Victor Frankenstein’s Sad Boi Hours: A Review
First off, let me just say that Mary Shelley is an excellent writer. The world building she did was exquisite and immersive. She also was a tremendously interesting person and I would love to read her journal entries. The particular copy of the book I had included a biography of Shelley’s life and her influences which was nice. Additionally, it cannot be overlooked that this book was and continues to be a tremendous influence on science fiction.
However, I can’t get past the fact that I have zero sympathy for Victor Frankenstein. I get all of the thematic elements of the story around Frankenstein’s creation, but he spends so much of the story lamenting when he could have prevented literally 100% of the murders from occurring if he had been nicer to his creation or he didn’t make the creation in the first place. Especially towards the end when the monster gave Frankenstein the warning that he would see him on his wedding night, maybe he should have warned Elizabeth about it! Also, why did he make the monster way more athletic than he was? Seems like a foolish decision to me.
Maybe I’m not reading this story correctly, and I definitely would have benefitted from reading this in an academic setting where the logic behind Frankenstein’s actions and emotions could have been explained to me better, but I give this book four stars for the world building and literary importance, minus one star for Victor Frankenstein’s continual moping and inaction.