Chapter 6 - The Heat Ray in the Chobham Road
You know how in some internet videos of an event happening, they re-play the content of the video in slow motion? That’s basically this chapter.
I know it’s still pretty early but I’m feeling kinda mixed about this book so far. There’s a chance that it’ll have a really cool ending the way The Time Machine did, or that its narrative will change, but as is the strange nature of this narration and the relatively detached voice with which these events are regarded seems to work to the detriment of the piece. Say what you will about The Time Machine, at least I could kind of tell the personality of The Time Traveler by his interactions with his guests and the Eloi. This narrator though (I’m gonna just start calling them Hershel for now) seems not only detached, but strangely like Wells wanted to do a third-person omniscient role or third-person limited focused on a specific character but didn’t. As is, the first person narration makes these strange moments where Hershel is able to tell how other people perceived a particular event as it unfolds strikes me as really strange.
We get some details on the heat-ray in this chapter. It can melt through things, it is invisible, and it killed around 40 people on the night of the initial attack. Other than that, however, this chapter is spent with the narrator mentioning the people in the nearby towns did not know what was going on at the time. I suppose there’s something to be said for the relative lack of communication between the places, but it seems that any point that could be made about it is fairly beside the focus of the narrative. I feel like maybe I’m missing something to these chapters, could anyone fill me in on why these are presented here?
Sunday, December 18, 2016
The War of the Worlds - Chapters 4 and 5
Chapter 4: The Cylinder Opens and Chapter 5: The Heat-Ray
Well dang, that’s quite the description
Not much more than the description, but I like the way that the crowd immediately seems to have their preconceptions shattered by the arrival of martians which are not remotely human. Instead, the martians are… well, alien. Their descriptions defy easy categorization and I think that’s a good choice by Wells in describing that these beings are not anything like what th people here suppose they are like. Instead of greeting the Martians as they emerge from the cylinder, the people retreat to a safe distance out of fear.
It’s a pretty solid description though. They’re tentacular and “fungoid” in appearance. They seem to make some kind of noise, but in general they’re monstrous enough that running away is a perfectly believable response. One man falls into the pit with the Martians.
I feel like shit’s about to really hit the fan.
-----------------
Well there you go.
I think it’s hard to write a book like this in some fashion, and I’m wondering where the story is going to take us.
In a way this is rather similar to the Morlocks in The Time Machine. A nameless narrator is giving us an account of his encounter with some strange creatures that are staged as faceless/interchangeable bad guys. I’m reminded in some ways of World War Z and I wonder if the book will kind of go along that route, chronicling the initial days of societal collapse as the Martians go. I honestly think that too much attention on the Martians would probably be detrimental to the story, as they are basically just a force of nature without any seeming character.
That said, they are a horrifying force. When one of the Martians re-emerges from the pit in the evening, now in its more widely known tripodal form, it shoots out a heat wave, seemingly without provocation, and scorches a number of people and the land surrounding the pit in a single swipe. Our narrator is left horrified and turns tail, crying as he runs. A pretty understandable response, but I wonder if there are ways around this heat weapon. It passed over the narrator as he was hidden by some heather, so it would stand to reason that cover does help somewhat. Could heavier material fare better against the Martians?
Well dang, that’s quite the description
Not much more than the description, but I like the way that the crowd immediately seems to have their preconceptions shattered by the arrival of martians which are not remotely human. Instead, the martians are… well, alien. Their descriptions defy easy categorization and I think that’s a good choice by Wells in describing that these beings are not anything like what th people here suppose they are like. Instead of greeting the Martians as they emerge from the cylinder, the people retreat to a safe distance out of fear.
It’s a pretty solid description though. They’re tentacular and “fungoid” in appearance. They seem to make some kind of noise, but in general they’re monstrous enough that running away is a perfectly believable response. One man falls into the pit with the Martians.
I feel like shit’s about to really hit the fan.
-----------------
Well there you go.
I think it’s hard to write a book like this in some fashion, and I’m wondering where the story is going to take us.
In a way this is rather similar to the Morlocks in The Time Machine. A nameless narrator is giving us an account of his encounter with some strange creatures that are staged as faceless/interchangeable bad guys. I’m reminded in some ways of World War Z and I wonder if the book will kind of go along that route, chronicling the initial days of societal collapse as the Martians go. I honestly think that too much attention on the Martians would probably be detrimental to the story, as they are basically just a force of nature without any seeming character.
That said, they are a horrifying force. When one of the Martians re-emerges from the pit in the evening, now in its more widely known tripodal form, it shoots out a heat wave, seemingly without provocation, and scorches a number of people and the land surrounding the pit in a single swipe. Our narrator is left horrified and turns tail, crying as he runs. A pretty understandable response, but I wonder if there are ways around this heat weapon. It passed over the narrator as he was hidden by some heather, so it would stand to reason that cover does help somewhat. Could heavier material fare better against the Martians?
The War of the Worlds - Chapter 3
Chapter 3: On Horsell Common
Overall: Some setup
I think there’s a bit of an interesting task in reading works that are so far removed from our present day. There’s certainly an amount of recontextualization that needs to occur in any attempt to read that text, and it’s interesting to me how perhaps some of our more modern (even relatively speaking) notions of proper chapter structure are really pretty fluid when placed against the breadth of literary history.
This is a set-up chapter. That is to say, not much “happens” in it. Our narrator arrives on Horsell Common where the cylinder has become something of a tourist attraction, and the narrator observes some of the goings-on surrounding this cylinder. From initial fascination, to attempts made to cordon it away from spectators for the time being.
I noticed this in Frankenstein as well, that there were some chapters which more deliberately felt like setup before a major event in the plot than others. While Wells is certainly even more about setup here than Shelley was, I think the structure may have just been a part of literature at the time, and that’s something I find more interesting than any specific thing that occurs in this chapter. I wonder if literature has changed over the years, and if so, how it has done so in structure as well as content. Wells’s stuff tends to feel more “cinematic” than Shelley’s, but even so these quiet moments begin to feel so much like setup that it’s hard to do chapter-by-chapter reviews of them. Thematically it is interesting to wonder how “hard” of science fiction this is, I suppose. Like, would this have been the procedure if a Martian cylinder landed in England in the 1890s? Call the lord who represents the region to come in from London and check it out, and generally wait for their word on what to do?
Ah well, some scattered thoughts. Next chapter is called “The Cylinder Opens” so I imagine it’ll be more to write about.
Overall: Some setup
I think there’s a bit of an interesting task in reading works that are so far removed from our present day. There’s certainly an amount of recontextualization that needs to occur in any attempt to read that text, and it’s interesting to me how perhaps some of our more modern (even relatively speaking) notions of proper chapter structure are really pretty fluid when placed against the breadth of literary history.
This is a set-up chapter. That is to say, not much “happens” in it. Our narrator arrives on Horsell Common where the cylinder has become something of a tourist attraction, and the narrator observes some of the goings-on surrounding this cylinder. From initial fascination, to attempts made to cordon it away from spectators for the time being.
I noticed this in Frankenstein as well, that there were some chapters which more deliberately felt like setup before a major event in the plot than others. While Wells is certainly even more about setup here than Shelley was, I think the structure may have just been a part of literature at the time, and that’s something I find more interesting than any specific thing that occurs in this chapter. I wonder if literature has changed over the years, and if so, how it has done so in structure as well as content. Wells’s stuff tends to feel more “cinematic” than Shelley’s, but even so these quiet moments begin to feel so much like setup that it’s hard to do chapter-by-chapter reviews of them. Thematically it is interesting to wonder how “hard” of science fiction this is, I suppose. Like, would this have been the procedure if a Martian cylinder landed in England in the 1890s? Call the lord who represents the region to come in from London and check it out, and generally wait for their word on what to do?
Ah well, some scattered thoughts. Next chapter is called “The Cylinder Opens” so I imagine it’ll be more to write about.
The War of the Worlds - Chapter 2
Chapter 2 – The Falling Star
Overall: Oh this is cool. Also, some notes on style.
TW: for discussion of imperialistic themes (probably going to be a recurring trend in this book)
Our narrator is in an interesting scenario here. Like in The Time Machine, he begins to narrate someone else’s story. But given what I know of how this story is to proceed, I wonder if some of this is embellishment post-invasion or if it’s all true. After the night of the lights on mars, a strange object is seen falling to Earth. The narrator does not see it, but describes a friend of his, Ogilvy, who does.
The narrative then shifts to Ogilvy as he searches a part of the English countryside to find the object that fell. Eventually, he manages to come across it and can’t make head nor tails of the strange cylinder. However, he manages to enlist the help of nearby townsfolk in trying to excavate the object, as it’s apparent to him that there are living things inside.
I like how fast this is building up in the story. The newspaper has already reported on the strange object and our narrator ends the chapter heading to the sand pits near Ottershaw to try to see it.
So from what all I know of this book, and its adaptations in particular, I’m wondering if an adaptation more true to Wells’s time has been made. By which I mean, it’s one thing to see giant mechanical aliens tromping around a modern city while Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning interact amidst all the comforts of the modern world. However, the contrast between this turn of the 20th century England and the martians, I think, is meant to comment on England’s perception of itself in colonialism. A particularly harrowing example of what I mean can be found in this rhyme that was used by the British during their colonial fights against various peoples in Africa.
“No matter what happens we have got
The maxim gun and they have not”
I think that’s what Wells is probably trying to highlight with what’ll probably be a huge disparity of tech between the Martians and humans. I know that the aliens take over-ish but I don’t know how this book ends, but if it ends with a triumph for the humans, I think it makes a lot of difference if the gap in power is that much wider.
Overall: Oh this is cool. Also, some notes on style.
TW: for discussion of imperialistic themes (probably going to be a recurring trend in this book)
Our narrator is in an interesting scenario here. Like in The Time Machine, he begins to narrate someone else’s story. But given what I know of how this story is to proceed, I wonder if some of this is embellishment post-invasion or if it’s all true. After the night of the lights on mars, a strange object is seen falling to Earth. The narrator does not see it, but describes a friend of his, Ogilvy, who does.
The narrative then shifts to Ogilvy as he searches a part of the English countryside to find the object that fell. Eventually, he manages to come across it and can’t make head nor tails of the strange cylinder. However, he manages to enlist the help of nearby townsfolk in trying to excavate the object, as it’s apparent to him that there are living things inside.
I like how fast this is building up in the story. The newspaper has already reported on the strange object and our narrator ends the chapter heading to the sand pits near Ottershaw to try to see it.
So from what all I know of this book, and its adaptations in particular, I’m wondering if an adaptation more true to Wells’s time has been made. By which I mean, it’s one thing to see giant mechanical aliens tromping around a modern city while Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning interact amidst all the comforts of the modern world. However, the contrast between this turn of the 20th century England and the martians, I think, is meant to comment on England’s perception of itself in colonialism. A particularly harrowing example of what I mean can be found in this rhyme that was used by the British during their colonial fights against various peoples in Africa.
“No matter what happens we have got
The maxim gun and they have not”
I think that’s what Wells is probably trying to highlight with what’ll probably be a huge disparity of tech between the Martians and humans. I know that the aliens take over-ish but I don’t know how this book ends, but if it ends with a triumph for the humans, I think it makes a lot of difference if the gap in power is that much wider.
The War of the Worlds - Chapter 1
Chapter 1: The Eve of War
So here’s what I know about the War of the Worlds going in,
1)ALIEN INVASION!!!!!
2)The aliens are martians with heat waves
3)Orson Welles freaked some folks out on the radio
4)There was a Tom Cruise movie with Dakota Fanning that I didn’t see
Overall: Hey there imperialism metaphors, I see you.
We begin our book with a narration stating that, from what I can gather, the invasion has already happened. Most of the story will instead be a flashback to when it was first occurring. HG Wells is fond of the first-person retrospective narration, I’m noticing. Here we begin with a litany of details about the planet Mars that are somewhat fascinating to consider. How the idea was apparently somewhat prominent (although I don’t know how true to life this is) that Mars may’ve had people on it who “would welcome a missionary enterprise”. Yeah, just from what little I know of this book, and the fact that I know Wells was a fan of social commentary, I can see the critique/commentary on British imperialism already beginning to show through.
While we don’t know when exactly the story is being narrated from, we know that the events described evidently takes place in the early twentieth century. Mars has been under observation from Earth for some time, and over the past few days, strange gas eruptions have been showing up on the planet’s surface. Immediately, the narrator (as yet, unnamed) begins to muse on how the popular conceptions of Martians as being primitive were turning out to be wholly reversed. Here, he launches into a critique of people “judging the Martians harshly” reasoning that humans have been fairly awful to animals, and Europeans to people of “primitive” cultures. Calling for people to not judge the Martians too harshly for their thinking of humans as lesser in turn.
This story, as I mentioned, seems to be largely told as flashback, with the narrator mostly spending this chapter talking about the final days before the Martians invaded Earth. It seems largely here to set up a “what we lost” kind of scene, in order to establish contrast. That said, if that’s the case I’m not sure that Wells does that very effectively. There are occasional mentions to how peaceful it was in those days, but they are largely not the focus of this chapter. Instead, the focus is largely on the disturbances being observed from Earth. Not even really the people’s reactions to these distrubances, just the anomalies themselves. It’s rather dry in that way I suppose. Either way, the narrator makes it clear immediately that Mars is sending ships that will arrive soon, and that, judging from his reminiscences, it isn’t going to go well.
So here’s what I know about the War of the Worlds going in,
1)ALIEN INVASION!!!!!
2)The aliens are martians with heat waves
3)Orson Welles freaked some folks out on the radio
4)There was a Tom Cruise movie with Dakota Fanning that I didn’t see
Overall: Hey there imperialism metaphors, I see you.
We begin our book with a narration stating that, from what I can gather, the invasion has already happened. Most of the story will instead be a flashback to when it was first occurring. HG Wells is fond of the first-person retrospective narration, I’m noticing. Here we begin with a litany of details about the planet Mars that are somewhat fascinating to consider. How the idea was apparently somewhat prominent (although I don’t know how true to life this is) that Mars may’ve had people on it who “would welcome a missionary enterprise”. Yeah, just from what little I know of this book, and the fact that I know Wells was a fan of social commentary, I can see the critique/commentary on British imperialism already beginning to show through.
While we don’t know when exactly the story is being narrated from, we know that the events described evidently takes place in the early twentieth century. Mars has been under observation from Earth for some time, and over the past few days, strange gas eruptions have been showing up on the planet’s surface. Immediately, the narrator (as yet, unnamed) begins to muse on how the popular conceptions of Martians as being primitive were turning out to be wholly reversed. Here, he launches into a critique of people “judging the Martians harshly” reasoning that humans have been fairly awful to animals, and Europeans to people of “primitive” cultures. Calling for people to not judge the Martians too harshly for their thinking of humans as lesser in turn.
