Frankenstein
by Mary Shelley
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I’ve never read this classic before, but I am of course aware of the iconic Frankenstein monster that has become part of horror and Halloween culture. I was slightly surprised by just how different Shelley’s original work is from the ideas that it spawned. For one, we never actually see a scene of the monster being created. In fact, the narrative focusses much more on the interiority of characters than on showing events as they happen.
I kind of loved how dramatic and emotional the characters are in the book. It’s narrated in a kind of nested frame structure: first, an explorer named Robert Walton writes to his sister about meeting Victor Frankenstein in the Arctic; then, Frankenstein tells his story to Walton; and when Frankenstein confronts his creation, we get a few chapters of the monster himself recounting his version of events. All three of them are constantly stating how they feel, always with big emotions like rage, despair, anguish, &c. It was particularly entertaining to me when Walton, after expressing his loneliness in the desolate Arctic, develops an instant man-crush on Frankenstein as soon as they meet. We find out over the course of the book that Frankenstein is a brooding egomaniac, and I couldn’t help but question why Walton is so taken with him. But I think that this was just Mary Shelley’s mode of writing for this novel—poetic and lyrical soliloquies from men who have no chill—and I ate it up.
Towards the end of the book, it started to creep into my head that Victor Frankenstein was acting like a tech bro CEO. I’m sure that Mary Shelley didn’t have the current Silicon Valley AI landscape in mind when she wrote Frankenstein, but I think classics like this endure because their themes are universal and stretch through time. Near the novel’s ending, Walton’s ship is stuck in the Arctic ice, and his crew asks to turn back and abort their expedition. Frankenstein steps in and gives what sounds like a rousing speech:
Are you then so easily turned from your design? Did you not call this a glorious expedition? And wherefore was it glorious? Not because the way was smooth and placid as a southern sea, but because it was full of dangers and terror; because, at every new incident, your fortitude was to be called forth, and your courage exhibited; because danger and death surrounded it, and these you were to brave and overcome.
This is after he has told Walton the story of how his creation has killed his friends and family, and how deeply he regrets his actions, and has warned Walton against being too ambitious. Walton still sees Frankenstein’s speech as heroic somehow. The scene is dripping with irony, and also with the “move fast and break things” ethos that is sadly too common in the tech world.