strange and random happenstance

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Published by: A Public Domain Book
Publication Date: 1818
Format: Kindle, 148 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Victor Frankenstein has had a perfect life surrounded by love and plenty. His curious mind was supplied with everything he could desire focusing his studies on outdated theories of the natural world. When he ventures to university in Ingolstadt he realizes that his opinions are outmoded and he devotes himself to the study of the modern theories and practices of natural philosophy and chemistry. Victor's studies lead him to a discovery that he could create life from death. He succeeds at playing God but instantly regrets his experiments and falls gravely ill while his creation sets out into the world, alone. The consequences of his actions take Victor's life of love and joy and transforms it into a nightmare of his own making. His inability to take responsibility for what he has done and atone with the smallest sliver of empathy will destroy his world. Yet Victor sees the destruction of his world as a sacrifice that must be made to save the rest of the world.

Everyone knows some version of Frankenstein. That's the thing though, it's a "version" of Frankenstein. I'm not naive in that I knew I wasn't going to be reading a book about a green monster with bolts in his neck while someone screamed "He's Alive!" Yet there was a part of me that worried that I would be bored and disinterested to the point that I wouldn't want to finish the book because I had heard the story so many times before. I truly hadn't heard the story though. Frankenstein is this story that no adaptation has ever gotten right (putting Mary Shelley before the title didn't help you Kenneth Branagh). Though on my first reading of the book I was blinded by the appendixes. The historical context of the story's creation, the tie-ins to philosophy, all these other aspects were so fascinating that I fell in love with the book without actually judging the book on it's own merit, because re-reading it I was bored and disinterested, belatedly proving my concerns. Victor is such a reprehensible character that without that something more, more backstory, more context, you just want to punch his smug little face.

One of the interesting things to come of Frankenstein is the odd quirk that the majority of the people think Frankenstein is the monster, not the creator. Personally I think this is a Freudian Slip that acknowledges the truth, the real monster. Because while the creature eventually does become a monster because of Victor's actions, in truth Victor is the monster. Just look at the evidence? He creates life and abandons it. When the life reaches out to him he "helps" only to give his creation false hope. Also, a thing that niggled at me, if Victor's real horror at creating a mate for his creation was that they would populate the earth with their abominations, well, he was "making" her so he could have just removed the baby making parts. Getting back on track, Victor, knowing of the danger the creature brings to his family he just goes home and waits while carnage rains down on him. The creature is lashing out at the world because all he wants is love. Is that a monster? No a monster is someone who is amoral, lacks empathy, doesn't care about the consequences of their actions, and has an ego that easily has delusions of being a god. IE, Victor. 

While I love so many different kinds and genres of books there are some books that just blow you away and your mind slowly melts out your ear. Then you re-read that book and start to seriously question your own judgment. Was this the book that I loved? Was this the book I was lauding and throwing laurels at and telling everyone I'd ever known to go and read it? The interweaving of philosophy and science, arts and literature, the book's subtitle, even the origins of the story easily make this book's categorization as a classic almost a forgone conclusion because it's the perfect book for a college student to take apart and write several essays on. The sheer richness of the text though is never bogged down though in being indecipherable or overly written (yes, I'm looking at you Henry "Turn of the Screw" James). I think it would surprise the average reader that despite being written almost two hundred years ago this is an easy read, even if some of the concepts delve into the greatest questions that have plagued mankind. Again, making it an approachable classic. It's rare that a book can be easy to read yet robust enough to withstand much research and scrutiny.

"Last time I saw you
We had just split in two.
You were looking at me.
I was looking at you.
You had a way so familiar,
But I could not recognize,
Cause you had blood on your face;
I had blood in my eyes.
But I could swear by your expression
That the pain down in your soul
Was the same as the one down in mine.
That's the pain,
Cuts a straight line
Down through the heart;
We called it love."

In his lyrics for "The Origins of Love" from Hedwig and the Angry Inch, which incidentally is heavily influenced by Frankenstein, Stephen Task retells Aristophanes' myth of primal man from the Symposium which Shelley's husband translated as "The Banquet of Plato" and which Shelley incorporated into her novel. The lyrics are able to poetically express all the concepts that Shelley took from Aristophanes' story and incorporated into Frankenstein. The duality of Victor and the creature being halves of the same whole is again and again brought to the reader's consciousness. They are one whole person that has been separated quite literally by a bolt of lighting into a being of love (the creature) and a being of rationality and science (Victor). They need each other, which the creature sees but Victor is unable to accept. This doppelganger aspect was taken even further in The National Theatre's production of Frankenstein back in 2011 when Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller would alternate nights as to who was Victor and who was the creature, further highlighting this aspect of the work.