This story, as I mentioned, seems to be largely told as flashback, with the narrator mostly spending this chapter talking about the final days before the Martians invaded Earth. It seems largely here to set up a “what we lost” kind of scene, in order to establish contrast. That said, if that’s the case I’m not sure that Wells does that very effectively. There are occasional mentions to how peaceful it was in those days, but they are largely not the focus of this chapter. Instead, the focus is largely on the disturbances being observed from Earth. Not even really the people’s reactions to these distrubances, just the anomalies themselves. It’s rather dry in that way I suppose. Either way, the narrator makes it clear immediately that Mars is sending ships that will arrive soon, and that, judging from his reminiscences, it isn’t going to go well.
Saturday, July 16, 2016
The Time Machine - Chapters 12 and Epilogue
Overall: an interesting end, Wells. Some final thoughts.
And so the story ends. The traveler returns to his time, on the night of the dinner party, and re-emerges. I think this is probably the first time we see some direct characterization on his part. The Traveler speaks with a sort of urgency and disconnectedness that imply a potential sort of trouble that the trip has left him with. He produces the flowers that Weena gave him as evidence of his trip, and while the assembled people cannot identify the flowers, they still mostly do not believe his story. As they all leave, the narrator seems a bit changed, though.
Later, the narrator returns to ask some more questions of the Traveler, and finds him similarly erratic. Eventually, while looking away, the Traveler says he needs to attend to something, and uses the time machine to go… well who knows where. The Traveler says that he is in some ways tired of the modern era now that he’s seen other possibilities, and with that he departs. The narrator mentions in the epilogue that it’s been at least three years since the Traveler vanished and there’s been no sign of him nor his machine. The narrator is left to contemplate this, and the fate of the world around him.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Overall, I found this book to be a bit mismatched compared to Frankenstein. At times, it seemed to shift between sci-fi pontification on society and the future, while at others it bore the distinct markings of an adventure story with the set-pieces like the cave, the palace, and the burning forest. Wells’s commentary is very good when he makes it, although certainly more overt than Shelley’s, and skewed more toward a favorable view of Marxism than the more abstract issues that Shelley wrote on. Even so, I think there’s certainly some interesting themes here, especially during the “end of the world” sequence. There’s a hint at posthumanism, and economic/ecological themes peppered throughout the society of the Eloi and the Morlocks, and I kind of wonder how Wells was received in his day, as it seems like this is some pretty subversive stuff (or if not in his own day, I wonder if Wells was put on banned reading lists during the McCarthy years here in the states).
This book also gave me pause to think about genre. Like I briefly noted, the book at times feels more like an “adventure” novel, and I suppose while the lines between that and sci-fi are a bit more fluid, I was also intrigued to note that this isn’t really a time travel story as such. That is to say, the device of “time travel” does not provide the main plot of the narrative, it more acts as a vehicle for the Traveler to explore a new world. In that way, it is more akin to a utopia/dystopia novel, where the protagonist enters a society and sees it from a different lens that is meant to highlight aspects of the author’s world against this imaginary world. The fact that the story is set in the future doesn’t really seem to come into play very often until Wells uses it to think on his culture and where it might be headed. However within the world of the narrative, the land of the Eloi and Morlocks may as well be on Mars. None of this is meant as critique, just some odd final thoughts here and there.
Speaking of Mars, next time I’ll be rounding out the nineteenth century with one more Wells book. Until then, though, any and all thoughts on The Time Machine and HG Wells are welcome!
And so the story ends. The traveler returns to his time, on the night of the dinner party, and re-emerges. I think this is probably the first time we see some direct characterization on his part. The Traveler speaks with a sort of urgency and disconnectedness that imply a potential sort of trouble that the trip has left him with. He produces the flowers that Weena gave him as evidence of his trip, and while the assembled people cannot identify the flowers, they still mostly do not believe his story. As they all leave, the narrator seems a bit changed, though.
Later, the narrator returns to ask some more questions of the Traveler, and finds him similarly erratic. Eventually, while looking away, the Traveler says he needs to attend to something, and uses the time machine to go… well who knows where. The Traveler says that he is in some ways tired of the modern era now that he’s seen other possibilities, and with that he departs. The narrator mentions in the epilogue that it’s been at least three years since the Traveler vanished and there’s been no sign of him nor his machine. The narrator is left to contemplate this, and the fate of the world around him.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Overall, I found this book to be a bit mismatched compared to Frankenstein. At times, it seemed to shift between sci-fi pontification on society and the future, while at others it bore the distinct markings of an adventure story with the set-pieces like the cave, the palace, and the burning forest. Wells’s commentary is very good when he makes it, although certainly more overt than Shelley’s, and skewed more toward a favorable view of Marxism than the more abstract issues that Shelley wrote on. Even so, I think there’s certainly some interesting themes here, especially during the “end of the world” sequence. There’s a hint at posthumanism, and economic/ecological themes peppered throughout the society of the Eloi and the Morlocks, and I kind of wonder how Wells was received in his day, as it seems like this is some pretty subversive stuff (or if not in his own day, I wonder if Wells was put on banned reading lists during the McCarthy years here in the states).
This book also gave me pause to think about genre. Like I briefly noted, the book at times feels more like an “adventure” novel, and I suppose while the lines between that and sci-fi are a bit more fluid, I was also intrigued to note that this isn’t really a time travel story as such. That is to say, the device of “time travel” does not provide the main plot of the narrative, it more acts as a vehicle for the Traveler to explore a new world. In that way, it is more akin to a utopia/dystopia novel, where the protagonist enters a society and sees it from a different lens that is meant to highlight aspects of the author’s world against this imaginary world. The fact that the story is set in the future doesn’t really seem to come into play very often until Wells uses it to think on his culture and where it might be headed. However within the world of the narrative, the land of the Eloi and Morlocks may as well be on Mars. None of this is meant as critique, just some odd final thoughts here and there.
Speaking of Mars, next time I’ll be rounding out the nineteenth century with one more Wells book. Until then, though, any and all thoughts on The Time Machine and HG Wells are welcome!
The Time Machine - Chapters 10 and 11
Overall: Holy shit that chapter 11 though
SO I’m putting these two chapters together, because chapter 10 isn’t even two full pages of text and chapter 11 just a bit over three.
I don’t have much to say about chapter 10 actually. The traveler manages to re-enter the White Sphinx where he finds that his time machine is polished and looking sparklingly new. He figures it msut’ve been taken apart and spruced up by the Morlocks, who still have some knowledge of machinery about them. As he’s sitting in the machine, he’s set upon by YET ANOTHER group of Morlocks who try to eat him or do whatever it is they do to people. At first the traveler tries for one of his matches, but finds that the box is gone and that they’re the sort of match that requires a box for lighting (which I’m pretty sure are the standard matches nowadays).
Pushing the lever, the traveler goes forth into chapter 11, where he goes even further into the future. I was actually surprised that we were going to be seeing more of the future, I thought for sure we’d just head to the past and do some wrap-up for the final few chapters. Instead, the traveler goes forth to an unknown time which, I’ll admit, is some of the most hauntingly beautiful scenery I think of. The traveler is on a lonely beach with a distant dying sun setting in the west, and stars gleaming steadily overhead. There’s an intense sort of gravity to this moment that I think is magnificent as we can pretty easily tell that this is past the point of any sort of human descendants existing. The only animals that are described to us are giant crabs which.. well they’re horrifying, and the traveler does not linger long before going EVEN FURTHER into the future.
I remember an old computer game I had back in the 1990’s called TerraTopia. It was sort of a Myst-esque game, but built out of the New Age movement, so it was filled with airy ambient music and lots of wonderfully done scenery illustrations as you navigated this strange and somewhat mystical island devoid of people. The scenes at this beach gave me a lot of flashbacks to that game, this sort of reverence in the text for the mystery and sheer power of the unknown aspect of the natural world. The traveler happens to emerge at an eclipse coming over the beach, and he realizes that rather than the moon or Mercury or somesuch, that this is some altogether new and unknown planet that is working its way across the sun. That sort of scene alone is a really powerful moment, and I think it’s absolutely helped by the fact that the traveler witnesses it by himself.
SO I’m putting these two chapters together, because chapter 10 isn’t even two full pages of text and chapter 11 just a bit over three.
I don’t have much to say about chapter 10 actually. The traveler manages to re-enter the White Sphinx where he finds that his time machine is polished and looking sparklingly new. He figures it msut’ve been taken apart and spruced up by the Morlocks, who still have some knowledge of machinery about them. As he’s sitting in the machine, he’s set upon by YET ANOTHER group of Morlocks who try to eat him or do whatever it is they do to people. At first the traveler tries for one of his matches, but finds that the box is gone and that they’re the sort of match that requires a box for lighting (which I’m pretty sure are the standard matches nowadays).
Pushing the lever, the traveler goes forth into chapter 11, where he goes even further into the future. I was actually surprised that we were going to be seeing more of the future, I thought for sure we’d just head to the past and do some wrap-up for the final few chapters. Instead, the traveler goes forth to an unknown time which, I’ll admit, is some of the most hauntingly beautiful scenery I think of. The traveler is on a lonely beach with a distant dying sun setting in the west, and stars gleaming steadily overhead. There’s an intense sort of gravity to this moment that I think is magnificent as we can pretty easily tell that this is past the point of any sort of human descendants existing. The only animals that are described to us are giant crabs which.. well they’re horrifying, and the traveler does not linger long before going EVEN FURTHER into the future.
I remember an old computer game I had back in the 1990’s called TerraTopia. It was sort of a Myst-esque game, but built out of the New Age movement, so it was filled with airy ambient music and lots of wonderfully done scenery illustrations as you navigated this strange and somewhat mystical island devoid of people. The scenes at this beach gave me a lot of flashbacks to that game, this sort of reverence in the text for the mystery and sheer power of the unknown aspect of the natural world. The traveler happens to emerge at an eclipse coming over the beach, and he realizes that rather than the moon or Mercury or somesuch, that this is some altogether new and unknown planet that is working its way across the sun. That sort of scene alone is a really powerful moment, and I think it’s absolutely helped by the fact that the traveler witnesses it by himself.
The Time Machine - Chapter 9
Overall: I’m honestly surprised that when The Traveler re-emerged in his dining room, he didn’t look like Robin Williams in Jumanji.
Night falls on the forest where Weena and the Traveler have found themselves, and as they wander (trying to make their way back to the White Sphinx, where the time machine went missing) they are set upon by Morlocks. As they’re being carried off though, the time traveler begins to fight back. At first he lights the camphor, and then a nearby tree. However, he seems to be knocked out and when he wakes up he’s being carried off by Morlocks.
From here this chapter got surprisingly violent. Like, traveler begins bludgeoning these things with his crowbar and he fucking relishes it! After downing a few Morlocks, he finds that he’s slowly able to see them in the darkness and that they’re running around him and away from him. As the sky lights up he realizes that the tree he had set alight has now caught the whole forest on fire, causing the Morlocks to all run away. Eventually the traveler and the Morlocks take refuge from the flames (I think on a hilltop, which isn’t how fires work, but whatever).
As the day breaks, the traveler ties grass to his feet (really) to avoid singing them on the remnants of the fire, and he realizes that Weena is apparently dead. He notes that he has some odd detachment from this in his retelling of the event, because he’s apparently spent a fair amount of time already mourning her in the future. However, it’s still sad. I’m not quite sure if Weena’s dead though… we didn’t see a body or anything, it’d be kind of strange to kill basically the only character with a name off page.
Night falls on the forest where Weena and the Traveler have found themselves, and as they wander (trying to make their way back to the White Sphinx, where the time machine went missing) they are set upon by Morlocks. As they’re being carried off though, the time traveler begins to fight back. At first he lights the camphor, and then a nearby tree. However, he seems to be knocked out and when he wakes up he’s being carried off by Morlocks.
From here this chapter got surprisingly violent. Like, traveler begins bludgeoning these things with his crowbar and he fucking relishes it! After downing a few Morlocks, he finds that he’s slowly able to see them in the darkness and that they’re running around him and away from him. As the sky lights up he realizes that the tree he had set alight has now caught the whole forest on fire, causing the Morlocks to all run away. Eventually the traveler and the Morlocks take refuge from the flames (I think on a hilltop, which isn’t how fires work, but whatever).
As the day breaks, the traveler ties grass to his feet (really) to avoid singing them on the remnants of the fire, and he realizes that Weena is apparently dead. He notes that he has some odd detachment from this in his retelling of the event, because he’s apparently spent a fair amount of time already mourning her in the future. However, it’s still sad. I’m not quite sure if Weena’s dead though… we didn’t see a body or anything, it’d be kind of strange to kill basically the only character with a name off page.
The Time Machine - Chapter 8
Overall: Kinda feels like setup. A cool setpiece though
Well, it turns out the Palace of Green Porcelain is some kind of museum/library place. Wandering around in it, the Traveler and Weena try to find something that might help them against the Morlocks. The whole scene felt very much to me like something out of The Last of Us, with there apparently being Morlocks lurking somewhere in the building, and our two protagonists having to avoid their notice. Eventually, the Traveler finds some matches and a bottle of camphor oil, as well as an iron crowbar that he hopes to use in opening a pair of bronze doors.
Much of the rest of this chapter though, feels somewhat like relationship building between Weena and The Traveler. There’s a really bizarre sequence midway through the middle in which the two of them dance to a tune that the Traveler whistles. While that might be a cute scene elsewhere, it really just feels a bit out of place in the midst of this abandoned building exploration.
Also, the Traveler’s getting more and more bloodthirsty as the fight with the Morlocks looms ahead. He almost decides to leave Weena so that he could go kill the Morlocks he hears in the museum using the crowbar but he decides against it. Wondering how this will progress.
Finally, I’m going to predict that he left himself the matches and camphor oil. He remarks upon how unusual it was to find the items there, and I think it’ll end up being a sort of time loop being created.
Well, it turns out the Palace of Green Porcelain is some kind of museum/library place. Wandering around in it, the Traveler and Weena try to find something that might help them against the Morlocks. The whole scene felt very much to me like something out of The Last of Us, with there apparently being Morlocks lurking somewhere in the building, and our two protagonists having to avoid their notice. Eventually, the Traveler finds some matches and a bottle of camphor oil, as well as an iron crowbar that he hopes to use in opening a pair of bronze doors.
Much of the rest of this chapter though, feels somewhat like relationship building between Weena and The Traveler. There’s a really bizarre sequence midway through the middle in which the two of them dance to a tune that the Traveler whistles. While that might be a cute scene elsewhere, it really just feels a bit out of place in the midst of this abandoned building exploration.
Also, the Traveler’s getting more and more bloodthirsty as the fight with the Morlocks looms ahead. He almost decides to leave Weena so that he could go kill the Morlocks he hears in the museum using the crowbar but he decides against it. Wondering how this will progress.
Finally, I’m going to predict that he left himself the matches and camphor oil. He remarks upon how unusual it was to find the items there, and I think it’ll end up being a sort of time loop being created.
The Time Machine - Chapter 7
Overall: The Traveler comes to a horrifying revelation, and contemplates it.
