That was spot-on.

their standard SF shelf? Better balanced?

Who is "their"? If Moe's, that was their standard shelf. Their other SF is all used, so there's a wide variety (Berkeley, you know).

If Borders et al., they generally have a broad distribution, although I rarely find the writers I've been hearing on LJ I should be reading, like Charlie Stross, fr'instance.

Ouch.

Not entirely fair since they've done a lot of things like the Embedded in Afghanistan stuff. Still, a pointy stick in the eye.

Who is "their"? If Moe's, that was their standard shelf.

I meant Moe's. I thought you were only looking at the new stuff.

Interesting.

Yeah, I should have clarified. I meant, "new" as in "not used," not "new" as in "just came out."

So, my literary Buffistas, what exactly is the (your) fascination with Frankenstein? I've got to write two papers about it today, and I need to be a little more interested in the subject than I am. Otherwise, the paper is going to be all, "I didn't like this, and I didn't like that. Oh! And that? Didn't like it either." So, I thought I'd see what other people's fascinations are to see if I can look at it in a new light.

Frankenstein is a study, not only of the fascination people feel for the grotesque, but of the moral issue of circumventing culture and death itself. The doctor can't be said to be altruistic in creating a "new" life. He's hoping to accomplish something for science, yes, but he's also hoping to call fame and attention on himself for being a genius. Or at least that's what I've always gotten from it.

Once his creature is animate, I do think he becomes protective and even somewhat fond of it, overlooking to a degree its horrific makeup in being delighted with its apparent new, childlike personality. How much fondness and protection is because of genuine delight in having "created" life, and how much is triggered by the nature of the creature itself is a matter of opinion.

The townsfolk's horror and hatred of the unknown, the strange, the "came back wrong"ness of the creature is standard fare for tv and movies these days, but must have been a more unique social commentary at the time the story was written. There's a dark thread of thill at the very wrongness of animating the dead, balanced on the side of "light" and "good" by wanting to destroy the anomaly--which is a paradox itself. When is destruction of a living thing considered good?

Then we come to the creature itself. Visually horrific, it awakes new to life as a child, an empty slate. It seeks knowledge, and uses its strength to find that knowledge and explore the world it's seeing for the first time. It's a classic example of nurture over nature--or is it? The longer the creature exists, the more it learns, the more familiar it becomes with its own body and with its history, the darker its personality becomes. Is it scraps of consciousness of the former owners of its body parts influencing the whole of the creature? Or is it the darkness of humankind itself manifesting in this creature, "born" adult, excessively strong, and without the sort of moral and ethical governors that childhood experience gives.

People have made up their own minds about the story, and the characters, ever since it saw print. For myself, I find the doctor reprehensible. His ostensible motivation was learning, which he could apply to medicine for mankind. I've always seen him as arrogant and self-aggrandizing. That may be just me.

For me, the tragic figure is the creature, suddenly sentient in a strange and beautiful though baffling world, bereft of the tools he needs to survive and succeed. I think all of us empathise at times with the creature.

I hope you can find some point of empathy with some element of the story or one of the characters.

t natter Beverly, I just sent you email-- I need some info. t /natter

Responded, Lee. And sorry.

Bug, I was going to add that DH said basically Frankenstein was a result of a drunken challenge over a druggy, drunken weekend, and so it was. But--and this is the sticking point for me--the bit of fantastical fluff was coming from a person steeped in the rules of societal and religious thought and conduct. Controverting those rules was a big rebellion, even in a short fiction. Today the elements of the story seem tame and almost commonplace. But that's a result of the changes in society, not in the merits of the story in its place in time.

I always find that even if I dislike a book, looking at it in the historical context will at least give me a place to grab a hold of it.