These opposing natures, which in one person would form a whole, sets up all the struggling forces in the book. Conflict abounds with man versus monster, god versus science, man versus nature. The last thing I want to touch on is this last aspect of nature, as in the material world, not as in humankind. Up until Shelley Gothic had a very specific look, ie moldy old castles in remote areas; which is probably why so many adaptations of her books has reverted to this trope. But Shelley is able to do what you might think impossible, she is able to create the small and cloistered environment that is shut off from society while still in the glory of nature. The lightning stuck peaks of the alps, the glory of God's creation of ice and snow. These scenes of bleak beauty that bring home all that Victor was flying in the face of when he decided to make a man. Every aspect of this book brings home to me how amazing Mary Shelley was. She was wicked smart and broke the mold for her time, so while I have developed issues with Frankenstein, I think it IS a classic if just for her.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:01 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Artisophanes, Benedict Cumberbatch, Doppleganger, Frankenstein, Hedwig, Henry James, Jonny Lee Miller, Kenneth Branagh, Mary Shelley, Nature, The Origins of Love, The Turn of the Screw, Victor Frankenstein

My Cousin Rachel
Based on the book by Daphne Du Maurier
Starring: Geraldine Chaplin, Christopher Guard, Charles Kay, Amanda Kirby, Bert Parnaby, John Shrapnel, John Stratton, and Richard Williams
Release Date: 1983
Rating: ★★★
Unavailable

Philip Ashley sees off his cousin Ambrose to winter in Italy for his health. Philip impatiently stays home and awaits Ambrose's monthly letters which are more infrequent then ever since he met a distant cousin of theirs, Rachel. Much to Philip's surprise he finally gets a letter from Ambrose saying the two are married. Shortly after, Philip gets a distressing letter telling him to hurry to Italy. On arriving Ambrose is dead and Philip is inconsolable by Rachel's servant and her dubious business associate Rainaldi. As for Rachel, she has left with all Ambrose's possessions, no one knows where. Philip returns home and soon Rachel is at his door, destitute. Philip soon develops feelings for Rachel and desires restitution be made to her for Ambrose never re-writing his will. But money flows through her hands like water, yet where is it going? Philip, blinded by love doesn't heed the warnings of others and is soon gambling with not just his heart but his health and his inheritance at the hands of Rachel.

I find it more then a little ironic that on the poster for this adaptation it says "to most men she was an angel - of death!" Why would I find this ironic? Well, for any movie or miniseries that is translated from a book there is the director's or writer's interpretation of what happens in the book and what it means. With a book written by Daphne Du Maurier you have even more room for interpretation because she lives in the grey areas with ambiguity being her friend. Yet this adaptation had a clear vision that Rachel wasn't a murderess or poisoner and that Ambrose died of a brain tumor, which was also the affliction that Philip suffered from. Therefore the poster is funny to me in that it is trying to shoehorn the adaptation to work with their programing. It was aired on Mystery, so therefore they must book it as mysterious, even if they don't hint at poisoning till the very end and then only half-heartedly. They would have been better off airing it on Masterpiece Theater for all the suspense it had.

But the nail in the coffin, so to speak, of why it is a brain tumor is what happens on Philip's twenty-fifth birthday. In the book he takes a late night swim in the ocean, despite how cold it is, and then drinks copious amounts of Rachel's tisane. Therefore his illness that is attributed to meningitis could conceivably be meningitis or poisoning, we are left with ambiguity. In this adaptation he spends a few days prior to his birthday clutching at his head, never goes for a swim, and then is seen in Rachel's room clearly NOT drinking his tisane. In fact I don't think we saw him drink his tisane once! So poison is definitely not the culprit. If anyone was a murderer it was Philip with his omission of the dangers of the sunken garden, which was far more obvious in this adaptation then in the book.