This is a slower chapter than the previous one (would’ve been kind of surprised if it had kept that momentum, honestly) but one that I think is necessary. After escaping the clutches of the Morlocks, the traveler spends some time wandering about with Weena, and trying to avoid the realization that’s dawning on him: that the Morlocks’ diet is the Eloi.
At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if the book goes with this, or if this turns out to be another misdirect. The Traveler’s already made two guesses about the society surrounding him that he’s rethought, so maybe this one will turn out to be another feint. Even so, the traveler is frightened enough that he’s dreading the new moon, which the Eloi seem to fear as well, as it indicates when the Morlocks will come above ground and likely feed on the upper-landers. The Traveler decides that he’d best arm himself with some sort of torch for when the new moon comes along.
One thing that’s been brought up in a few chapters at this point is the Palace of Green Porcelain, which the Traveler and Weena pass at various points. The place seems to be locked up but I’m excited to see what’s in it, as it’s what the traveler is now aiming to access.
Also, I really hope the traveler doesn’t form some sort of romantic attachment to Weena. She’s consistently described in childlike terms and it’d be really creepy if he does. He seems to mostly be treating her alright for now, like an adult who’s just found themselves wandering around with a child ought to behave (protective/indulging, I guess) but I don’t have much confidence in old books for this kind of thing to continue
This is a slower chapter than the previous one (would’ve been kind of surprised if it had kept that momentum, honestly) but one that I think is necessary. After escaping the clutches of the Morlocks, the traveler spends some time wandering about with Weena, and trying to avoid the realization that’s dawning on him: that the Morlocks’ diet is the Eloi.
At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if the book goes with this, or if this turns out to be another misdirect. The Traveler’s already made two guesses about the society surrounding him that he’s rethought, so maybe this one will turn out to be another feint. Even so, the traveler is frightened enough that he’s dreading the new moon, which the Eloi seem to fear as well, as it indicates when the Morlocks will come above ground and likely feed on the upper-landers. The Traveler decides that he’d best arm himself with some sort of torch for when the new moon comes along.
One thing that’s been brought up in a few chapters at this point is the Palace of Green Porcelain, which the Traveler and Weena pass at various points. The place seems to be locked up but I’m excited to see what’s in it, as it’s what the traveler is now aiming to access.
Also, I really hope the traveler doesn’t form some sort of romantic attachment to Weena. She’s consistently described in childlike terms and it’d be really creepy if he does. He seems to mostly be treating her alright for now, like an adult who’s just found themselves wandering around with a child ought to behave (protective/indulging, I guess) but I don’t have much confidence in old books for this kind of thing to continue
Saturday, July 9, 2016
The Time Machine - Chapter 6
Overall: Well that was horrifying (TW for nyctophobia)
It occurred to me even then, that in the course of a few days the moon must pass through its last quarter, and the nights grow dark, when the appearances of these unpleasant creatures from below, these whitened Lemurs, this new vermin that had replaced the old, might be more abundant
The descent was effected by means of metallic bars projecting from the sides of the well, and these being adapted to the needs of a creature much smaller and lighter than myself, I was speedily cramped and fatigued by the descent. And not simply fatigued! One of the bars bent suddenly under my weight, and almost swung me off into the blackness beneath.
‘I do not know how long I lay. I was roused by a soft hand touching my face. Starting up in the darkness I snatched at my matches and, hastily striking one, I saw three stooping white creatures similar to the one I had seen above ground in the ruin, hastily retreating before the light.
But, so soon as I struck a match in order to see them, they fled incontinently, vanishing into dark gutters and tunnels, from which their eyes glared at me in the strangest fashion.
Some way down the central vista was a little table of white metal, laid with what seemed a meal. The Morlocks at any rate were carnivorous! Even at the time, I remember wondering what large animal could have survived to furnish the red joint I saw.
and it was only with my last glimpse of light I discovered that my store of matches had run low
Now, as I say, I had four left, and while I stood in the dark, a hand touched mine, lank fingers came feeling over my face, and I was sensible of a peculiar unpleasant odour. I fancied I heard the breathing of a crowd of those dreadful little beings about me
‘In a moment I was clutched by several hands, and there was no mistaking that they were trying to haul me back. I struck another light, and waved it in their dazzled faces. You can scarce imagine how nauseatingly inhuman they looked—those pale, chinless faces and great, lidless, pinkish-grey eyes!’
I disengaged myself from the clutches of the Morlocks and was speedily clambering up the shaft, while they stayed peering and blinking up at me: all but one little wretch who followed me for some way, and well-nigh secured my boot as a trophy
It occurred to me even then, that in the course of a few days the moon must pass through its last quarter, and the nights grow dark, when the appearances of these unpleasant creatures from below, these whitened Lemurs, this new vermin that had replaced the old, might be more abundant
The descent was effected by means of metallic bars projecting from the sides of the well, and these being adapted to the needs of a creature much smaller and lighter than myself, I was speedily cramped and fatigued by the descent. And not simply fatigued! One of the bars bent suddenly under my weight, and almost swung me off into the blackness beneath.
‘I do not know how long I lay. I was roused by a soft hand touching my face. Starting up in the darkness I snatched at my matches and, hastily striking one, I saw three stooping white creatures similar to the one I had seen above ground in the ruin, hastily retreating before the light.
But, so soon as I struck a match in order to see them, they fled incontinently, vanishing into dark gutters and tunnels, from which their eyes glared at me in the strangest fashion.
Some way down the central vista was a little table of white metal, laid with what seemed a meal. The Morlocks at any rate were carnivorous! Even at the time, I remember wondering what large animal could have survived to furnish the red joint I saw.
and it was only with my last glimpse of light I discovered that my store of matches had run low
Now, as I say, I had four left, and while I stood in the dark, a hand touched mine, lank fingers came feeling over my face, and I was sensible of a peculiar unpleasant odour. I fancied I heard the breathing of a crowd of those dreadful little beings about me
‘In a moment I was clutched by several hands, and there was no mistaking that they were trying to haul me back. I struck another light, and waved it in their dazzled faces. You can scarce imagine how nauseatingly inhuman they looked—those pale, chinless faces and great, lidless, pinkish-grey eyes!’
I disengaged myself from the clutches of the Morlocks and was speedily clambering up the shaft, while they stayed peering and blinking up at me: all but one little wretch who followed me for some way, and well-nigh secured my boot as a trophy
The Time Machine - Chapter 5
Overall: Well here we go, Morlocks oh my
SO I’m beginning to wonder if we’re going to go to any other time periods during this book. Almost halfway through by this point, so we’ll see I suppose. The Time Traveler goes back looking for his time machine only to find that it is missing. Frantic, he searches for it before coming upon… well, I’m not exactly sure how to describe it. It’s another type of being living in this world, called a Morlock. So, I know enough about Morlocks through cultural osmosis (and the X-men) to know that essentially they’re subterranean creatures. I googled the name and it came up with some monsters which look a lot like these guys from Rick and Morty.
The Time Traveler, again, is interesting here in that he’s less interested in the fact that these creatures exist so much as he is in figuring out what role they must play in the society of the Eloi (the name of the above-ground creatures). He begins to surmise that there’s a social stratification by which the Eloi get to live in relative splendor and peace while the Morlocks must toil away underground in some sort of factory that keeps goods supplied to the surface.
The Traveler then meets an Eloi named Weena who he, quite frankly, treats rather brusquely in trying to get information about the Morlocks from her. She’s distressed by the whole thing and the Traveler ends up placating her by lighting a match (so basically dangling his keys). He’s still unsure where the machine is, but now he’s interested in these Morlocks and hopes to find out more about them. I want to see where this goes.
The Time Machine - Chapter 4
Overall: Well that got philosophical, much more than I thought it would be.
So I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting out of this book but if this chapter is much indication (the book is only 80-some pages, so I’m coming up on halfway through) then The Time Machine is a lot more philosophically inclined than I had thought it would be. It isn’t Heidegger or anything, don’t get me wrong, but I’m comparing it to Jules Verne, who’s probably the name most often invoked alongside Wells when considering this era of science fiction.
However, at least given what I’ve read of Verne (about a quarter of Journey to the Center of the Earth), he was much more into the adventure aspect of science fiction than the more contemplative side which Shelley had introduced and, if this chapter is much to go on, Wells continued. The Time Traveler spends his time in this chapter among the people here in the future (the year 802,701!!!!) and finds them very different than he had expected. Rather than hyper-advanced polymaths, the people are diminutive and childlike. They are peaceful, vegan (as it seems most animals have died out) and generally happy and accepting of The Time Traveler. He lives among the people’s homes and takes some observer’s part in their society, finding them to be interested in him, but childlike in that they tend to lose interest quickly and go about whatever it was they had been doing.
One day, as the sun is setting, the Time Traveler comes upon a hill and proceeds upon a big moment of introspection regarding humanity and the state of the world. While some of it is kinda loaded with evolutionary psychology biofacts (blech) there is a degree of insight into what he says regarding the promulgation of the species and a somewhat peaceful/accepting view of humans at the edge of their extinction. Like, I know this was written while communism wasn’t much more than a theory, but jeez, I have to imagine this book may’ve been challenged throughout the 20th century for its fairly favorable view of these people who The Time Traveler supposes must’ve been the result of a communist restructuring of society at some point in the intervening time.
I imagine this won’t last much longer than this chapter, but it’s really interesting to me when books have these moments in them which touch on wider philosophical/political trends occurring in the world surrounding the text (it’s also why I don’t tend to subscribe to the whole “Death of the Author” thing).
Also: It just occurred to me as I read this chapter. What was the Time Traveler called before he went into the time traveling business?
So I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting out of this book but if this chapter is much indication (the book is only 80-some pages, so I’m coming up on halfway through) then The Time Machine is a lot more philosophically inclined than I had thought it would be. It isn’t Heidegger or anything, don’t get me wrong, but I’m comparing it to Jules Verne, who’s probably the name most often invoked alongside Wells when considering this era of science fiction.
However, at least given what I’ve read of Verne (about a quarter of Journey to the Center of the Earth), he was much more into the adventure aspect of science fiction than the more contemplative side which Shelley had introduced and, if this chapter is much to go on, Wells continued. The Time Traveler spends his time in this chapter among the people here in the future (the year 802,701!!!!) and finds them very different than he had expected. Rather than hyper-advanced polymaths, the people are diminutive and childlike. They are peaceful, vegan (as it seems most animals have died out) and generally happy and accepting of The Time Traveler. He lives among the people’s homes and takes some observer’s part in their society, finding them to be interested in him, but childlike in that they tend to lose interest quickly and go about whatever it was they had been doing.
One day, as the sun is setting, the Time Traveler comes upon a hill and proceeds upon a big moment of introspection regarding humanity and the state of the world. While some of it is kinda loaded with evolutionary psychology biofacts (blech) there is a degree of insight into what he says regarding the promulgation of the species and a somewhat peaceful/accepting view of humans at the edge of their extinction. Like, I know this was written while communism wasn’t much more than a theory, but jeez, I have to imagine this book may’ve been challenged throughout the 20th century for its fairly favorable view of these people who The Time Traveler supposes must’ve been the result of a communist restructuring of society at some point in the intervening time.
I imagine this won’t last much longer than this chapter, but it’s really interesting to me when books have these moments in them which touch on wider philosophical/political trends occurring in the world surrounding the text (it’s also why I don’t tend to subscribe to the whole “Death of the Author” thing).
Also: It just occurred to me as I read this chapter. What was the Time Traveler called before he went into the time traveling business?
The Time Machine - Chapter 3
TW for mention of chronic illness
Overall: Huh, so that’s where that image comes from
You know, for all the description that goes on in this chapter, not much actually “happens”. The Time Traveler begins to relay his story, and particularly of his first using the time machine, which occurred just earlier that morning. Sitting in the machine, he pulls a lever and suddenly time starts to move in fast-pace all around him, while he sort of phases through it. I thought the description was actually very interesting here, of how the sun seemed to almost bounce up and down over the horizon as the days went on. How eventually everything just became a grey blur as the surroundings began to speed up during the sequence, and how the Time Traveler apparently worried about the possibility of phasing into something—that is, if when he stops the time machine there’s something occupying the space that he or the machine occupy. It’s a valid concern, but one which our time traveler seems to have forgotten about until the actual moment of travel occurs.
When the Time Traveler arrives in the distant future, it is initially hailing and miserable. The Time Traveler becomes scared and is about to head back home when the weather clears and he is approached by a human figure in a robe. The description he gives actually just conjured this image to mind
That said, I do have to call attention to one phrase the Time Traveler uses in describing these people, saying they reminded him of “of the more beautiful kind of consumptive”… which, like, did people fetishize that back in the day? That’s so fucked up.
Overall: Huh, so that’s where that image comes from
You know, for all the description that goes on in this chapter, not much actually “happens”. The Time Traveler begins to relay his story, and particularly of his first using the time machine, which occurred just earlier that morning. Sitting in the machine, he pulls a lever and suddenly time starts to move in fast-pace all around him, while he sort of phases through it. I thought the description was actually very interesting here, of how the sun seemed to almost bounce up and down over the horizon as the days went on. How eventually everything just became a grey blur as the surroundings began to speed up during the sequence, and how the Time Traveler apparently worried about the possibility of phasing into something—that is, if when he stops the time machine there’s something occupying the space that he or the machine occupy. It’s a valid concern, but one which our time traveler seems to have forgotten about until the actual moment of travel occurs.
When the Time Traveler arrives in the distant future, it is initially hailing and miserable. The Time Traveler becomes scared and is about to head back home when the weather clears and he is approached by a human figure in a robe. The description he gives actually just conjured this image to mind
That said, I do have to call attention to one phrase the Time Traveler uses in describing these people, saying they reminded him of “of the more beautiful kind of consumptive”… which, like, did people fetishize that back in the day? That’s so fucked up.
The Time Machine - Chapter 2
Overall: Okay now it makes sense. Also this is a pretty hilarious setup so far.
I hope we never see the time machine. Following this kind of setup it seems like we’re going in for another “story within a story” structure this time. But there’s a possibility/suspicion being expressed by some of the characters that whatever the Time Traveler says is likely just some elaborate trick, and honestly, I kind of hope the story keeps it ambiguous on that front. I could see it going either way, but ambiguity is one of my favorite literary tropes (though I hate it in social situations). That said, the biggest question on my mind has to do with the unusual choice of character naming here.
So let me see if I can make a list of the characters so far: Narrator, Blank (don’t know much about Blank), The Editor and the Journalist (both kinda showboaters and seem like they’ve taken the yellow journalism thing whole hog), the Psychologist (a skeptic), Fillby (speaks a bit tersely), The Doctor (/shrug/), The Medical Man (seems pretty much like the calm one here), and the Time Traveler.
What is this assortment of people? What brings them together? They seem to be casually acquainted with one another, but it seems odd that they’ve apparently all met several times and the narrator doesn’t know many of their names, not even the name of their host (though I think that one’s intentional).
