
Review of annotated editions of Frankenstein - ehudla
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/12/21/frankenstein-out-of-control/
======
ashark
First, yes, yes, all my yes. The more good guides to best-editions for various
works that are written, the less time I have to spend tracking them down,
which can take a _long_ time for some works (ugh, Eastern works in English
translation are _hopelessly_ difficult to assess).

Second:

> It is now frequently required reading in schools, and passing classroom
> references to “Shelley” may more likely mean Mary than Percy Bysshe (the
> obscure author of Prometheus Unbound).

This is a joke, or at least intense hyperbole, right? I'd wager way more
people have read "Ozymandias" than _Frankenstein_ (unfair because one's a
page, and one's hundreds of pages, yes, but still, if we're talking frequency
of mention) and several other of his verse works come up fairly often, while
little other than _Frankenstein_ does for Mary. If someone just asked "are you
familiar with Shelley?" I would 100% for sure think they meant PB. I'd easily
concede, of course, that _Frankenstein_ itself is the most well-known (if not
most widely-read) thing either of them wrote, though.

~~~
jackfoxy
I read _Ozymandias_ more than once, but that was decades ago, and you had to
remind me of the author.

I do think Mary has made a more lasting impression over the centuries. We read
and discussed the romantic passages of _Frankenstein_ in my college
comparative literature class. I've never read the whole novel...maybe someday.

~~~
ashark
Oh, yeah, it’s immeasurably more influential than anything else either wrote.
I just dispute the “mentions of name in classroom” and “who is probably
intended by a bare, contextless reference to one ‘Shelley’” metrics.

------
jcoffland
The silly version of Frankenstein almost kept me from reading this excellent
book. After finally reading it this year, I was irked that I had only known
Hollywood's cheesy version for so long. Here are some of the major
misconceptions:

1\. The monster is not called Frankenstein. Frankenstein is the Doctor.

2\. The monster is not a bumbling fool but rather extremely intelligent.

3\. There is no definite description of the appearance of the monster in the
book and certainly no bolts in the neck.

4\. It is also unclear how the monster was animated. There is no lightning rod
and no "it's alive" moment.

Frankenstein is at or near the top of many best of all time book lists.
Shelly's _The Last Man_ is also one of my favorites.

------
ashark
> “Sometimes, watching him, I thought of Dr. Frankenstein’s monster, a
> simulacrum of the human that entirely failed to express any true humanity.”
> But that of course is a remark inspired by film images rather than the
> novel. For the debatable nature of “true humanity”—and whether Victor
> Frankenstein (never Doctor in the novel) or his Creature can best express
> it—is precisely the dilemma of Mary’s original fiction.

Being alive but somehow, stomach-churningly inhuman _in appearance and
expression_ is precisely what's so awful about the monster in the novel.
Inhumanity (again, _of appearance and affect_ ). The difficulty of expressing
this visually is probably part of why the Monster in film is simply cadaverish
and covered in scars and bolts and such.

Its exact appearance—dimensions and general Lovecraftianly-left-to-your-
imagination inhumanity aside—and the details of the process of its creation,
get little page space in the book. There are (framing) story reasons for the
latter to be lightly treated, in fact.

Whether one can pin the Rushdie quote's inspiration to the film depiction
depends on how one takes "express". It could, and was perhaps intended to,
cover film and book alike.

~~~
on_and_off
>and the details of the process of its creation, get little page space in the
book .

I read it a long time ago so my memory is fuzzy but I remember being very
intrigued by the lack of description of the creature.

IIRC, some kind of 'golem' made from base ingredients was more in line with
what is described in the novel than a mesh of dead flesh.

------
blacksqr
>Mary Shelley’s original three-volume novel was published quietly and
anonymously by Lackington and Co., Finsbury Square, London, in March 1818 and
to little acclaim.

In fact it was an immediate hit and sold out quickly.

~~~
Finnucane
500 copies!

------
chickenfries
Yes! I read a little bit of Frankenstein in college, but I think I lacked too
much knowledge of the various other books that Shelly references and probably
some historical context to fully appreciate it. A recent video by Extra
Credits on YouTube [1] made me want to go and find an annotated copy to read.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnSmGFmP8qU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnSmGFmP8qU)