In focusing the story to the brain tumor versus the duality of the tumor versus the poison you see a paring down of the narrative. This was a very streamlined adaptation in many regards, despite being three hours in length. All the supporting characters who carry quite a bit of the narrative on their shoulders in the book are relegated to almost background artists status. The trio of Philip, Rachel, and Rainaldi are the only characters that matter here. By doing this the adaptation deprives us of great characters and depth that the book has. But in my mind all adaptations lose something in the translation no matter how hard you try. Here we are left with a story that doesn't quite work that decided to go for mood versus story. Instead of getting insight into Philip's change of heart we just see him on his horse, which he has a lot of trouble riding, watching Rachel from the bushes, like some kind of pervert. In fact, they turned the sex up to about eleven in this version, going so far as to show the implied sex between Rachel and Philip on his birthday.

Yet this mood over matter could have worked if the actors were better actors. Christopher Guard, who portrayed Philip, seemed to not have any range of emotion or facial expressions. Yes, he did conceited jackass well, which is basically all Philip is in my mind, but he had to have some range, because conceited jackasses do have mood changes. Him hating Rachel was the same look as him loving Rachel. It was very confusing therefore seeing when or why his feelings changed for Rachel as he was wooden throughout... As for Geraldine Chaplin as Rachel... she is an actor with mild talent and austere beauty that I think got the majority of her work because of her father, ie, Charlie Chaplin. Her accent is so odd in this that it's sometimes hard to make out what she's saying. This isn't helped by the bad sound quality either. At least I can say her accent was pretty consistently odd, but really, I don't know why she needed it. To make Rachel more mysterious? Sigh. I kind of wanted Rainaldi, played by the ever fabulous Charles Kay, to kill them all and run off to Florence with their fortune.

So you're probably wondering, why did she give this adaptation three stars (actually more then I gave the book) if it had all these issues? Aside from the fact that early BBC dramas hold a kind of special place in my heart for the bad sets, reused sound effects (yes, it's THAT ONE bird again), and great character actors, there is what I am now referring to as The Roday Factor. OK, so hopefully you all know who James Roday is. If you don't, shame on you! But I shall take mercy on you and do a brief explanation of the genius of James Roday. James Roday with Dule Hill starred on the much underappreciated USA show Psych, about a fake psychic who was a real detective, in a very unorthodox way. For eight seasons it was the perfect combination of mystery and comedy. Plus, for children of the eighties, it was a goldmine of Goonies references and random sing-a-longs. It was controlled chaos that would make me laugh more then any show out there and made me love James Roday.

About five seconds into this adaptation I voiced to my viewing companion that Christopher Guard looked remarkably like James Roday in certain lighting, to which he agreed. Sadly Christopher doesn't have the acting chops of James, but that's neither here nor there, because watching Christopher he was more and more James Roday's doppelganger. It was so freaky I could not stop laughing. Then I started imagining what this miniseries would be like if James Roday had done it inserting his humor and his acting skills, and this just entertained me more and more. The one scene where Rachel is baring her soul about the unsigned will of Ambrose, he looked so much like James I had to screencap it to show you a compare and contrast. A still image doesn't do it justice, but I think you can get the idea. Also, I think Daphne Du Maurier would adore this unexpected doubling. So in other words, watch this miniseries not for the acting or the interpretation, or anything else, watch it to see what it would be like if James Roday travelled back in time over thirty years ago to be a bad BBC actor.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Charles Kay, Charlie Chaplin, Christopher Guard, Daphne Du Maurier, Doppleganger, Dule Hill, Geraldine Chapline, Goonies, James Roday, Masterpiece Theater, My Cousin Rachel, Mystery, Poison, Psych, Tisane

The Scapegoat
Based on the book by Daphne Du Maurier
Starring: Matthew Rhys, Eileen Atkins, Anton Lesser, Jodhi May, Phoebe Nicholls, Andrew Scott, Sheridan Smith, Pip Torrens, and Julian Wadham
Release Date: 2012
Rating: ★★★
Unavailable

John Standing has lost his teaching job, Greek being thought archaic when conversational French is far more useful. That night in a bar he is mistaken for another man, a man that looks just like him. They spend the night talking, or as Johnny Spence views it, having a conversation with himself. Come morning Johnny Spence has fled with John Standing's belongings and Johnny's life is thrust on John. He never thought that he could slip so easily into a life of wealth and luxury, yet he seems to be doing just that. John slowly tries to repair the damage that Johnny has wrought to his own family and soon he realizes that he loves them all and wants to stay. But Johnny has other ideas as how to best use this unexpected boon that having a doppelganger gives him.