As to what happens, the Time Traveler invites his… associates(?) over for dinner the week after the demonstration in chapter 1. He himself arrives rather late to the meal and as he walks in he is covered in dust and cuts. The others poke fun at him, asking if he was time traveling, to which he bluntly responds that he was, now hand me the mutton thanks. After a bit more prodding and eating, the Time Traveler explains that earlier this afternoon he started traveling through time, stayed 8 days in another time, and then came back during dinner. I had totally forgotten that time travel means that the amount of time spent in any one period becomes flexible. Somehow I had thought that this would hold to my usual visualization of time travel stories in which if you go into the future and stay there for 8 days, you’ll come back and 8 days will have passed. I wonder if he’s going far enough into the future/past to avoid running into other versions of himself.
Seating his guests down, the Time Traveler gets ready to recount his traveling experience. I’m looking forward to it.
I hope we never see the time machine. Following this kind of setup it seems like we’re going in for another “story within a story” structure this time. But there’s a possibility/suspicion being expressed by some of the characters that whatever the Time Traveler says is likely just some elaborate trick, and honestly, I kind of hope the story keeps it ambiguous on that front. I could see it going either way, but ambiguity is one of my favorite literary tropes (though I hate it in social situations). That said, the biggest question on my mind has to do with the unusual choice of character naming here.
So let me see if I can make a list of the characters so far: Narrator, Blank (don’t know much about Blank), The Editor and the Journalist (both kinda showboaters and seem like they’ve taken the yellow journalism thing whole hog), the Psychologist (a skeptic), Fillby (speaks a bit tersely), The Doctor (/shrug/), The Medical Man (seems pretty much like the calm one here), and the Time Traveler.
What is this assortment of people? What brings them together? They seem to be casually acquainted with one another, but it seems odd that they’ve apparently all met several times and the narrator doesn’t know many of their names, not even the name of their host (though I think that one’s intentional).
As to what happens, the Time Traveler invites his… associates(?) over for dinner the week after the demonstration in chapter 1. He himself arrives rather late to the meal and as he walks in he is covered in dust and cuts. The others poke fun at him, asking if he was time traveling, to which he bluntly responds that he was, now hand me the mutton thanks. After a bit more prodding and eating, the Time Traveler explains that earlier this afternoon he started traveling through time, stayed 8 days in another time, and then came back during dinner. I had totally forgotten that time travel means that the amount of time spent in any one period becomes flexible. Somehow I had thought that this would hold to my usual visualization of time travel stories in which if you go into the future and stay there for 8 days, you’ll come back and 8 days will have passed. I wonder if he’s going far enough into the future/past to avoid running into other versions of himself.
Seating his guests down, the Time Traveler gets ready to recount his traveling experience. I’m looking forward to it.
The Time Machine - Chapter 1
What I know about The Time Machine
1)It kind of invented the idea of the time machine
2)NOTHING ELSE
I honestly don’t know anything about this novel other than the fact that in the movie the time machine looks like a sleigh with a satellite behind it. I don’t know what the people in this book use the time machine for, if time paradoxes are a thing (I suspect they are not), or how far into the past or future these characters will go. That said, let’s dive in!
Overall: quite a rush for a first chapter
That was a lot of information that just got dumped on us. Like, I’m still a little bit taken aback by the whole thing. We’re presented with a meeting being held by several men at the house of a man simply referred to as “the time traveler”. The Time Traveler is hoping to show them that he has, in fact, built a time machine. There really isn’t much individual characterization given to any of the others except for incredulity. The chapter is narrated in the first-person but I’m not sure who the narrator actually is, at least in terms of profession. The only character that seems to have a name is a person named Fillby. Even so though, what does the time traveler show them?
Well, he first begins to talk about the idea of a fourth dimension being temporal. I’ve heard this iteration of fourth-dimensionality before, it’s a common (typically sci-fi) understanding of it. I wonder if this is where calling the fourth dimension “time” originated. I will say, unless the time traveler changes at some point, I’m surprised by how small scale the machine itself is. He uses it to transport a small model into either the past/future. It’s kind of Primer-esque at this point. We still don’t really have a plot as such yet. One thing that I’m noticing in the sci-fi that I’ve seen so far (Dick’s works, Frankenstein, a few others) is that there’s usually an early chapter that sort of establishes “ground rules”. Usually, this chapter is the second or third in the book-the first typically serving as introduction to the characters. Here, the order seems a bit reversed. We’re introduced to some of the mechanics of the time machine before we really get to know anyone. It’s an interesting structural decision and I wonder if this was one of the first instances of this formula.
1)It kind of invented the idea of the time machine
2)NOTHING ELSE
I honestly don’t know anything about this novel other than the fact that in the movie the time machine looks like a sleigh with a satellite behind it. I don’t know what the people in this book use the time machine for, if time paradoxes are a thing (I suspect they are not), or how far into the past or future these characters will go. That said, let’s dive in!
Overall: quite a rush for a first chapter
That was a lot of information that just got dumped on us. Like, I’m still a little bit taken aback by the whole thing. We’re presented with a meeting being held by several men at the house of a man simply referred to as “the time traveler”. The Time Traveler is hoping to show them that he has, in fact, built a time machine. There really isn’t much individual characterization given to any of the others except for incredulity. The chapter is narrated in the first-person but I’m not sure who the narrator actually is, at least in terms of profession. The only character that seems to have a name is a person named Fillby. Even so though, what does the time traveler show them?
Well, he first begins to talk about the idea of a fourth dimension being temporal. I’ve heard this iteration of fourth-dimensionality before, it’s a common (typically sci-fi) understanding of it. I wonder if this is where calling the fourth dimension “time” originated. I will say, unless the time traveler changes at some point, I’m surprised by how small scale the machine itself is. He uses it to transport a small model into either the past/future. It’s kind of Primer-esque at this point. We still don’t really have a plot as such yet. One thing that I’m noticing in the sci-fi that I’ve seen so far (Dick’s works, Frankenstein, a few others) is that there’s usually an early chapter that sort of establishes “ground rules”. Usually, this chapter is the second or third in the book-the first typically serving as introduction to the characters. Here, the order seems a bit reversed. We’re introduced to some of the mechanics of the time machine before we really get to know anyone. It’s an interesting structural decision and I wonder if this was one of the first instances of this formula.
Sunday, July 3, 2016
Frankenstein - Chapter 24
Chapter 24
Overall: a good ending, despite the sadness, the best they could've hoped for.
Thus concludes Vic’s story. Or rather, he concludes it basically how it might’ve been inferred. He’s spent a long time chasing Adam down. Adam, for his part, is resolved to keep Victor alive so that the chase can continue and Victor will feel more misery. That’s pretty fucking sadistic, gotta say. Vic is resigned to his death at this point. He is only holding onto life out of a sense of kinship with Walton and the possibility of enacting revenge against Adam.
Vic’s attitude is still kinda… well it’s mixed. Now that we’ve returned to Walton’s narration, I think the book allows us to see in some way how pitiful Victor has really become. which I appreciate. He’s haggard, he sleeps a lot (as that’s the only way he can feel happiness), he talks big about how people should have the courage to accomplish their dreams or die trying, but it’s so apparent that he’s about to do the latter that it isn’t much of a surprise that the sailors on Walton’s ship, despite Vic’s protests, ask him to turn the ship around and head back for England. Vic, in his final moments, is kind of delusional about his memory of the events that have proceeded. He says that he always tried to do his best by Adam. That’s bullshit, he only ever even considered Adam’s feelings after Adam told his backstory. He says he refused to make another for the good of humanity. Okay, sure, but there were easy ways to avoid a population of them and in so doing you directly led to the deaths of several innocent people.
For his part, Walton wants to continue, but upon seeing Vic’s death he becomes distraught. Later that night, Adam appears in Vic’s cabin and is distraught over the death of his enemy. Adam here is… really also pretty bad. He talks so much like Vic. About how no one can understand the pain that he feels. How the entirety of existence is conspired against him. Taking the body of Vic, he sets out toward the North pole, where he says he’s going to light a fire and burn himself to death. That way he’ll leave no remains of his body for a person to try to emulate. Adam leaves, and Walton is left to contemplate everything that’s just happened.
So that's Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Overall, I was surprised by how different the novel is to the popular understanding of the Frankenstein story. Even from the get-go, the positioning of the story starting from a first-person recounting of Vic's childhood shows that the scope is going to be much more broad than the "guy creates monster, monster escapes" narrative. I liked the explorations of nature a lot and the subtle contrasts between Vic, Clerval, and Adam with regard to that. I have since learned that Shelley meant this as a critique of the hubris of science. I think that, if that's the case, it may be rather temporal as it reads more of a critique of God or religion generally, with Vic playing the role of a neglectful/absent creator who leaves Adam to his own devices, struggling in a hostile world. Seriously, if Vic hadn't made Adam ugly or had arsed to stay around his creation, then much of the conflict seems like it would've gone down a different course. I know that's the point, that he doesn't, but like I said I'm just examining this sort of disconnect between a critique of science/critique of religion that jumps out at me within the book.
As for what I'll be reading next: I'll be jumping forward a bit in time to the late 1800's and going with a much shorter story. I was originally going to read Jules Verne's "A Journey to the Center of the Earth" but realized through reading some of it that I really knew much of the story already and that the book wasn't really grabbing me. So instead I'll tackle two works by his counterpart: HG Wells! Starting with The Time Machine and then probably doing War of the Worlds before moving into the 20th century.
Overall: a good ending, despite the sadness, the best they could've hoped for.
Thus concludes Vic’s story. Or rather, he concludes it basically how it might’ve been inferred. He’s spent a long time chasing Adam down. Adam, for his part, is resolved to keep Victor alive so that the chase can continue and Victor will feel more misery. That’s pretty fucking sadistic, gotta say. Vic is resigned to his death at this point. He is only holding onto life out of a sense of kinship with Walton and the possibility of enacting revenge against Adam.
Vic’s attitude is still kinda… well it’s mixed. Now that we’ve returned to Walton’s narration, I think the book allows us to see in some way how pitiful Victor has really become. which I appreciate. He’s haggard, he sleeps a lot (as that’s the only way he can feel happiness), he talks big about how people should have the courage to accomplish their dreams or die trying, but it’s so apparent that he’s about to do the latter that it isn’t much of a surprise that the sailors on Walton’s ship, despite Vic’s protests, ask him to turn the ship around and head back for England. Vic, in his final moments, is kind of delusional about his memory of the events that have proceeded. He says that he always tried to do his best by Adam. That’s bullshit, he only ever even considered Adam’s feelings after Adam told his backstory. He says he refused to make another for the good of humanity. Okay, sure, but there were easy ways to avoid a population of them and in so doing you directly led to the deaths of several innocent people.
For his part, Walton wants to continue, but upon seeing Vic’s death he becomes distraught. Later that night, Adam appears in Vic’s cabin and is distraught over the death of his enemy. Adam here is… really also pretty bad. He talks so much like Vic. About how no one can understand the pain that he feels. How the entirety of existence is conspired against him. Taking the body of Vic, he sets out toward the North pole, where he says he’s going to light a fire and burn himself to death. That way he’ll leave no remains of his body for a person to try to emulate. Adam leaves, and Walton is left to contemplate everything that’s just happened.
So that's Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Overall, I was surprised by how different the novel is to the popular understanding of the Frankenstein story. Even from the get-go, the positioning of the story starting from a first-person recounting of Vic's childhood shows that the scope is going to be much more broad than the "guy creates monster, monster escapes" narrative. I liked the explorations of nature a lot and the subtle contrasts between Vic, Clerval, and Adam with regard to that. I have since learned that Shelley meant this as a critique of the hubris of science. I think that, if that's the case, it may be rather temporal as it reads more of a critique of God or religion generally, with Vic playing the role of a neglectful/absent creator who leaves Adam to his own devices, struggling in a hostile world. Seriously, if Vic hadn't made Adam ugly or had arsed to stay around his creation, then much of the conflict seems like it would've gone down a different course. I know that's the point, that he doesn't, but like I said I'm just examining this sort of disconnect between a critique of science/critique of religion that jumps out at me within the book.
As for what I'll be reading next: I'll be jumping forward a bit in time to the late 1800's and going with a much shorter story. I was originally going to read Jules Verne's "A Journey to the Center of the Earth" but realized through reading some of it that I really knew much of the story already and that the book wasn't really grabbing me. So instead I'll tackle two works by his counterpart: HG Wells! Starting with The Time Machine and then probably doing War of the Worlds before moving into the 20th century.
Frankenstein - Chapter 23
Overall: Well here we are
I suppose this comes with any of these sort of precursors to a genre. I know that Frankenstein is considered the first sci-fi book by many, although precursors to the genre are certainly found in older work: More’s Utopia, Cavendish’s The Blazing World, hell even The Tempest shows some shades of what would later turn into pretty standard sci-fi tropes. I’ve heard it described that sci-fi is what makes the improbable possible, as opposed to fantasy, which makes the impossible probable. I take this to mean that sci-fi is generally concerned with things which could potentially, under some circumstance, occur and puts them into a scenario in which we could easily imagine and examine their occurrence. That examination is also key, I think. I remember back in middle school I began reading some of the more pop sci-fi out there. By that I mean the sci-fi that’s so often associated with space operas. Full of byzantine military descriptions, incalculably dense (and probably entirely impracticable) battle scenes, and characters fit more for the military than for the worlds which they inhabited. Particularly I remember the novelizations that came with the original Halo games. These books weren’t very good. It wasn’t until a good bit later that I made the connection that the dystopian novels which I loved--1984, Oryx and Crake, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, Watchmen--would fall under the pale of sci-fi by many metrics. Thus, when I was in undergrad and began taking some creative writing classes, I was taken somewhat aback when my instructor said that genre fiction was categorically incapable of being literature. That we shouldn’t write it and expect to be good writers in the same career. At once, I understood the claim, based on the teeming amounts of pulp works that seem to permeate the genre then and now (though certainly I’ll be reading more of those as a part of this project) but I also began to question what he was on about. I referenced books like Brave New World and The Handmaid’s Tale and he said that those didn’t count as sci-fi, they were “speculative fiction”.
I guess, what I’m trying to get at here, is that although Frankenstein is considered the progenitor of the genre, I shouldn’t expect it to have all of the things that I do love in sci-fi. I love the moments where sci-fi ponders what it is to be human, to exist, to wonder where we are headed based on where we are. Seeing at times whether it’s tinged with a sort of optimism about humankind, or if it’s more cynical based on the issues that are presently affecting the world. In some works, going to Mars is seen as a continuation of manifest destiny, of a spirit of adventure and romance that I’m sure may’ve been present in the age of exploration. In other works, Mars is seen as an example of class disparity, a sort of metaphor for segregation. The manner in which sci-fi approaches its subjects largely depends on the politics of the writer and the message they hope to convey.
