I’m really going for that ’earliest published book’ for this coming Year in Reviews aren’t I?

It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more attached to one another.

Overall, it’s one of those stories you expect to know what happens even before you read it. Frankenstein¹ creates LIFE in a form stitched together from dead bodies. But it’s super ugly, so he drives his creation off. Said creation isn’t a huge fan of this and goes on a murderous rampage. The end.

And yet, that’s not entirely right?

It’s an oddly formatted story to a much more modern reader. It’s epistolary (told in letters and journals), which reminds me a lot of Dracula and nested. We have letters from a sea captain, the account of Victor Frankenstein, and then finally the monster himself .

It’s a neat style, but I think a bit more could have been done with it. And it’s never really a great sign when one of the main viewpoints (Frankenstein himself) is just hard to read. He’s not likeable and depressed a lot of the time.

Even broken in spirit as he is, no one can feel more deeply than he does the beauties of nature. The starry sky, the sea, and every sight afforded by these wonderful regions, seems still to have the power of elevating his soul from earth. Such a man has a double existence: he may suffer misery, and be overwhelmed by disappointments; yet, when he has retired into himself, he will be like a celestial spirit that has a halo around him, within whose circle no grief or folly ventures.

Which again, I get it. But it doesn’t make for a thrilling read.

It’s billed as one of the earlier examples of science fiction, but it’s not really science fiction. It does deal with the idea of bringing life–but never really gets into it. It’s setting as much as anything, something to set the story in motion.

Alternatively, it’s also called early modern Horror, but … it’s not really horror in either the jump scare or thriller or cosmic senses of the word. There’s some sense of inevitability–the creation is coming!–but it never really amounts to much.

Overall, I think it’s worth having read mostly in a completionist sense. And really, I’m glad I listened to this one on audiobook–they have a way of just keeping you going when you might otherwise get stuck and put the book down.

Onward!