Now, as you probably know, I am an Anglophile in the extreme. I  long to live in "this scepter'd isle... this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England!" During the Jubilee Year I sat on my couch at ungodly hours to watch flotillas and parades. Yet never once did I think, you know what would make a great paring? Daphne Du Maurier and the Queen's coronation. Because they exist in different worlds and never the twain shall meet until someone at itv went, hey, here's a wacky idea, why don't we take Daphne Du Maurier's The Scapegoat and make it for the jubilee! We'll strip out all the nuance of the story and totally ignore the fact that it's set in France and make it about "those who have greatness thrust upon them" therefore drawing a parallel between Queen Elizabeth and John Standing, who both have responsibilities they weren't prepared for foisted on them. Um no. This makes an interesting movie, one that can stand on it's own fine and works better that way because as an adaptation it leaves so much to be desired.

The Britishness that was thrust upon the story changes everything. The setting of the story in France was deliberate on Du Maurier's part. She not only wanted to explore her family's history of glass making in France but she wanted to deal with the issues of what scars are left behind within a country that collaborated with the enemy. The past and the present and the future of her characters all hinges on what was sacrificed because of war. John, living in a world without attachments, doesn't understand that everything in life is about compromises. The compromises we make with our friends, our families, and even our enemies. He stumbles about trying to find this balance between daughter, wife, mother, lover. His struggle and final acceptance is the driving force of the narrative, whereas the film version of John thrives after one or two missteps.

No secrets, just happiness. WTF! Has Charles Sturridge, the writer of this adaptation, ever actually read and understood any Du Maurier? It's ambiguity in the end all the way! What are we to learn about someone who takes up the offered mantle of responsibility and doesn't stumble? Nothing is to be learned! Sure, we can compare him to George VI and how he stepped into the vacuum left by his Nazis loving brother, but that's not what this book is about! There's nothing that gets my goat more then taking a book, and instead of exploring or expanding on one or another theme, they cram the book into what they want it to be instead of what it is. You can see why Du Maurier was always hesitant about anyone adapting her work; they just don't get it.

In fact if you look at the new setup of the plot, it doesn't work. John Standing is fired at the beginning of the movie and therefore has no life to go back to. Whereas the book's John has a life that his duplicate is currently living and destroying. Without a life to go back to why would he even care about leaving? Why would he want to go back to nothing? It doesn't make sense? Though none of the changes make sense because each change so drastically alters the story that it is truly an unstable house of cards. As for the wife's pregnancy... well, without it I just saw that house of cards starting to fall...

Yet what I missed most was that unease that Du Maurier's writing always captures. The oddities of humanity and the inability to define the grey areas of the human psyche. The most obvious example of character shift is in the young daughter, the very French Marie-Noel, being turned into the very benign Mary Lou. Marie-Noel was religiously devote and had visions and mortified her flesh, here we have a girl who has a funeral for a dead fish, a stuffed rabbit that says goodnight, and wants nothing more then to read Charlotte's Web, versus some saintly tract. Ugh, please. This isn't Du Maurier, this is Enid Blyton.

Each character is slowly stripped of what made them unique and interesting till we have these stock characters that could work in any story. The grey areas are gone. Neither John is a saint or a sinner in Du Maurier's eyes, yet this adaptation clearly wants to view the true John Spence the devil of imagination. He has nothing redeeming about himself, nothing worthwhile, he is pure evil. He beats his mistress, he tries to murder his wife, he takes his doppelganger out to the wood shed... he is a stock villain. In Du Maurier's world nothing is this simple, nothing is black and white. Nothing in this adaptation rings true the deeper you dig. Life isn't this simple and that's why Du Maurier's work endures, because it shows us all aspects of humanity, whereas this adaptation is less then a two hour diversion you will soon forget.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: British, Charlotte's Web, Daphne Du Maurier, Diamond Jubilee, Doppleganger, Du Maurier December, England, Enid Blyton, France, George VI, Queen Elizabeth, The Scapegoat

The Scapegoat by Daphne Du Maurier
Published by: Virago Press
Publication Date: 1957
Format: Paperback, 384 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

John has spent yet another holiday in France walking the history that is his passion and his reason for living. As he gets ready to return to England to teach yet another term at school he looks at all the people and wonders how apart he is from them and if his life of no connections is really a failed life. In the crowd he sees one face he didn't expect to see. His own. The two men, John and Jean, strike up a conversation based on their eerie similarities. They are true doppelgangers. The night is spent drinking and talking and come morning Jean is gone with John's identity, leaving the lonely Englishman an encumbered life filled with family and a failing business. Without really knowing what drives him to it John takes on Jean's life. The bachelor now has a pregnant wife, a daughter, a mother, mistresses, and a complicated life. But soon John doesn't want to leave this new life and if Jean were to decide to return, what would happen?