Frankenstein, meanwhile, is steeped not only in sci-fi, but in gothic horror, revenge tales, and family drama. I think, perhaps, that were I more a fan of those genres I’d be a bit more charitable toward these parts of the book. However, there’s a reason this is ‘Temra reads sci-fi’ and not Temra reads ‘fantasy’ or ‘temra reads horror’. While those projects may emerge out of this, and of course genres tend to blend together, I’ve always liked sci-fi above fantasy, and while I enjoy horror, I tend to think it works better visually than in paper form. At least the sort of horror that I prefer. As I noted last time, the kind of horror Frankenstein seems to work with comes upon a sort of presumed revulsion/abhorrence to the creature and his murders. If that’s the extent of it, though, then I’d as well read Poe. I think he did this sort of gothic horror at the heart of a grisly tale better. Shelley does do wonderfully in what would later become science fiction’s examinations of humanity, consciousness, nature, etc. but that is all just tied down at times by this pretty standard fare enemies narrative.
Vic and Elizabeth have their honeymoon, it is cut short by Elizabeth’s murder. Vic is somehow still bewildered that this could possibly have happened. The only characters in this novel seem to be Vic, Captain Walton (only perfunctory), Adam, and perhaps the De Lacey family. Clerval, Elizabeth, William, Justine, Papa Frank, Caroline, Ernest, M. Krempe and M. Waldman, Mr. Kerwin, they all seem more like props that have one personality trait which they spout so that Vic or Adam can regard/murder them. What was Elizabeth ever getting out of the relationship with Victor? We only ever see her framed in relationship to him and his story about Adam. Given how central she is, and how Shelley was willing to devote an entire chapter to the financial woes of the De Lacey family, I feel like we could’ve spent more time getting to know her. Learn about her struggles after Justine’s execution, about her sticky situation with the Lavenza family, something! Instead, Elizabeth and basically everyone else are just objects used to advance the plot of Vic and Adam. It’s kind of repugnant when I look at it that way. It wouldn’t be so bad if the narrative didn’t seem to particularly favor Victor. He's only ever briefly called out for his behavior, though, instead, the narrative really seems to frame him as our protagonist who, since he’s basically right about everything, is totally justified in assuming that his pain is in some way unique. Which is just pretty gross over all.
Vic attempts to persuade the local authorities to hunt Adam, but they basically refuse him. From there, he becomes resolved to figure out some other way to continue the hunt.
Frankenstein - Chapter 22
Overall: a denouement before a final showdown. One more go around with the fam.
Maybe I’m just approaching this book the wrong way. Frankenstein seems sort of divided in what it wants to be in many ways. On the one hand you’ve got a story concerned with human nature, nature nature, and what the relation is between a being and its creator. On the other hand is a fairly routine melodrama about the relationship between Victor Frankenstein and his reluctance/inability to relate easily to his family. Which could also be a compelling story, Kafka did wonders with this theme, but the way it’s written in Shelley just doesn’t seem to click with me.
I think some of it has to do with how little the characters seem to progress throughout this. Vic has undergone some slight change, but there really isn’t much that distinguishes the Vic we found up in the Arctic from the one who’s lamenting his situation in Switzerland. Characters like Clerval and Elizabeth, likewise, are pretty static. Maybe they’ve got something going on by way of growth internally, but Victor does not seem particularly interested in finding out what that is. There’s only so many times I can hear people worry about Victor and he turns them away with the same schtick before it starts to get old and I wonder whether these people would actually stick around Vic. I’m not saying that they should leave him, but so many times in our world people who go through this kind of depression wind up isolated and it feels a little disingenuous of Shelley to present such an unconditionally supportive network for Vic. They’re all kind of props to support his story rather than people.
Vic and his father return to Switzerland, where Vic decides that, since Adam might decide to murder more people during the interim between now and his marriage, he’ll just go ahead and get married.
Elizabeth writes a letter wondering whether or not Victor loves her or not. Again, this feels like we’re rehashing stuff. Vic already had this conversation with Papa Frank and it was the same conclusion reached. Yes, Vic does love Elizabeth.
The two are wed and go to Elizabeth’s family’s villa for their honeymoon. It seems to be going fine, but Vic is concerned that things will soon become much much worse. His narrative also confirms this when he says that this was the last time he felt happiness. I’m predicting Elizabeth is going to die next chapter, and we’ll find out how Vic came to be chasing Adam up in the Arctic.
Maybe I’m just approaching this book the wrong way. Frankenstein seems sort of divided in what it wants to be in many ways. On the one hand you’ve got a story concerned with human nature, nature nature, and what the relation is between a being and its creator. On the other hand is a fairly routine melodrama about the relationship between Victor Frankenstein and his reluctance/inability to relate easily to his family. Which could also be a compelling story, Kafka did wonders with this theme, but the way it’s written in Shelley just doesn’t seem to click with me.
I think some of it has to do with how little the characters seem to progress throughout this. Vic has undergone some slight change, but there really isn’t much that distinguishes the Vic we found up in the Arctic from the one who’s lamenting his situation in Switzerland. Characters like Clerval and Elizabeth, likewise, are pretty static. Maybe they’ve got something going on by way of growth internally, but Victor does not seem particularly interested in finding out what that is. There’s only so many times I can hear people worry about Victor and he turns them away with the same schtick before it starts to get old and I wonder whether these people would actually stick around Vic. I’m not saying that they should leave him, but so many times in our world people who go through this kind of depression wind up isolated and it feels a little disingenuous of Shelley to present such an unconditionally supportive network for Vic. They’re all kind of props to support his story rather than people.
Vic and his father return to Switzerland, where Vic decides that, since Adam might decide to murder more people during the interim between now and his marriage, he’ll just go ahead and get married.
Elizabeth writes a letter wondering whether or not Victor loves her or not. Again, this feels like we’re rehashing stuff. Vic already had this conversation with Papa Frank and it was the same conclusion reached. Yes, Vic does love Elizabeth.
The two are wed and go to Elizabeth’s family’s villa for their honeymoon. It seems to be going fine, but Vic is concerned that things will soon become much much worse. His narrative also confirms this when he says that this was the last time he felt happiness. I’m predicting Elizabeth is going to die next chapter, and we’ll find out how Vic came to be chasing Adam up in the Arctic.
Frankenstein - Chapter 21
Overall: Yeah it was Clerval.
So Vic’s… well he’s still Vic after all this time. Upon hearing that someone’s been murdered he regards the tale with disinterest until he hears that the method of murder was strangulation. At which point, suddenly, he realizes that this could potentially be related to the guy who just left him swearing vengeance on him and his family. Is murder such a common occurrence around Vic that it only arouses interest if the method shows that it might be related?
When Vic sees Clerval’s body, well he’s not in a good way. He immediately begins shouting in French and is taken by a fever for the next two months while he lives in a cell. The local magistrate is kind enough, but rather convinced that Vic murdered Clerval. Once Vic has sufficiently recovered, his mind still in a tumult, he begins talking to the magistrate about the upcoming trial. Vic’s father arrives and the two have a happy reunion. Good on you Papa Frank, traveling all the way out to who knows where to see your son when he’s in a jam. Especially since the book has told us that he’s been getting up there in his age and travel may not really be for him anymore.
Vic goes to his court date and is acquitted without much fuss. A letter from the people of the island Vic was living on provides him with a solid alibi for the night of the murder. After this, Vic is released from his holding and wants to just return to Switzerland. I said earlier that Vic is still Vic, but I will say there’s a very clear shift in the man described in the earliest chapters of the book and him now. While he’s still quite dramatic and sensitive, he’s much more sickly in a physical sense. He needs to take medication to get to sleep now, he’s consumed with anxiety over Adam. It’s a rather humanizing scene of Vic just silently crying to himself on a boat one night. I feel for the guy, his life sucks at this point. He may be selfish but that doesn’t mean I wish this on him.
So Vic’s… well he’s still Vic after all this time. Upon hearing that someone’s been murdered he regards the tale with disinterest until he hears that the method of murder was strangulation. At which point, suddenly, he realizes that this could potentially be related to the guy who just left him swearing vengeance on him and his family. Is murder such a common occurrence around Vic that it only arouses interest if the method shows that it might be related?
When Vic sees Clerval’s body, well he’s not in a good way. He immediately begins shouting in French and is taken by a fever for the next two months while he lives in a cell. The local magistrate is kind enough, but rather convinced that Vic murdered Clerval. Once Vic has sufficiently recovered, his mind still in a tumult, he begins talking to the magistrate about the upcoming trial. Vic’s father arrives and the two have a happy reunion. Good on you Papa Frank, traveling all the way out to who knows where to see your son when he’s in a jam. Especially since the book has told us that he’s been getting up there in his age and travel may not really be for him anymore.
Vic goes to his court date and is acquitted without much fuss. A letter from the people of the island Vic was living on provides him with a solid alibi for the night of the murder. After this, Vic is released from his holding and wants to just return to Switzerland. I said earlier that Vic is still Vic, but I will say there’s a very clear shift in the man described in the earliest chapters of the book and him now. While he’s still quite dramatic and sensitive, he’s much more sickly in a physical sense. He needs to take medication to get to sleep now, he’s consumed with anxiety over Adam. It’s a rather humanizing scene of Vic just silently crying to himself on a boat one night. I feel for the guy, his life sucks at this point. He may be selfish but that doesn’t mean I wish this on him.
Sunday, June 19, 2016
Frankenstein - Chapter 20
Overall: Well I didn’t expect that. An interesting introduction to the final stretch
I guess it was inevitable in some ways that Vic would have another encounter with Adam on the island. Although, now that I’m reading it, I have to wonder what the purpose of the whole journey to the island was. Nothing about Vic’s revelation and decision here came from his trip to the British isles, it’s actually a lot of the same things he had been saying. Just a thought.
One night while he’s working on constructing Eve, he notices that Adam is watching him and, deciding that he can’t go and inflict another one of these creatures onto the world, he destroys all of his work right in front of Adam.
While in some ways his reasoning is altruistic, it’s one of those things where I again must question the logistics. Vic is worried that his creations might breed, and specifically that their children, as a race, might become an enemy to society. I’m going to ignore the fact that the creations probably wouldn’t be able to breed, given that they’re made of cadaver flesh, as the book’s already kind of waved this sort of thing away on Vic’s account once. Also I’m not going to fault Shelley for a misunderstanding of genetics, so what’s left to critique? Well… I mean... Vic, some women can’t have children. Hell, some women don’t have a uterus, some have their fallopian tubes blocked, some may not have ovaries. This isn’t an insurmountable problem when you’re constructing this being piece by piece.
This said, I do like Vic’s sudden fridge moments about this whole process. What if this second creature thinks the first one is ugly? What if she prefers humans? What if she doesn’t want anything to do with romance or this whole ‘travel to South America’ plan? They seem like such obvious questions and I’m actually kind of surprised Vic tore himself away from his dramatics to consider these much more apparent scenarios.
After Vic destroys his work, Adam shows up and begins barking threats at Vic again. Vic is resolute though, and Adam swears to make Victor’s life miserable. He tells Vic that he’ll see him on his wedding night. Somehow Vic doesn’t realize what he’s talking about until well after Adam has left. Even then, Vic (unsurprisingly) thinks that Adam specifically means to kill him on his wedding night. He doesn’t really consider that Elizabeth might not be safe. Oh Vic… some things never change.
Sailing back to (I think we’re still in Scotland) where he’s met by a crowd of upset Irish people. Are we in Ireland now? The crowd of folks says that there’s been a murder and they suspect Victor of it. Taking him to the magistrate, Vic tells the good captain that he didn’t expect the horror to come. It’s Clerval, isn’t it?
I guess it was inevitable in some ways that Vic would have another encounter with Adam on the island. Although, now that I’m reading it, I have to wonder what the purpose of the whole journey to the island was. Nothing about Vic’s revelation and decision here came from his trip to the British isles, it’s actually a lot of the same things he had been saying. Just a thought.
One night while he’s working on constructing Eve, he notices that Adam is watching him and, deciding that he can’t go and inflict another one of these creatures onto the world, he destroys all of his work right in front of Adam.
While in some ways his reasoning is altruistic, it’s one of those things where I again must question the logistics. Vic is worried that his creations might breed, and specifically that their children, as a race, might become an enemy to society. I’m going to ignore the fact that the creations probably wouldn’t be able to breed, given that they’re made of cadaver flesh, as the book’s already kind of waved this sort of thing away on Vic’s account once. Also I’m not going to fault Shelley for a misunderstanding of genetics, so what’s left to critique? Well… I mean... Vic, some women can’t have children. Hell, some women don’t have a uterus, some have their fallopian tubes blocked, some may not have ovaries. This isn’t an insurmountable problem when you’re constructing this being piece by piece.
This said, I do like Vic’s sudden fridge moments about this whole process. What if this second creature thinks the first one is ugly? What if she prefers humans? What if she doesn’t want anything to do with romance or this whole ‘travel to South America’ plan? They seem like such obvious questions and I’m actually kind of surprised Vic tore himself away from his dramatics to consider these much more apparent scenarios.
After Vic destroys his work, Adam shows up and begins barking threats at Vic again. Vic is resolute though, and Adam swears to make Victor’s life miserable. He tells Vic that he’ll see him on his wedding night. Somehow Vic doesn’t realize what he’s talking about until well after Adam has left. Even then, Vic (unsurprisingly) thinks that Adam specifically means to kill him on his wedding night. He doesn’t really consider that Elizabeth might not be safe. Oh Vic… some things never change.
Sailing back to (I think we’re still in Scotland) where he’s met by a crowd of upset Irish people. Are we in Ireland now? The crowd of folks says that there’s been a murder and they suspect Victor of it. Taking him to the magistrate, Vic tells the good captain that he didn’t expect the horror to come. It’s Clerval, isn’t it?
Frankenstein - Chapter 19
Overall: Roadtrip!
So we’re kinda getting on toward the end of the book… I mean, I know that somehow Vic ends up chasing Adam around in the Arctic circle, so that’s still got to happen. We’re moving north! So that may be leading up to it. I don’t know, the book seems like it doesn’t quite know what to do with itself right now.
Look, I’m not opposed to narrative divergences. I think a lot of the point of Frankenstein might be about the sort of observations and attitudes regarding nature that the various characters make and hold. However, the book seems to sometimes maybe overdo this some? Like the plot doesn’t necessarily lend itself to that sort of novel, I suppose.
Most of this chapter is really a travelogue, “Vic and Clerval take the British Isles”. The two start in London and proceed to visit various places on the island, heading northward toward Scotland. Vic apparently sends off some letters of introduction to the philosophers he wanted to meet, but he never seems to follow up on them. Also, we find out that Clerval is interested in signing on to help with the colonization of India.
It’s also a chapter consisting of Shelley kind of comparing the English hills with the Alps. Which, while Cherval seems to love all of the caves and ethereality of the English hills, Vic is more a fan of the raw majesty of the Swiss Alps. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but I do like how consistent Shelley is with the preferences of her characters.
Eventually the two make their way up to Edinburgh, where Vic leaves Clerval so he can go complete his task. He takes up residence in a hut on a small island and begins to set to work, not hearing from the monster and taking walks on the beach at night… where’s he getting the parts for this now?
