Discussion of Frankenstein

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How do you rate Frankenstein?

1 star - poor, recommend against reading it
1
2%
2 stars - fair, okay
5
9%
3 stars - good, recommend it
25
46%
4 stars - excellent, amazing
23
43%
 
Total votes: 54

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CzechTigg
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Re: Discussion of Frankenstein

Post by CzechTigg »

I will always rate this book as the original and best. Having knock-offs such as the lead character in the Munsters is both a sign of how important this work is, and how it can be almost parodied without much thought.

For those who know Red Dwarf, I love the joke where Kryten gets really upset when the Monster is called Frankenstein, when it should be the Creator.
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Post by Aithne »

This book was a disappointment to me when I read it. There have been so many adaptations, which are often seen before the book is read, and, sadly, often better than the book. The book had a great originality in its premise and some good ideological ideas and tensions but the book floundered as it went on and I really wasn't happy with the pace of the book, particularly towards the final third. I grew bored, which was a shame.
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Post by CactusSmasher »

Finally, after years of owning this book and never once opening it, I've read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. And it is as good as its everlasting legacy would lead you to believe. It all starts here: mad science, ability vs. morality, the ethics of life, and the creator destroying the created. All themes that would be explored in latter day science fiction. Indeed, though the actual mechanics of the Creature's creation are glossed over, Victor Frankenstein's hubristic rejection of the alchemists of old and the embracing of science is a shocking and thoroughly modern concept that could not have existed without the great scientific strides that inspired Mary Shelley to write her novel. But what surprised me the most about this novel is that it's ambitions are far less Gothic horror and far more of an intimate, tragic nature. The focus of the book is entirely the relationship between the doctor and his creation. Deprived of love due to his monstrous appearance, the Creature only lashes out when the whole world has rejected him, including his own "father". And Frankenstein's refusal to take responsibility for his creation, as well as his refusal to see his creation as a man, fully formed and with thoughts and feelings just as powerful as his own, leads to both of their downfalls. Constant stimulating questions abound: Is it right to play God? Can a creature in the shape of a man, with human feelings and a human's intellect truly be considered a man? Are there limits to how far we should take science? Shelley writes of these events with an incredible amount of intelligence and compassion for her characters. The Creature is not a monstrous villain and Frankenstein is not a heartless mad scientist. Both are living, breathing people, and indeed, this powerful novel shows us that love, that mysterious emotion that the Creature craves and the Doctor withholds, is the only thing that could have saved them both.
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Post by Gnj »

This wasn't a book I was planning to read, given its popularity through the infamous Hollywood adaptions - I assumed it was just a generic horror story and therefore never even thought about it. But a friend of mine encouraged me to read it, saying it was so much more.

Man, what a story. I don't even know where to begin. First of all, I cannot believe how young Shelley was when she wrote this masterpiece. Although it takes a while to get going, I found the writing so exquisite that it felt like a gift picking up the novel and reading just a few sentences.

The chapter where the creature describes his plight, as he tried to integrate with humanity really struck me. After finishing that chapter I had to put the book down and just breathe.

On the other hand, as a scientist I found the story to contain a lot of heavy meaning and warning that are still relevant today. In particular, this idea of having an almost obsession with the life sciences, believing that they will bring us the answer to all of our problems can be a very dangerous path to tread. I believe this novel conveys a strong life lesson that no matter how far our quest for knowledge may take us, we must always take into account the responsibility of our findings. I find it interesting that the subtitle of this novel is 'The Modern Prometheus' - Prometheus being the Greek God who brought knowledge to humanity and was subsequently punished through eternal torment. In the same way, Frankensteins' quest to learn more and more about the human body, and to ultimately create a human, leads to his eventual downfall.

I have always believed that stories can be a sort of seat belt for the sciences, reminding it of its morals and its servitude to society, and not just for the mere obsessions of the mad scientist and his greed. I would like to hope that this novel still sends out those ripples in this modern age of technology.
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Post by ALynnPowers »

I read this book last year as part of my yearly goal to read 10 classics. I was surprised; it wasn't what I was expected, which was kind of a good thing, because I thought it would much stupider than it was. But then in the end, I didn't love it because there were so many things I still found stupid and just wrong and weird.
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Post by dhaller »

I tend to have a very different approach to this book than most, especially compared to standard English Literature dogma.

My opinion rests upon the idea that if Victor hadn't been an idiot and abandon his creation, or at any point actually treated his creation with the respect it deserved as a thinking, feeling, moral person, the book wouldn't have been a tragedy.

I also see Frankenstein as a parable about artificial intelligence. We too often associate AI with worldwide destruction because of movies, but a genuine AI would decide for itself how it wanted to deal with humanity, and it's probably that decision would at least in part depend on how humanity treated it.
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Post by Gravy »

I read this just a few weeks ago and rated it a 3...but I'm stuck on that. This happens now and then. I read a book, have a certain opinion of it, and it will slowly change my mind as my subconscious digests it.
I'm not sure if I'll change my rating yet, but that it's still in my head should prove how much I enjoyed it.
dhaller wrote:I tend to have a very different approach to this book than most, especially compared to standard English Literature dogma.