Daphne Du Maurier has always employed doubling and duality in her writing, but never so obviously as in The Scapegoat. Here she openly embraces the trope of people who have switched places. Though in lighter fare it is done willingly or comedically, as in The Prince and the Pauper, The Parent Trap, and Moon Over Parador. Here it is a situation thrust on John, combining the switching with a case of mistaken identity. Though in any other case mistaken identity would be easier to prove if you weren't the doppelganger of the man they think you are. By combining these two plot devices into one Du Maurier is able to delve into the darker aspects of who we are and what would happen if we tried to escape our life by taking up the mantle of someone else's. 

By having the opportunity of becoming someone else, someone known, what would you do? Seeing as Jean is the one who thrust this situation on John, it's pretty clear that he does this just to amuse himself, a humorous what if. But John, John is more complicated. By going along with Jean he is made complicit in this scheme he doesn't want. Yet being put in a situation where the repercussions fall on another's head means that for the first time in his life John is free of responsibility and guilt and is allowed to make mistakes and be taciturn or angry or whomever he chooses to think Jean is.

John's first embracing of the situation is the fact that he can't be held accountable. Du Maurier here is bringing up the darker nature of humans. What would we do if we could get away with it? For some people it would be anything and everything, theft to murder. Putting someone in this situation is testing their mettle. Given a free pass what would you do? It shows the goodness of John that after the initially heady response of being able to say what he really feels that he tries to better the lives of Jean's family. His deepest desires aren't dark and perverted, his deepest desires are to have connections, to have people to care for and love. At the start of his journey he can't come to terms with his driftless life. He wonders what does he do with failure. After spending time in the shoes of Jean he wonders what do you do with love.

John's question has changed, but the search for an answer is still there. That is what it is to be human. To always be questioning and searching. While John spends his time as Jean picturing him as this evil man who viewed the demands of family as the demands of his "captors" life is never this black and white. People aren't just good or evil, they are filled with grey areas. We have spent so much time with John that we see the world through his eyes now but it isn't till the end, that slight shift in perspective that makes us realize, John's point of view isn't the only one. Life is complicated and messy and we are left with questions, but it is never just black and white.

Speaking of someone living in the grey areas, Du Maurier spent most of her life, and a significant amount of her writing, not just dealing with these weighty issues of the nature of man but as an extended therapy session for herself. She viewed herself as two energies, male and female, which understandably makes her obsession with duality make sense. But there is another force that ruled her life and her work, and that is her father, the actor Sir Gerald Du Maurier. The relationship between Jean and his daughter Marie-Noel is a loving, yet odd and at times downright disturbing relationship. The scene where Marie-Noel asks her father to whip her... I defy you to find a more disturbing image then a grown man being asked by a small ten year old to be whipped for her imagined sins.

The question one is left with is how much did Daphne put of herself in her books? Her father was a dynamic and possessive man. They had a love hate relationship and he often wished that Daphne had been a boy, perhaps starting her duality issues. Incest was often hinted at. It is even believed that perhaps they shared a lover, Gertrude Lawrence. Whatever is and isn't true, one thing is certain, the creepy dynamic that they had is shared with Jean and Marie-Noel, further fanning the flames of what was real in Du Maurier's world and what was play acting.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Daphne Du Maurier, Doppleganger, Du Maurier December, France, Gerald Du Maurier, Incest, Moon Over Parador, The Parent Trap, The Prince and the Pauper, The Scapegoat

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Published by: Penguin Classics
Publication Date: 1818
Format: Hardcover, 384 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Victor Frankenstein has had a perfect life surrounded by love and plenty. His curious mind was supplied with everything he could desire focusing his studies on outdated theories of the natural world. When he ventures to university in Ingolstadt he realizes that his opinions are outmoded and he devotes himself to the study of the modern theories and practices of natural philosophy and chemistry. Victor's studies lead him to a discovery that he could create life from death. He succeeds at playing God but instantly regrets his experiments and falls gravely ill while his creation sets out into the world, alone. The consequences of his actions take Victor's life of love and joy and transforms it into a nightmare of his own making. His inability to take responsibility for what he has done and atone with the smallest sliver of empathy will destroy his world. Yet Victor sees the destruction of his world as a sacrifice that must be made to save the rest of the world.

