The subtitle promotes this as an examination of the “Puzzles and Conundrums in Mary Shelley’s Monstrous Masterpiece”. John Sutherland, Lord Northcliffe Professor Emeritus at University College, London, certainly finds plenty of puzzling things in both the text and in the circumstances of its creation.
Some of the questions posed by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus are profound, like how does Victor Frankenstein bring his collection of bones and body parts to life? Where does he get the Creature’s brain from? Others are much more amusing, such as “who makes the Creature’s trousers” and “does the Creature have a passport”.
Sutherland mainly uses the original 1818 three-volume edition of the book because it is closer to Mary’s dream-vision of the story triggered by the sharing of ghost stories at Villa Diodati near Lake Geneva in 1816. Her revised single-volume 1831 edition is the more popular version, but as Sutherland notes she had changed from being a vibrant young girl to being “a depressed widow and hard-pressed single mother”. Her world-view had changed considerably due to the hardships in her adult life.
Some questions about the text are easy to answer, others are down to interpretation. For example, critics have given importance to the creature being described as having yellow skin when it is newly “born”. Some say this has a racial explanation, that it is a reference to Mongolians who are renowned for savagery and ruthlessness, and is a precursor to the feared Yellow Peril in the US and Europe. Or, as Sutherland notes, it might be a more simple reference to jaundice associated with newborns or the yellow pallor of the near dead.
Sutherland provides insights into the creation of the monster beyond and within the text, in such areas as the creature’s diet (he is staunchly vegetarian), his linguistic abilities, his quick psychological development, his need for a bride and why he ends up at the North Pole (the last place you would expect a Prometheus to go). For good measure he looks at film versions of Frankenstein, the contribution Percy Shelley made to the story and offers to answer the question of who wins in a fight between Dracula versus Frankenstein?
Then of course there is the the cursed question of what to call Victor Frankenstein’s creation? Frankenstein has become shorthand for a monstrous creation whereas Mary’s book calls it a wretch, demon, devil, monster, fiend, creature or devil. The title of Sutherland’s book is certainly in error as it should be “Shelley’s Frankenstein’s Monster’s Brain”. But that hardly trips off the tongue, however well it is attached to your body.
Altogether a fun, quirky, clever and entertaining examination of a primal nightmare that continues to haunt our imagination.
FRANKENSTEIN’S BRAIN / AUTHOR: JOHN SUTHERLAND / PUBLISHER: ICON BOOKS LTD / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