Frankenstein - Chapter 18
Overall: A solid chapter… who are these philosophers?
Well, at least Vic has some forethought into how he’s going to enact his plans this time around. He’s been hearing about some philosophers up in England who have been doing some writing that might be helpful to him (about what, I wonder) and so he’s going to go visit them. In doing so he gets some new info to potentially go about the whole endeavor a bit more smoothly, and he also gets Adam, who had said he’ll be watching, away from his family.
Papa Frank (considered calling him Alphonse… I like Papa Frank more) wonders about why his son is so melancholy, and begins to think it’s about his betrothal to Elizabeth which.. well news to me? Didn’t she get adopted into their family when she was like, 2? Papa Frank says they’ve been betrothed that whole time. This whole thing is maybe some hard values dissonance, but jeez, Elizabeth isn’t even a factor here. Papa Frank’s concerned that maybe Vic’s come to see Elizabeth more like a sister (RIGHT?) and may not want to marry her as a result. But Vic assures him so quickly that this isn’t the reason that it’s almost sort of unintentionally funny in a craughing kind of way.
Vic convinces his dad to allow him to go to England for up to a year, on the pretense of trying to just get out and see the world some more before coming home and marrying Elizabeth. While Vic’s there though he’s going to try to complete the task Adam’s requested of him. Also! He’s bringing Clerval along!
Oh Clerval. He’s so gung-ho about the whole thing. If there’s one thing this book is good at, it’s commentary on nature. Clerval in particular brings a new perspective. He isn’t dramatic like Vic, nor is he full of this subtle wonderment of Adam. Instead, he’s full of admiration and adventure. The whole thing seems to fill him with so much joy. Hell, Shelley even interjects a poem by William Wordsworth to complement Clerval’s commentary.
It’s kind of a joy to have him back. Sad, though, that at the end of the chapter Vic basically says that Clerval is dead now, and only his spirit lives on. Clerval was indeed too good for this world.
Well, at least Vic has some forethought into how he’s going to enact his plans this time around. He’s been hearing about some philosophers up in England who have been doing some writing that might be helpful to him (about what, I wonder) and so he’s going to go visit them. In doing so he gets some new info to potentially go about the whole endeavor a bit more smoothly, and he also gets Adam, who had said he’ll be watching, away from his family.
Papa Frank (considered calling him Alphonse… I like Papa Frank more) wonders about why his son is so melancholy, and begins to think it’s about his betrothal to Elizabeth which.. well news to me? Didn’t she get adopted into their family when she was like, 2? Papa Frank says they’ve been betrothed that whole time. This whole thing is maybe some hard values dissonance, but jeez, Elizabeth isn’t even a factor here. Papa Frank’s concerned that maybe Vic’s come to see Elizabeth more like a sister (RIGHT?) and may not want to marry her as a result. But Vic assures him so quickly that this isn’t the reason that it’s almost sort of unintentionally funny in a craughing kind of way.
Vic convinces his dad to allow him to go to England for up to a year, on the pretense of trying to just get out and see the world some more before coming home and marrying Elizabeth. While Vic’s there though he’s going to try to complete the task Adam’s requested of him. Also! He’s bringing Clerval along!
Oh Clerval. He’s so gung-ho about the whole thing. If there’s one thing this book is good at, it’s commentary on nature. Clerval in particular brings a new perspective. He isn’t dramatic like Vic, nor is he full of this subtle wonderment of Adam. Instead, he’s full of admiration and adventure. The whole thing seems to fill him with so much joy. Hell, Shelley even interjects a poem by William Wordsworth to complement Clerval’s commentary.
It’s kind of a joy to have him back. Sad, though, that at the end of the chapter Vic basically says that Clerval is dead now, and only his spirit lives on. Clerval was indeed too good for this world.
Frankenstein - Chapter 17
Overall: I did not expect this. Huh.
So, Vic agreed.
I mean, it took him a while, and even Vic pointed out that the whole last part of the story kinda soured him, but in the end he agrees to go about making a new being to keep Adam company—conditionally.
Adam agrees that after Victor creates this second creature, he’ll leave Europe altogether and go to the wilderness of South America, where, apparently, there are no humans… not gonna touch that one right now. It takes some bargaining and cajoling, but eventually Victor agrees and the whole thing is settled.
Victor sure got over the death of two people close to his family pretty quickly. I guess he’s in some way doing it because Adam threatens to keep hurting more and more of Vic’s family if he doesn’t agree, but still, Victor’s main concern seems to be the wrongness of creating a new monster, rather than avenging his brother, which, as I recall, he had stated back around chapter 9 as being his desire.
Anyways, Vic sees the reason in the story overall and while he still sees Adam as contemptible, at least he seems a little more aware of his own part in the whole situation beyond how it relates to how he feels.
As Adam leaves and Vic departs, we get another moment of him shouting at nature. Oh Vic, some things just won’t change, will they? Still apparently kind of despondent around your family, still convinced that the entirety of nature is mocking you.
So, Vic agreed.
I mean, it took him a while, and even Vic pointed out that the whole last part of the story kinda soured him, but in the end he agrees to go about making a new being to keep Adam company—conditionally.
Adam agrees that after Victor creates this second creature, he’ll leave Europe altogether and go to the wilderness of South America, where, apparently, there are no humans… not gonna touch that one right now. It takes some bargaining and cajoling, but eventually Victor agrees and the whole thing is settled.
Victor sure got over the death of two people close to his family pretty quickly. I guess he’s in some way doing it because Adam threatens to keep hurting more and more of Vic’s family if he doesn’t agree, but still, Victor’s main concern seems to be the wrongness of creating a new monster, rather than avenging his brother, which, as I recall, he had stated back around chapter 9 as being his desire.
Anyways, Vic sees the reason in the story overall and while he still sees Adam as contemptible, at least he seems a little more aware of his own part in the whole situation beyond how it relates to how he feels.
As Adam leaves and Vic departs, we get another moment of him shouting at nature. Oh Vic, some things just won’t change, will they? Still apparently kind of despondent around your family, still convinced that the entirety of nature is mocking you.
Monday, June 13, 2016
Frankenstein - Chapter 16
Overall: Well that was a whirlwind of a chapter. Yeesh. Some good, some bad.
Adam is consumed with emotion over the incident at the De Lacey’s. First it isn’t sadness, though, but rage. He goes into the woods and exerts himself to collapsing by just raging against the entire situation he’s found himself in.
Then the next day, he begins to console himself, thinking that maybe he took off from the De Lacey’s house too quickly. After all, M. De Lacey had seemed to be coming around before Felix, Safie, and Agatha came back. Then, when he comes back to perhaps try again, he finds that Felix and his family have all basically decided to move out after the incident. It’s so blunt and painful. Adam never saw them again.
Taken into a rage again, Adam burns down the De Lacey’s house one night and decides that all of humanity is his enemy to some degree. In particular, however, he decides to seek out Vic in order to exact some kind of revenge upon him. He has to figure out where to go, though, and so eventually he heads southwest toward Geneva.
Along the road he’s overcome by a momentary compassionate impulse when he witnesses a young girl about to drown in a river. Taking her out and failing to resuscitate her, he’s set upon by some other person who presumably knows the girl. After following and being shot for it, Adam goes back into his rage and continues with his hatred for humanity renewed.
Eventually he comes upon Geneva and when he grabs a young boy who turns out to be William, specifically when William lets Adam know his last name is Frankenstein, Adam does the deed and strangles the child. Gotta say I’m pretty torn on this bit. From what little I know of the movies I’ve heard that they try to keep the monster more innocent in his behavior. If I recall, he accidentally drowns a child in that one, which is what causes the angry mob we all know and love. Here, it’s really complicated. On the one hand, I totally understand Adam’s utter misanthropy, he’s still a young being who’s convinced that he should be human but just can’t in some capacity. He has that sense of isolation that’s removing him from any sort of identification with people. But at the same time, I mean, he probably knows that William is not Victor. None of this excuses his actions, of course. I don’t think it’s supposed to. It does a very good job of making the situation very grey, though, with respect to whether his fury is justified, and more particularly if it’s justifiable to hate all of humanity.
I do think it’s a bit too convenient for Adam to do the whole picture-planting job in order to frame Justine. Like, that really worked out for him, huh? Really could’ve easily bungled that whole thing if Justine hadn’t happened to have taken the day off that day and to have had some connection to William and no alibi.
I also do kind of wonder at this from a writing perspective. Because I really think it kind of absolves Victor too easily. I mean, why should others critique him for his behavior, now? He was right about the whole thing. Not through any sort of deductive power, just through a series of hapless coincidence and chance. It kind of manages to just make it so that all of Victor’s concerns are at least somewhat more justified without him having had to come to any sort of personal transformation about it at all.
Anyways, by the end of the chapter, Adam demands that Victor make a female companion for him. An Eve? Is she going to have the weird hair? Umm… Adam, you maybe should've led with that before you got to the whole "I murdered your brother" bit. Maybe you didn't learn this part very well, but generally humans don't like hearing that you've killed their kin. I guess Adam may’ve thought that the whole truth needed to be told. But I mean, you started off with giving Victor the option to kill you if he didn’t like your story and you kinda didn’t stick the landing, there.
Adam is consumed with emotion over the incident at the De Lacey’s. First it isn’t sadness, though, but rage. He goes into the woods and exerts himself to collapsing by just raging against the entire situation he’s found himself in.
Then the next day, he begins to console himself, thinking that maybe he took off from the De Lacey’s house too quickly. After all, M. De Lacey had seemed to be coming around before Felix, Safie, and Agatha came back. Then, when he comes back to perhaps try again, he finds that Felix and his family have all basically decided to move out after the incident. It’s so blunt and painful. Adam never saw them again.
Taken into a rage again, Adam burns down the De Lacey’s house one night and decides that all of humanity is his enemy to some degree. In particular, however, he decides to seek out Vic in order to exact some kind of revenge upon him. He has to figure out where to go, though, and so eventually he heads southwest toward Geneva.
Along the road he’s overcome by a momentary compassionate impulse when he witnesses a young girl about to drown in a river. Taking her out and failing to resuscitate her, he’s set upon by some other person who presumably knows the girl. After following and being shot for it, Adam goes back into his rage and continues with his hatred for humanity renewed.
Eventually he comes upon Geneva and when he grabs a young boy who turns out to be William, specifically when William lets Adam know his last name is Frankenstein, Adam does the deed and strangles the child. Gotta say I’m pretty torn on this bit. From what little I know of the movies I’ve heard that they try to keep the monster more innocent in his behavior. If I recall, he accidentally drowns a child in that one, which is what causes the angry mob we all know and love. Here, it’s really complicated. On the one hand, I totally understand Adam’s utter misanthropy, he’s still a young being who’s convinced that he should be human but just can’t in some capacity. He has that sense of isolation that’s removing him from any sort of identification with people. But at the same time, I mean, he probably knows that William is not Victor. None of this excuses his actions, of course. I don’t think it’s supposed to. It does a very good job of making the situation very grey, though, with respect to whether his fury is justified, and more particularly if it’s justifiable to hate all of humanity.
I do think it’s a bit too convenient for Adam to do the whole picture-planting job in order to frame Justine. Like, that really worked out for him, huh? Really could’ve easily bungled that whole thing if Justine hadn’t happened to have taken the day off that day and to have had some connection to William and no alibi.
I also do kind of wonder at this from a writing perspective. Because I really think it kind of absolves Victor too easily. I mean, why should others critique him for his behavior, now? He was right about the whole thing. Not through any sort of deductive power, just through a series of hapless coincidence and chance. It kind of manages to just make it so that all of Victor’s concerns are at least somewhat more justified without him having had to come to any sort of personal transformation about it at all.
Anyways, by the end of the chapter, Adam demands that Victor make a female companion for him. An Eve? Is she going to have the weird hair? Umm… Adam, you maybe should've led with that before you got to the whole "I murdered your brother" bit. Maybe you didn't learn this part very well, but generally humans don't like hearing that you've killed their kin. I guess Adam may’ve thought that the whole truth needed to be told. But I mean, you started off with giving Victor the option to kill you if he didn’t like your story and you kinda didn’t stick the landing, there.
Frankenstein - Chapter 15
Well that was heartbreaking.
I feel in some ways like this is two chapters that were sort of jammed together. The first half is more akin to the previous chapters describing Adam’s journey and burgeoning consciousness/education. While the latter half actually stings a bit more because it doesn’t even get a whole chapter to itself.
Adam is walking one day when he finds several books: Plutarch’s Lives, Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther, and Paradise Lost. Luckily they are in French (the De Lacey family speaks French it turns out, not German), and Adam sets about reading them. While reading he begins to develop a sort of sense of identification with and apart from humankind. In Werther, he seems fond for the main character, but can’t quite comprehend all of his struggles. Similarly, he comes to admire certain people from Plutarch over others. He favors more pacifistic historical figures than martial heroes like Romulus. It’s around this time that I remembered reading that Shelley had experimented with vegetarianism, and that Adam also has never eaten meat. Finally, he reads Milton and finds himself at once identifying with Adam and Satan. Like Adam, he figures, he is the first of his kind and somewhat alone in a strange world. However, unlike Adam, he does not have anyone he can turn to for advice or help. Instead, he feels envy for humans like Satan does for God. Later on, he discovers one of Vic’s journals that was in an article of clothing that Adam had managed to take with him. In it, Victor records the months leading up to his creating Adam.
Wow, Adam really calls Victor out here and it’s pretty wonderful. He is angry at Victor for creating a being if he was only going to abandon it for being ugly. I hope Vic takes some of this to heart. After all, it isn’t Adam’s fault by any means that he’s not living up to human beauty standards. Something tells me Vic’s going to be too stuck in his own feelings about this too, though.
From here, Adam decides one day that he’s going to go try to introduce himself to the De Lacey’s. Specifically, he’s going to wait until Safie, Felix, and Agatha have gone one day so that he can talk to M. De Lacey, who, being blind, is less likely to react negatively upon seeing him.
Adam begins speaking to De Lacey and it’s so sad already. He’s evasive about the “friends” he has nearby, and is unable to particularly communicate the entirety of his situation without letting on that he isn’t human. Just when he bursts into a fit of emotion, pleading for De Lacey to take him in, the three younger members of the house burst in.
From here it’s just sadness again. Agatha faints, Safie runs off, and Felix begins to immediately beat Adam into submission. Adam, although he knows he’s stronger than Felix, just takes it before running away back to his hovel. He was so close (assuming De Lacey continued to just be an awesome person), and then it was snatched away with the same amount of ceremony as every other encounter he’s had with people.
I feel in some ways like this is two chapters that were sort of jammed together. The first half is more akin to the previous chapters describing Adam’s journey and burgeoning consciousness/education. While the latter half actually stings a bit more because it doesn’t even get a whole chapter to itself.
