Review by calamitymeat - The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein

calamitymeat 's review for:

The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein by Peter Ackroyd

2.0

medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

An uninspired recitation of one of the history's greatest novels.

I am normally not one to look down on Frankenstein retellings, I LOVE Lisa Frankenstein, I LOVE Gris Grimly's graphic novel, I LOVE when contemporary artists use something as familiar as classic literature to bring something new to the story! Hell, I don't even really look down on fanfiction! If someone has something to say and we can both have fun in the process, who cares? I have a long, long list of movies and books that i've been dying to read and watch based on Mary Shelley's novel, which is why I even read this one in the first place. But it does nothing truly valuable or interesting with the source material.

The writing style itself isn't bad, but Ackroyd barely strays from the original story enough to justify this book being written. He repeats events from the book pretty much beat for beat and at the exact point of the book it would have been at in the original, despite adding a ton of stuff.

I find the inclusion of historical figures related to Mary Shelley corny. I don't think they serve any real narrative purpose outside of referencing historical figures related to Mary Shelley. I don't care about them much considering I actually despise Byron and Bysshe, but I do like John Polidori. And even though I love John Polidori, I really do not care about his inclusion in this book. As characters, I don't care about any of them. It seems like their inclusion is more to have a fun little easter egg in the book.

I don't always spend a lot of time thinking about what a book MEANS, but I couldn't really help spending the entire time I was listening to it thinking about why this book was written. I don't think books always need something deep and introspective to say. But it's Frankenstein, which is so meaningful and representative of a LOT of communities. And each community can cite different reasons as to why it works as an allegory for them specifically. I have to wonder what we're supposed to take away from this book.

I think it's supposed to be about queerness? But it's hard to tell because the book refuses to commit to making queerness an important part of the narrative. I genuinely can't even tell if I'm just reading into it and the author just seems to have weird issues with women or if we really are supposed to think this is a metaphor for repressed sexuality.

After reading other reviews, I'm leaning more towards "I'm just reading into it and the author just seems to have weird issues with women."

None of the characters are actually interesting. The most interesting thing about most of them (only the men, not the women of course) is that they were real people and they're quirky characatures of poets. I don't appreciate the sanitizing of Bysshe leaving his wife and kids for a 16 year old. I don't appreciate the idea that Mary Shelley DIDN'T actually come up with the idea for one of the greatest and most respected novels in world history AND invented an entire literary genre that is THRIVING 200 years later at 18, but instead she was writing about a guy she really met!

Killing off all the important women was somewhat indicative of how the author may feel towards women, but also just.... unnecessary and didn't make sense? I don't understand why Elizabeth had to die. If it was to avoid an incestuous relationship, there are many ways to get around that without killing one of the only two women in the original novel. (The other one doesn't show up of course because why would she? It's not like she was relevant to the plot or anything.) Harriet's death makes no sense because she's not really important to Victor. She's his friend's wife and considering Victor was actually the one killing people, not the Creature, why did he do that? Does he want Percy all to himself? Is he jealous of Harriet? Was he in love with Harriet? Did Ackroyd just need a reason to get her out of the way so Bysshe could be introduced to Mary without having to abandon his wife and kids?

And again with the Godwin's maid. I don't even remember her name. Probably because she was introduced 15 minutes before she was killed off because her only purpose was to die for no reason. But she's not important to Victor. Why would the Creature/Victor kill her? To get Mary's attention? To release some sort of anger that he had been keeping bottled up? Is he just vaguely mentally ill and therefore evil?

Fred's death is the only one that's at all meaningful to Victor and to the reader because he was a real character who existed in more than one scene and he didn't even really get to die in any sort of impactful way, he simply goes missing and is never heard from again. And why Fred? If there was a Creature other than Victor it would make sense because Fred was someone close to Victor and the Creature vowed to destroy everything he loved. But there is no Creature. So why Fred? Why would Victor kill his servant who he seemed to be good friends with? Were they something more than just employer/employee or friends and Victor couldn't handle that part of himself? Did anyone ever find Fred's body? Was that actually mentioned in the book and I forgot because I just don't care about the book in general?

And of course, I have to mention the poorly contrived and horribly unoriginal twist at the end. The whole thing was in Victor's head and he was mentally ill. Even when this wasn't considered to be in poor taste, it's just lazy and meaningless. It's disrespectful to the reader and a disservice to Ackroyd's career as a writer.

So again, I have to ask: What was the point? Why was this written? What are we supposed to take away from it? Why am I supposed to care about this retelling in particular?

The mentally ill are killers? People kill others specifically because they are mentally ill? It's not actually PEOPLE that kill people, but the mental illness itself? Peter Ackroyd is a incompetent writer?

There are just so many other retellings of Frankenstein that actually have something to say or do something creative with the source material. This was just a waste of my time and considering it's about the same length as the original, I wish I had just reread that instead.