the fact that people just don’t understand that Frankenstein isn’t the monster, but the creator. So let’s start there: can we agree that not-knowing that is rarer than knowing it? Cool.
Even with this knowledge, I did not expect what I got from Frankenstein.
Firstly, I was expecting something spooky. Frankenstein is not spooky, but it is an utterly frightening exploration of human guilt and responsibility, of making rash decisions and living with the consequences. (What could be more relatable than that?)
Secondly, Frankenstein’s monster (aka the daemon, as Shelley describes him), is not a semi-mute, grunting oaf, but rather an ugly-on-the-outside, tender-on-the-inside raw nerve of emotion, a being driven entirely by his desires for connection and love – and one who speaks in poetic soliloquy as he clamors for recognition and affection from those who spurn him.
This classic book, which I read as part of my attempt to read twelve classics in 2021, boasts a framing device that would quickly be cut in a modern iteration of it: a shell of other narrators that one must peel back to reach the meat of the story. But once you get there, oh how meaty it is.