Adam is walking one day when he finds several books: Plutarch’s Lives, Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther, and Paradise Lost. Luckily they are in French (the De Lacey family speaks French it turns out, not German), and Adam sets about reading them. While reading he begins to develop a sort of sense of identification with and apart from humankind. In Werther, he seems fond for the main character, but can’t quite comprehend all of his struggles. Similarly, he comes to admire certain people from Plutarch over others. He favors more pacifistic historical figures than martial heroes like Romulus. It’s around this time that I remembered reading that Shelley had experimented with vegetarianism, and that Adam also has never eaten meat. Finally, he reads Milton and finds himself at once identifying with Adam and Satan. Like Adam, he figures, he is the first of his kind and somewhat alone in a strange world. However, unlike Adam, he does not have anyone he can turn to for advice or help. Instead, he feels envy for humans like Satan does for God. Later on, he discovers one of Vic’s journals that was in an article of clothing that Adam had managed to take with him. In it, Victor records the months leading up to his creating Adam.
Wow, Adam really calls Victor out here and it’s pretty wonderful. He is angry at Victor for creating a being if he was only going to abandon it for being ugly. I hope Vic takes some of this to heart. After all, it isn’t Adam’s fault by any means that he’s not living up to human beauty standards. Something tells me Vic’s going to be too stuck in his own feelings about this too, though.
From here, Adam decides one day that he’s going to go try to introduce himself to the De Lacey’s. Specifically, he’s going to wait until Safie, Felix, and Agatha have gone one day so that he can talk to M. De Lacey, who, being blind, is less likely to react negatively upon seeing him.
Adam begins speaking to De Lacey and it’s so sad already. He’s evasive about the “friends” he has nearby, and is unable to particularly communicate the entirety of his situation without letting on that he isn’t human. Just when he bursts into a fit of emotion, pleading for De Lacey to take him in, the three younger members of the house burst in.
From here it’s just sadness again. Agatha faints, Safie runs off, and Felix begins to immediately beat Adam into submission. Adam, although he knows he’s stronger than Felix, just takes it before running away back to his hovel. He was so close (assuming De Lacey continued to just be an awesome person), and then it was snatched away with the same amount of ceremony as every other encounter he’s had with people.
Frankenstein - Chapter 14
How did Adam find this out!?
Most of this chapter is concerned with the De Lacey family. Particularly, it’s about how they came to live in this small town in Germany, and fell upon such hard times. I’ve got to say, I’m actually not terribly a fan of it. I know it’s sort of like disliking a book’s characters for what is essentially just a given for them, but… I mean, here are my thoughts on the matter:
-What does this add? It seems like the De Laceys were fine characters anyway as just working class townsfolk with some land to their name that weren’t particularly rich. Safie’s appearance doesn’t even need that much explanation, I think. She could’ve just been someone Felix had met at some point, maybe on military service or something. I don’t know.
Instead we get this… really strange narrative about how Safie’s father had been captured and Felix tried to help him get out of his punishment. However, Felix gets himself into trouble toward this end and his family, consisting of Agatha and their father, who’s just called De Lacey, are arrested. Felix turns himself in and despite this good gesture, the family is still kept imprisoned for five months, and eventually exiled from France, losing their money in the process. They take up residence in Germany and Safie’s father, who said that he would repay Felix’s kindness, reneges on the agreement before heading back to Turkey. As for Safie herself, she decides to go find and live with Felix, who she’d fallen in love with.
The whole plot just feels contrived to give them some melodrama to work through. It wouldn’t be so apparent if the De Lacey’s hadn’t already been presented as the only characters who weren’t well-off in the narrative so far. This kind of takes away that aspect of their character and makes them more of displaced wealthy people. Maybe I’m overlooking some part of the socioeconomic strata on why this was needed in this novel, but for now it mostly seems like a way to just eke out some sort of tension. AS though the tension of just living while poor isn’t enough.
There’s also remarkably little of Adam in this chapter. He briefly interjects to say that he copied down some of the letters surrounding Safie that he had found, but really this is more the De Lacey’s story than his, which is pretty disappointing. Also, there seems like there’d be a bit of a logistics problem to Adam figuring out this entire scenario.
The letters must’ve been very expository, because otherwise it doesn’t seem likely he’d’ve learned this. I know this is pre-naturalist writing, and so maybe that in some way justifies things like this, but it still feels a bit divergent from what the core of the story really is.
Most of this chapter is concerned with the De Lacey family. Particularly, it’s about how they came to live in this small town in Germany, and fell upon such hard times. I’ve got to say, I’m actually not terribly a fan of it. I know it’s sort of like disliking a book’s characters for what is essentially just a given for them, but… I mean, here are my thoughts on the matter:
-What does this add? It seems like the De Laceys were fine characters anyway as just working class townsfolk with some land to their name that weren’t particularly rich. Safie’s appearance doesn’t even need that much explanation, I think. She could’ve just been someone Felix had met at some point, maybe on military service or something. I don’t know.
Instead we get this… really strange narrative about how Safie’s father had been captured and Felix tried to help him get out of his punishment. However, Felix gets himself into trouble toward this end and his family, consisting of Agatha and their father, who’s just called De Lacey, are arrested. Felix turns himself in and despite this good gesture, the family is still kept imprisoned for five months, and eventually exiled from France, losing their money in the process. They take up residence in Germany and Safie’s father, who said that he would repay Felix’s kindness, reneges on the agreement before heading back to Turkey. As for Safie herself, she decides to go find and live with Felix, who she’d fallen in love with.
The whole plot just feels contrived to give them some melodrama to work through. It wouldn’t be so apparent if the De Lacey’s hadn’t already been presented as the only characters who weren’t well-off in the narrative so far. This kind of takes away that aspect of their character and makes them more of displaced wealthy people. Maybe I’m overlooking some part of the socioeconomic strata on why this was needed in this novel, but for now it mostly seems like a way to just eke out some sort of tension. AS though the tension of just living while poor isn’t enough.
There’s also remarkably little of Adam in this chapter. He briefly interjects to say that he copied down some of the letters surrounding Safie that he had found, but really this is more the De Lacey’s story than his, which is pretty disappointing. Also, there seems like there’d be a bit of a logistics problem to Adam figuring out this entire scenario.
The letters must’ve been very expository, because otherwise it doesn’t seem likely he’d’ve learned this. I know this is pre-naturalist writing, and so maybe that in some way justifies things like this, but it still feels a bit divergent from what the core of the story really is.
Frankenstein - Chapter 13
Jeez, Adam’s learning a lot from just skulking outside of a house. I guess houses weren't very well insulated back in the day.
Most of this chapter is actually framed more around the family which Adam continues to observe. Felix seems to have arranged for an.. adoption?... of a foreign woman named Safie into the family. I’m not sure for what purpose. But whatever the reason, Safie is brought into the house and Adam learns that in fact there are more languages than just… German I’m going to assume?
Adam also begins to remark upon the need for humans to learn from one another. How they are inextricably bound together. It’s actually rather touching and sad, as he realizes that he, by contrast, has no others like him. He’s an outsider and seems afraid of making contact with the people.
Finally, Adam seems to begin holding a different opinion of humankind after learning some of Western history. He’s at once astounded at how marvelous humans can be, and at how awful they’ve been. He holds humans in such high regard that he seems unable to reconcile the two. He begins to recognize his own difference from humans, particularly his size, greater agility, and ability to subsist on rougher diet and withstand the elements more easily. He realizes that he’s a monster by some definition.
He also begins to understand what an odd thing “knowing” or “awareness” is, and how it is a hard thing to shake off when someone knows something. Yay for education, although it’s something I’ve sometimes struggled with in educating students in the critical paradigm.
This chapter feels more like build-up in some ways. Adam’s clearly building to some inevitable confrontation with the family and is trying to set it up. That said, while this chapter is basically a continuation from last chapter, the last chapter was fine and so this one is too.
Most of this chapter is actually framed more around the family which Adam continues to observe. Felix seems to have arranged for an.. adoption?... of a foreign woman named Safie into the family. I’m not sure for what purpose. But whatever the reason, Safie is brought into the house and Adam learns that in fact there are more languages than just… German I’m going to assume?
Adam also begins to remark upon the need for humans to learn from one another. How they are inextricably bound together. It’s actually rather touching and sad, as he realizes that he, by contrast, has no others like him. He’s an outsider and seems afraid of making contact with the people.
Finally, Adam seems to begin holding a different opinion of humankind after learning some of Western history. He’s at once astounded at how marvelous humans can be, and at how awful they’ve been. He holds humans in such high regard that he seems unable to reconcile the two. He begins to recognize his own difference from humans, particularly his size, greater agility, and ability to subsist on rougher diet and withstand the elements more easily. He realizes that he’s a monster by some definition.
He also begins to understand what an odd thing “knowing” or “awareness” is, and how it is a hard thing to shake off when someone knows something. Yay for education, although it’s something I’ve sometimes struggled with in educating students in the critical paradigm.
This chapter feels more like build-up in some ways. Adam’s clearly building to some inevitable confrontation with the family and is trying to set it up. That said, while this chapter is basically a continuation from last chapter, the last chapter was fine and so this one is too.
Frankenstein - Chapter 12
I’m really enjoying this!
It’s not like I wasn’t enjoying Victor’s chapters. They were fine, but in general I find the sort of melodrama to be tiresome. As if it’s serving the point that violence and character deaths seem to serve in a lot of modern media. Give me these cogitations any day over that.
Adam has taken to observing the family from the last chapter over a period of months. The family, consisting of an older blind man, and his children Felix and Agatha, are a fine sort of family. They aren’t quite the Cratchetts in terms of how doggedly good-spirited they are, but they’re fine. Adam watches them and learns about communication, mostly.
Adam’s concerns about communication remind me of one of my favorite books: Speaking into the Air by John Durham Peters. It’s an account of the history of the idea of communication, and how that idea has never been a particularly agreed-upon concept throughout history. Adam marvels at the strangeness not only of language, but of writing, which he acknowledges as far beyond his comprehension.
Also, also, Adam is just adorable with his helping around the house. He goes out at night to pick up timber and clear the snow out from around the family’s house so that Felix can do other tasks during the day. When he notes that the family is poor, he recognizes that his filching of their food is doing harm to them, and so he sticks to eating roots and berries from the forest.
Adam spends months in his shack watching the family, as I’d said. Winter passes to spring (come to think of it, while we had a sort of rough timeline from the start of the narrative to Vic’s creating Adam, we sort of stopped keeping time after that), and the village they are in begins to teem with life again. Adam, as I’ve mentioned, is wonderful. I really love his appreciation of the world around him as contrasted against Vic’s. Whereas Victor, who by all accounts seems to be a rather diminutive and sickly person, is astounded and loves the sublime parts of nature – mountains, storms, great lakes. Adam, meanwhile, seems to take so much appreciation in very subtle aspects of the world around him – birds singing, the phases of the moon, seasons changing. It’s really quite beautiful the balance that’s struck between the two of them. I’m not sure that one is necessarily better than another, but it feels like Shelley is very deliberately making a sort of commentary about the romantic movement and its sort of fascination with the sublime and wondering if perhaps it takes more subtle aspects of nature for granted.
Really enjoying this. Adam wants to talk to the family. I hope this goes okay, but I expect it won’t
It’s not like I wasn’t enjoying Victor’s chapters. They were fine, but in general I find the sort of melodrama to be tiresome. As if it’s serving the point that violence and character deaths seem to serve in a lot of modern media. Give me these cogitations any day over that.
Adam has taken to observing the family from the last chapter over a period of months. The family, consisting of an older blind man, and his children Felix and Agatha, are a fine sort of family. They aren’t quite the Cratchetts in terms of how doggedly good-spirited they are, but they’re fine. Adam watches them and learns about communication, mostly.
Adam’s concerns about communication remind me of one of my favorite books: Speaking into the Air by John Durham Peters. It’s an account of the history of the idea of communication, and how that idea has never been a particularly agreed-upon concept throughout history. Adam marvels at the strangeness not only of language, but of writing, which he acknowledges as far beyond his comprehension.
Also, also, Adam is just adorable with his helping around the house. He goes out at night to pick up timber and clear the snow out from around the family’s house so that Felix can do other tasks during the day. When he notes that the family is poor, he recognizes that his filching of their food is doing harm to them, and so he sticks to eating roots and berries from the forest.
Adam spends months in his shack watching the family, as I’d said. Winter passes to spring (come to think of it, while we had a sort of rough timeline from the start of the narrative to Vic’s creating Adam, we sort of stopped keeping time after that), and the village they are in begins to teem with life again. Adam, as I’ve mentioned, is wonderful. I really love his appreciation of the world around him as contrasted against Vic’s. Whereas Victor, who by all accounts seems to be a rather diminutive and sickly person, is astounded and loves the sublime parts of nature – mountains, storms, great lakes. Adam, meanwhile, seems to take so much appreciation in very subtle aspects of the world around him – birds singing, the phases of the moon, seasons changing. It’s really quite beautiful the balance that’s struck between the two of them. I’m not sure that one is necessarily better than another, but it feels like Shelley is very deliberately making a sort of commentary about the romantic movement and its sort of fascination with the sublime and wondering if perhaps it takes more subtle aspects of nature for granted.
Really enjoying this. Adam wants to talk to the family. I hope this goes okay, but I expect it won’t
Sunday, June 5, 2016
Frankenstein - Chapter 11
This was so cool!
So first off—Vic apparently has an eidetic memory for what people said! I kid, of course, but there are times where the “person recounting a story” narrative does raise a bit of a logistical question. I thought this a lot in Heart of Darkness, with my thought mostly being that the people who Marlow spoke to must’ve had the wind let out of their sails by the time it was all over.
Adam begins recounting his journey starting with (I think) when he left Vic’s place. The narration seems to imply that he pretty much wasn’t conscious until he was already out in this forest. Even to a certain point, he’s barely able to make sense of what’s around him. Still, there are some apparent instincts which drive him. For one, he still needs to eat and drink. I’m kind of surprised by this, actually. I didn’t think a person made from a bunch of cut-up cadavers and animated by electricity would feel hunger like we do, since the material of his body is already dead. I know it’s probably just Shelley playing loose with biology, but there’s certainly an interesting posthuman claim toward human ontology in this sequence. Adam finds certain noises and visuals innately pleasurable, and some to be harsh. There’s definitely a sort of nature/nurture thing here, with some of the argument seeming to favor nature. “Yes, sparrows are just annoying. Yes, blackbirds sound pretty to everyone” here.
From here, Adam begins a basic exploration of the world around him. He observes the phases of the moon and the passage from day to night. He becomes fascinated by fire and tries to figure it out to use it for cooking and warmth and light. Quite a liberty Hollywood took there!
Eventually, Adam decides to leave the forest and begin wandering. He scares some shepherd out of his hut one night, totally unintentionally, and begins eating his food and understanding the concept of a constructed shelter. From here, he goes to a village and.. well it doesn’t go well, but not nearly as poorly as I’d’ve thought. The villagers aren’t nice to ol’ Adam, they either shriek or run away or attack him. But they aren’t coming out in a full-on mob at him, they seem content to just turn him away from their village.