Everyone knows some version of Frankenstein. That's the thing though, it's a "version" of Frankenstein. I'm not naive in that I knew I wasn't going to be reading a book about a green monster with bolts in his neck. Yet there was a part of me that worried that I would be bored and disinterested to the point that I wouldn't want to finish the book because I had heard the story so many times before. I truly hadn't heard the story though. Frankenstein is this amazingly written story that no adaptation has ever gotten right (putting Mary Shelley before the title didn't help you Kenneth Branagh). There is such depth and nuance that I highly doubt that any adaptation would be able to capture the spirit of the book and do it justice.

While I love so many different kinds and genres of books there are some books that just blow you away and your mind slowly melts out your ear. There's the bestsellers with little depth that you devour like popcorn and then there are the books that are a twelve course meal plus dessert. There is so much meaning and thought put into every word and phrase that you finish the book and want to start over again right away because you know you've missed so much. The interweaving of philosophy and science, arts and literature, the book's subtitle, even the origins of the story easily make this book's categorization as a classic almost a forgone conclusion. The sheer richness of the text though is never bogged down though in being indecipherable or overly written (yes, I'm looking at you Henry "Turn of the Screw" James). I think it would surprise the average reader that despite being written almost two hundred years ago this is an easy read, even if some of the concepts delve into the greatest questions that have plagued mankind.

One of the interesting things to come of Frankenstein is the odd quirk that the majority of the people think Frankenstein is the monster, not the creator. Personally I think this is a Freudian Slip that acknowledges the truth, the real monster. Because while the creature eventually does become a monster because of Victor's actions, in truth Victor is the monster. Just look at the evidence? He creates life and abandons it. When the life reaches out to him he "helps" only to give his creation false hope. Also, a thing that niggled at me, if Victor's real horror at creating a mate for his creation was that they would populate the earth with their abominations, well, he was "making" her so he could have just removed the baby making parts. Getting back on track, Victor, knowing of the danger the creature brings to his family he just goes home and waits while carnage rains down on him. The creature is lashing out at the world because all he wants is love. Is that a monster? No a monster is someone who is amoral, lacks empathy, doesn't care about the consequences of their actions, and has an ego that easily has delusions of being a god. IE, Victor.

In his lyrics for "The Origins of Love" from Hedwig and the Angry Inch, which incidentally is heavily influenced by Frankenstein, Stephen Task retells Aristophanes' myth of primal man from the Symposium which Shelley's husband translated as "The Banquet of Plato" and which Shelley incorporated into her novel. The lyrics are able to poetically express all the concepts that Shelley took from Aristophanes' story and incorporated into Frankenstein. The duality of Victor and the creature being halves of the same whole is again and again brought to the reader's consciousness. They are one whole person that has been separated quite literally by a bolt of lighting into a being of love (the creature) and a being of rationality and science (Victor). They need each other, which the creature sees but Victor is unable to accept. This doppelganger aspect was taken even further in The National Theatre's production of Frankenstein back in 2011 when Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller would alternate nights as to who was Victor and who was the creature, further highlighting this aspect of the work.

These opposing natures, which in one person would form a whole, sets up all the struggling forces in the book. Conflict abounds with man versus monster, god versus science, man versus nature. The last thing I want to touch on is this last aspect of nature, as in the material world, not as in humankind. Up until Shelley Gothic had a very specific look, ie moldy old castles in remote areas; which is probably why so many adaptations of her books has reverted to this trope. But Shelley is able to do what you might think impossible, she is able to create the small and cloistered environment that is shut off from society while still in the glory of nature. The lightning stuck peaks of the alps, the glory of God's creation of ice and snow. These scenes of bleak beauty that bring home all that Victor was flying in the face of when he decided to make a man. Every aspect of this book brings home to me how groundbreaking it was and still is, I could continue to delve deeper and deeper, but I think the time has come for you to pick the book up for yourself.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 2 comments  

Labels: Artisophanes, Benedict Cumberbatch, Doppleganger, Frankenstein, Hedwig, Henry James, Jonny Lee Miller, Kenneth Branagh, Mary Shelley, Nature, The Origins of Love, The Turn of the Screw, Victor Frankenstein