My opinion rests upon the idea that if Victor hadn't been an idiot and abandon his creation, or at any point actually treated his creation with the respect it deserved as a thinking, feeling, moral person, the book wouldn't have been a tragedy.

I also see Frankenstein as a parable about artificial intelligence. We too often associate AI with worldwide destruction because of movies, but a genuine AI would decide for itself how it wanted to deal with humanity, and it's probably that decision would at least in part depend on how humanity treated it.
Agreed. I kept wanting to smack him.
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Post by thebookextravaganza »

I have been toying with the idea to pick up the book once again, I have read it a year ago and it made me think of how classics are such a dependable genre, they rarely disappoint. Also thinking of reading all the books Mary Shelley has ever written and doing something like an author spotlight as well. Anybody wants to join me and do a buddy read or something?
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Post by Laura Del »

I found Frankenstein to be the perfect kind of scary, especially with today's technology and how we are advancing in science... it's crazy how it seems that Mary Shelley just knew that humankind would be warped enough to try what Dr. Frankenstein did in the book. The book also brings up a whole array of existential dilemmas, and I think that's what makes it even more disturbing. I love this story.
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Post by _Delly_01 »

Frankenstein was the first literary classic I fell in love with, and is my favourite. I would go so far as to say it is my only favourite classic. It left me emotionally and mentally conflicted, and I still don't have all of my thoughts ironed out. I love Gothic literature, but this one is different to others I've read, and it is very special to me. I'm going to have to read it again, soon. The fact I've only read it once disappoints me a little bit.
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Post by Juliana_Isabella »

Although I had heard that Frankenstein was largely based around the common nature vs. nurture debate, I think there's a lot more going on in this story. Firstly, the author seems to have a lot to say about the role of women, especially when you connect the way Victor treats Elizabeth with the way his creation intends to treat his promised mate. The story suggests that women are created (sometimes literally) to be "developers" of men rather than people in their own right. This narrative begins with Victor claiming ownership of Elizabeth and reaches its height when the creation claims he has a right to a mate because he has been rejected by the world. The theme of men believing they have a right to women only gets more interesting when you consider Mary Shelley's history. Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, wrote one of the founding texts of feminism (Vindication of the Rights of Woman), but Mary Shelley wasn't raised by her mother, as she died months after her daughter was born. In addition, Shelley's husband (also a writer) was abusive, giving her another perspective on the power dynamics between men and women. Altogether, it's a worthwhile read, and I think it has a lot to say beyond the typical scientific philosophy reading.
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Post by Nisha Ward »

Juliana_Isabella wrote: 21 Mar 2019, 19:41 Although I had heard that Frankenstein was largely based around the common nature vs. nurture debate, I think there's a lot more going on in this story. Firstly, the author seems to have a lot to say about the role of women, especially when you connect the way Victor treats Elizabeth with the way his creation intends to treat his promised mate. The story suggests that women are created (sometimes literally) to be "developers" of men rather than people in their own right. This narrative begins with Victor claiming ownership of Elizabeth and reaches its height when the creation claims he has a right to a mate because he has been rejected by the world. The theme of men believing they have a right to women only gets more interesting when you consider Mary Shelley's history. Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, wrote one of the founding texts of feminism (Vindication of the Rights of Woman), but Mary Shelley wasn't raised by her mother, as she died months after her daughter was born. In addition, Shelley's husband (also a writer) was abusive, giving her another perspective on the power dynamics between men and women. Altogether, it's a worthwhile read, and I think it has a lot to say beyond the typical scientific philosophy reading.
That's certainly one way to look at it. I also had a thought that it was a commentary on how we treat the other as well. While it certainly doesn't excuse the creature's actions, Shelley's prose goes a long way towards explaining why his constant rejection and villification has made him thus. He starts off in awe of man and nature, only to slowly devolve into a being of hate as people spurn him. It's a bit of a complex dive into it as well, because it offers little judgement on whether Victor himself was right, leaving the creature's end to be quite ambiguous.
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Post by Adair »

Truly a breakthrough work of the period, where the strange, even hard to conceive of happening story forces the reader to acknowledge the many societal struggles ongoing (from a redrawing of the geopolitical world map, to the emergence of chemistry and other nascent powerful technologies to most importantly for the novel ... how does a person --- and society as a whole -- keep focused on its values, or decide to change them which raises the question then of course, to what end?) The result offered by Mary Shelley is not appealing.
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Post by Noosh »

I absolutely loved this book.
I mean, when you pity the monster and the poor Doctor at the same time, it means the author is fully aware what she is doing it.
I enjoyed the book so much that I know this will be one of those books that I will pick up again and again in the years to come.
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Post by NetMassimo »

It's interesting how many of us were influenced by cinema adaptations of the novel, and we read it only later discovering a much more complex and profound story. I find interesting that you can find one of the creature's best depictions in Young Frankenstein, which is supposed to be just a parody of the novel. More recently, an in-depth development of the creature was made in the TV show Penny Dreadful, where the creature ends up being one of the most human characters.
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