Afterward he takes up residence in a shack and observes, what I think, is supposed to be a family at their work. He is fascinated by the whole scenario he watches unfold and is really quite a sensitive creature.
I liked this chapter a lot. We’re really getting into a good exploration of what it is to be human and of consciousness! This is the stuff that so much of sci-fi still delves into almost two centuries later!
So first off—Vic apparently has an eidetic memory for what people said! I kid, of course, but there are times where the “person recounting a story” narrative does raise a bit of a logistical question. I thought this a lot in Heart of Darkness, with my thought mostly being that the people who Marlow spoke to must’ve had the wind let out of their sails by the time it was all over.
Adam begins recounting his journey starting with (I think) when he left Vic’s place. The narration seems to imply that he pretty much wasn’t conscious until he was already out in this forest. Even to a certain point, he’s barely able to make sense of what’s around him. Still, there are some apparent instincts which drive him. For one, he still needs to eat and drink. I’m kind of surprised by this, actually. I didn’t think a person made from a bunch of cut-up cadavers and animated by electricity would feel hunger like we do, since the material of his body is already dead. I know it’s probably just Shelley playing loose with biology, but there’s certainly an interesting posthuman claim toward human ontology in this sequence. Adam finds certain noises and visuals innately pleasurable, and some to be harsh. There’s definitely a sort of nature/nurture thing here, with some of the argument seeming to favor nature. “Yes, sparrows are just annoying. Yes, blackbirds sound pretty to everyone” here.
From here, Adam begins a basic exploration of the world around him. He observes the phases of the moon and the passage from day to night. He becomes fascinated by fire and tries to figure it out to use it for cooking and warmth and light. Quite a liberty Hollywood took there!
Eventually, Adam decides to leave the forest and begin wandering. He scares some shepherd out of his hut one night, totally unintentionally, and begins eating his food and understanding the concept of a constructed shelter. From here, he goes to a village and.. well it doesn’t go well, but not nearly as poorly as I’d’ve thought. The villagers aren’t nice to ol’ Adam, they either shriek or run away or attack him. But they aren’t coming out in a full-on mob at him, they seem content to just turn him away from their village.
Afterward he takes up residence in a shack and observes, what I think, is supposed to be a family at their work. He is fascinated by the whole scenario he watches unfold and is really quite a sensitive creature.
I liked this chapter a lot. We’re really getting into a good exploration of what it is to be human and of consciousness! This is the stuff that so much of sci-fi still delves into almost two centuries later!
Frankenstein - Chapter 10
Well this should offer up a change
Vic, after having departed for a nearby village in the Alps, decides to go on a multi-day hike over a glacier. Again, he’s rather dramatic in his whole approach to nature, marveling on it apparently out loud as he goes on his hikes. Suddenly, he sees a figure running up on him. It’s his creation, who we finally have speaking.
The creation, who I’ll now refer to as Adam since he seems to have become his own character, is really bent out of shape in confronting Victor. He’s angry and confused and upset all at once over Victor’s apparent abandonment of him. He wonders why Victor didn’t just kill him, and he asks that Victor at least listen to his story of how he came to be here before he decides whether or not he’ll continue in attempting to kill Adam. Adam, for his part, seems really reasonable about the whole thing. He’s rather fond of the religious metaphor of their relationship (which… yeah that’s fair). And he’s.. actually quite a bit like Victor. Both very dramatic and concerned with their pain.
Victor is trying to not have any of Adam’s complaints and questions though. Which is totally unfair! Adam is pretty blameless in this exchange so far. Eventually though, Victor agrees to go hear Adam out in a nearby shack.
A few things: Adam’s initial charge at Victor is accompanied by a rather extreme threat against not only Victor but his family as well. So, is the book actually lending credence to the possibility that, against all odds, Adam somehow made it out to Geneva and then found Vic’s specific family and murdered his brother? I mean, where they are now is even further from Ingolstadt, so I guess so. Don’t know how I’ll take it if I found out he killed William intentionally.
Also (total fake question) so how did Vic know a poem that Shelley’s husband wrote in 1816 when the story takes place in the 1700’s? Mysteries abound!
Vic, after having departed for a nearby village in the Alps, decides to go on a multi-day hike over a glacier. Again, he’s rather dramatic in his whole approach to nature, marveling on it apparently out loud as he goes on his hikes. Suddenly, he sees a figure running up on him. It’s his creation, who we finally have speaking.
The creation, who I’ll now refer to as Adam since he seems to have become his own character, is really bent out of shape in confronting Victor. He’s angry and confused and upset all at once over Victor’s apparent abandonment of him. He wonders why Victor didn’t just kill him, and he asks that Victor at least listen to his story of how he came to be here before he decides whether or not he’ll continue in attempting to kill Adam. Adam, for his part, seems really reasonable about the whole thing. He’s rather fond of the religious metaphor of their relationship (which… yeah that’s fair). And he’s.. actually quite a bit like Victor. Both very dramatic and concerned with their pain.
Victor is trying to not have any of Adam’s complaints and questions though. Which is totally unfair! Adam is pretty blameless in this exchange so far. Eventually though, Victor agrees to go hear Adam out in a nearby shack.
A few things: Adam’s initial charge at Victor is accompanied by a rather extreme threat against not only Victor but his family as well. So, is the book actually lending credence to the possibility that, against all odds, Adam somehow made it out to Geneva and then found Vic’s specific family and murdered his brother? I mean, where they are now is even further from Ingolstadt, so I guess so. Don’t know how I’ll take it if I found out he killed William intentionally.
Also (total fake question) so how did Vic know a poem that Shelley’s husband wrote in 1816 when the story takes place in the 1700’s? Mysteries abound!
Frankenstein - Chapter 9
Well, it was about time someone called Vic out.
Not much really occurs this chapter in a plot sense. It’s mostly spent with Vic and the two main members of his family (poor Ernest) each kind of telling him off in their own way. Vic’s father’s advice, while coming at Vic from an angle steeped in patriarchal ideas of expression, does kind of tap into a problem that Vic seems to face. He can’t recognize that other people feel pain too. While I’m annoyed that Alphonse shames Victor for apparently grieving, it is irritating because his advice is actually kind of spot on. Just for the wrong reasons.
I mean hell, Elizabeth tells him that she’s been really shaken in her faith by the conviction of Justine, Vic makes it entirely about himself. She goes to worrying about him because he is so overwrought in everything about his expression that she has to wonder about his safety (which I’ll get to in a moment) during her own grief.
Here’s the thing though. Vic seems like he’s genuinely really rattled by the whole experiment thing. He needs to talk to someone about this. He contemplates suicide via drowning (which… yikes) to just remove himself from other people’s lives… I mean, I feel like he’s approaching this whole thing wrong. But I can’t deny that, whether or not he’s projecting the whole “monster murdered my brother” thing, he’s still so obviously out of sorts about the whole creating an abomination, thing.
I actually didn’t know that Frank in the book would be so torn up about this. Again, popular version of Vic seems to imply that he was rather proud of his creation, or at least proud of himself for having created it. We’re nearly halfway through the book and we’re still kind of on Vic’s trauma about the whole thing. It’s really cool though
[Later edit: I had this review typed out more fully and then my computer restarted without saving it, so I had to mostly retype it from memory. I think I've gotten most of it recounted, but I had already read the next chapter when I had to do the rewrite. guh.]
Not much really occurs this chapter in a plot sense. It’s mostly spent with Vic and the two main members of his family (poor Ernest) each kind of telling him off in their own way. Vic’s father’s advice, while coming at Vic from an angle steeped in patriarchal ideas of expression, does kind of tap into a problem that Vic seems to face. He can’t recognize that other people feel pain too. While I’m annoyed that Alphonse shames Victor for apparently grieving, it is irritating because his advice is actually kind of spot on. Just for the wrong reasons.
I mean hell, Elizabeth tells him that she’s been really shaken in her faith by the conviction of Justine, Vic makes it entirely about himself. She goes to worrying about him because he is so overwrought in everything about his expression that she has to wonder about his safety (which I’ll get to in a moment) during her own grief.
Here’s the thing though. Vic seems like he’s genuinely really rattled by the whole experiment thing. He needs to talk to someone about this. He contemplates suicide via drowning (which… yikes) to just remove himself from other people’s lives… I mean, I feel like he’s approaching this whole thing wrong. But I can’t deny that, whether or not he’s projecting the whole “monster murdered my brother” thing, he’s still so obviously out of sorts about the whole creating an abomination, thing.
I actually didn’t know that Frank in the book would be so torn up about this. Again, popular version of Vic seems to imply that he was rather proud of his creation, or at least proud of himself for having created it. We’re nearly halfway through the book and we’re still kind of on Vic’s trauma about the whole thing. It’s really cool though
[Later edit: I had this review typed out more fully and then my computer restarted without saving it, so I had to mostly retype it from memory. I think I've gotten most of it recounted, but I had already read the next chapter when I had to do the rewrite. guh.]
Frankenstein - Chapter 8
Goddamn Vic, get over yourself!
Justine has her trial, and (surprise surprise) it doesn’t go as Liz and Victor thought it would. Justine is pretty much convicted on the spot by her judges, as there is no evidence to contradict her alibi. She calls on friends to testify to her character, but they all refuse to be of any help. Which… wow, that's cold, people.
Once again, Vic’s family shows themselves to be a bastion of doe-eyed cherubs when Elizabeth begins to defend the person who her family is kind of the plaintiff against; because she’s so distraught at how unfair it is that Justine’s friends abandoned her like that. I have to say that if Elizabeth isn’t actually one of those porcelain angels I’m shocked.
Later, Vic and Elizabeth visit Justine in her cell (or wherever they held the condemned back then) and Vic is just insufferable. The entirety of the narration is Vic just remarking on how much the anguish that Elizabeth and a person who is LITERALLY CONDEMNED TO DIE pales in comparison of him totes knowing for absolute suresies that Justine wasn’t the murderer, but he can’t tell anyone that it was really his creation. Like… Vic, you don’t even know if it was your creation. Hell, your entire idea is actually entirely self-serving! You think that your creation was so awesome that it could make it 300 miles, find out who your family was, kill your brother, and then plant evidence to throw the investigators off the case? Jeez dude, it’s impressive that it can even walk at all. All in all, while I kind of understand the dilemma that Vic is in somewhat, his attitude really is just making the entire thing about his own pain in the situation with pretty much no empathy for the person who is literally condemned to die or the person who is basically having all of her rosy-eyed ideas of the world destroyed entirely. I mean, it’s not like any of this is out of character for Victor either. He’s just very self-absorbed. He’s not quite Humbert Humbert yet, but I’d put him at about Hamlet levels.
Justine has her trial, and (surprise surprise) it doesn’t go as Liz and Victor thought it would. Justine is pretty much convicted on the spot by her judges, as there is no evidence to contradict her alibi. She calls on friends to testify to her character, but they all refuse to be of any help. Which… wow, that's cold, people.
Once again, Vic’s family shows themselves to be a bastion of doe-eyed cherubs when Elizabeth begins to defend the person who her family is kind of the plaintiff against; because she’s so distraught at how unfair it is that Justine’s friends abandoned her like that. I have to say that if Elizabeth isn’t actually one of those porcelain angels I’m shocked.
Later, Vic and Elizabeth visit Justine in her cell (or wherever they held the condemned back then) and Vic is just insufferable. The entirety of the narration is Vic just remarking on how much the anguish that Elizabeth and a person who is LITERALLY CONDEMNED TO DIE pales in comparison of him totes knowing for absolute suresies that Justine wasn’t the murderer, but he can’t tell anyone that it was really his creation. Like… Vic, you don’t even know if it was your creation. Hell, your entire idea is actually entirely self-serving! You think that your creation was so awesome that it could make it 300 miles, find out who your family was, kill your brother, and then plant evidence to throw the investigators off the case? Jeez dude, it’s impressive that it can even walk at all. All in all, while I kind of understand the dilemma that Vic is in somewhat, his attitude really is just making the entire thing about his own pain in the situation with pretty much no empathy for the person who is literally condemned to die or the person who is basically having all of her rosy-eyed ideas of the world destroyed entirely. I mean, it’s not like any of this is out of character for Victor either. He’s just very self-absorbed. He’s not quite Humbert Humbert yet, but I’d put him at about Hamlet levels.
Saturday, May 28, 2016
Frankenstein - Chapter 7
TW for discussion of murder
Okay so we get some big news in this chapter
Vic’s youngest brother was murdered!
In a letter Vic receives from his father (whose name is Alphonse, it turns out!), he learns that while out on the town one day, Vic’s two younger brothers wandered off, and while Ernest returned in the afternoon, William never did. After papa Frank goes off and searches for him, he finds William’s body splayed out and apparently strangled to death.
Elizabeth is pretty wracked with guilt over this, considering that William was carrying around a picture of his mother that day which Elizabeth had given him, and when they found the body the picture had gone missing. This makes Liz think that the murderer must’ve wanted it. (I think it was in some kind of locket).
Upon receiving this news, Vic becomes distraught and sets to travel to Geneva right away. For a moment it seemed like Clerval would be coming with, which, while it would continue his characterization of being literally the too-perfect friend, would also have been sort of hilarious with its continuation of the idea that he’ll just kind of throw away everything for Vic at a moment’s notice. But no, Vic makes this journey alone.
On the road to Geneva, Vic has several really great melodramatic moments. Several times in particular he screams at nature. “Dear mountains! my own beautiful lake! how do you welcome your wanderer? Your summits are clear; the sky and lake are blue and placid. Is this to prognosticate peace, or to mock at my unhappiness?” and later he shouts that at an absent William that a storm is his funeral dirge. It reminds me a lot of this list I found online a while back called “how to tell if you’re in a Dostoevsky novel” where one of the entries is “At least once each day you stop in a stairwell to clutch the banister and yell out ‘My God, how loathsome it all is!’”
While at an inn one night in the mountains, Vic thinks he sees his creation in the shadows. The figure quickly disappears but Vic is convinced not only that it was the skaab that he saw, but that his creation is in fact the real murderer of his brother… like, okay? Vic just kinda ignores any and all logistics of this and is like “Yeah, my monster traveled 700 km over mountains, made it to my hometown, murdered my brother and took a picture of my mother away, then traipsed back to around Mont Blanc so that I could see it in the shadows… sounds about right.”
It’s not just that Vic thinks this to himself either. When he gets home he starts telling everyone that he knows who the real murderer is. When his family tells him that Justine has been arrested for it and is being tried that day, he’s distressed that there’s such an apparent miscarriage of justice. “no your honor, my monster from Ingolstadt killed my brother!” Vic is convinced that, because the courts are just, and because Justine is totes innocent, that she’ll get off and then they can set about doing some monster hunting. Of course, I will say that it’s kinda suspicious that some other member of the household staff just happened to find the photo in Justine’s room. