5: Frankenstein

A book by Mary Shelley

Consider the following from the Organic Authority’s website on why GM foods are often referred to as Frankenfoods: “The practice of introducing new DNA and chemicals to seeds or animals is similar to how Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein created his monster—through piecing together lots of different organisms. We all know what happened when the monster turned on Frankenstein, and many critics of genetic engineering have likened the inevitable backlash of GMO technology to the destruction and murderous rampage of Frankenstein’s monster.”

So embedded in our collective consciousness is the Frankenstein myth that its use as a shorthand for a monstrous creation is perfectly sound. Victor Frankenstein did indeed create his monster by piecing together body parts stolen from graves. And as a cautionary tale for what can happen when humans try to play God, Frankenstein arguably has no equal. Kudos to the Organic Authority then for their foray into exegesis. It’s evocative stuff. But did you see what’s wrong with it? Mary Shelley’s name is misspelt. They’ve missed out the second e! A more perfect sketch of the popular perception of Frankenstein you could barely hope to find. Correct in essentials, but fundamentally a little bit wrong.

Shelley’s masterpiece has taken on a life of its own since it was first published in 1818, spawning adaptations throughout popular culture. Just on film, the monster has been depicted more than 70 times, from the brilliantly inventive 1910 silent version (which is 12 minutes long and definitely worth a watch) to 2015’s mega-flop Victor Frankenstein. One particular evocation, though, has stuck. Boris Karloff’s (brilliant) bolt-necked, block-headed, monosyllabic monster from the 1931 movie Frankenstein (and its subsequent sequels) has become the icon. If you—or your child or your dog, for that matter—want to dress up as Frankenstein's monster for Halloween, that’s the costume.

But that’s not Shelley’s monster.

This is: “His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.”

The monster is not mute or dumb, either. Far from it. He is loquacious and beautifully articulate; sensitive and self-analytical. He reads Goethe, Plutarch and Milton, and reacts viscerally to each: “I can hardly describe to you the effect of these books.They produced in me an infinity of new images and feelings, that sometimes raised me to ecstasy, but more frequently sunk me into the lowest dejection.”

And Frankenstein features more than one monster. Victor and his creation are both equally guilty of horrifying acts, with the creature arguably more deserving of mitigation. “I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend,” he tells his maker. Frankenstein, meanwhile, was carried away with his own cleverness. If only he'd listened to Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park:

But Victor is also deserving of sympathy given the remorse he shows. The guilt he feels is palpable, it manifests itself physically. He may not have thought before he acted, but he is all too aware of the consequences: “I had unchained an enemy among them, whose joy it was to shed their blood, and to revel in their groans.” (Christ on a barnacle could Mary Shelley write a sentence!)

The square-headed zombie version was the only iteration of the monster I knew before I read Shelley’s novel in January, and I sincerely regret not coming to the original sooner. It’s mind-blowingly good, and perhaps the best-written book I’ve ever read. Frankenstein’s influence is evident in innumerable subsequent classic works, from Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre; from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde to Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. That is enough to recommend it, but Frankenstein does not need its celebrated offspring to do its own cheerleading. It’s the original work of science fiction, and possibly the best.