'Frankenstein' by Mary Shelley

I decided it was about time I read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I read the original 1818 version, rather than the revised 1831 version, which is the more common text. I decided to read the first edition when I read that Mary Shelley, in revising it for the edition in 1831, had aimed, "...to make it less radical." Mind you, that is according to Wikipedia, so who knows? In her preface to the 1831 edition, Shelley said more or less that she had just tidied it up, especially the writing of the first sections.

Mary Shelley, her lover and future husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron, decided to have a competition to see who could write the scariest story to 'thrill' their readers. Shelley's novel was the result. It is a classic horror story, usually seen as the first to move from 'Gothic Novel' to a new category of 'Horror'. Some people also regard it as the first science fiction novel because it essentially explores the dangers and potential of the misuse of science. 

I have been meaning to read this for ages because it is a classic, but I don't really like 'horror' stories so I had been putting it off. It isn't as scary as I thought, and the story is different from what I expected. I had always imagined that Frankenstein created and nurtured the monster, which then turned on him. However, in the novel he creates the monster, gives it life, takes one look at it, is horrified and runs away, leaving the monster to make its own way in the world. I found it bizarre that Victor Frankenstein could create the being and then fail to take any responsibility for it or even realize that he ought to. I didn't really find Shelley's idea that he would run away in horror from his own creation at all plausible. My sympathies were all with the monster, until he decided to turn on humanity and start killing people for revenge at being rejected.

At least two years have passed since he abandoned his creation, which fled, and we are into Volume II, Chapter 3, before the monster finds and confronts him, and Frankenstein decides he ought to give his creation a hearing because: "For the first time, also, I felt what the duties of a creator towards his creature were, and that I ought to render him happy before I complained of his wickedness." About time, I think! You could do a great Freudian analysis of this novel, centred around the monster's abandonment by his 'father'. Someone probably has...

If you haven't read this, you might find it more interesting (from a philosophical, literary and sociological viewpoint) and less scary than you would expect.