Why I like/dislike Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Most of the reviews I’ve read about this book are “Yech! – I hate Victor Frankenstein” or “Yay! I was moved to look deeper than the superficial binary taxonomy of good and evil in mankind”. I admit that my initial response is more of the former but I’m not sure if this is a personality conflict with a well defined character in the story or a disappointment with the author’s (a women, by the way) characterization of men or maybe just men scientists.
In either case, I couldn’t get past Victor Frankenstein’s feckless passive aggressiveness with his creation. One moment he is mentally geared to destroy the “Fiend” and the next he is shocked to a state of immobility and passiveness by the deeds that it has performed.
Note that I use the pronoun “it” . This is part of Victor’s problem. He can’t decide if what he has created is a human or just some sort of creature beneath humans in the animal kingdom. He hasn’t even given it a proper name. This ambiguity may be causing Victor some hesitation in how to respond.
In any case, even if the creature is human, (putting legal questions aside for now, the magistrate was no help in addressing this either) Victor lacks the fortitude to do what must be done, despite all his rage and indignation. At the very least, Victor, who was of above average intelligence apparently, should have realized towards the end, that the way to catch the creature was to lead him into a trap rather than going on for several chapters chasing him in the icy wastelands of northern Russia. I just can’t abide irrational, dithering characters. Thats why I rated this book 2 stars.
On a more meta level, and why I began this book in the first place, is to explore questions of man creating an artificial (meaning brought to life in other than the usual way) intelligence.
Frankenstein is one of the earliest AI Sci Fi novels written and, at least according to some reviewers, it telegraphs Mary Shelly’s views on the risks of runaway ambition in the scientific fields. I like this perspective because it makes up for a lot of omissions in the story line, like exactly how did Victor Frankenstein engage the “spark of life” in the creature? and what was the scientific developments in England that allowed him to (start to ) create a female creature. (Or why did the creature need to have a gender at all?) Or how did this creature learn proper British English from zero language skills, by listening thru a small hole into a hovel where various family members chattered privately and from there, the ability to read and develop deeper insights into the human condition? Most college-educated adults never get this far. Or, why did Victor Frankenstein not follow even basic precautions when experimenting with unknown technologies, like establish some barriers between his work and the rest of the world so that it could not escape into the wild.
These gaping holes in the plot allow me to accept that the plot is not the thing, its the medium for the real message.
And while Mary Shelley does not delve into the various facets of what is good technology and what is bad or if it is just blind ambition run amok, or some other motivation that causes man to be the facilitator of the weapons of his own demise, I’m satisfied that even in the 1800’s, authors were willing to contemplate that there may be some unintended side effects of science for science sake, particularly where personal career goals override an interest in advancing specific social needs. This adds to my exploration into the history and future of real and imagined artificial intelligence.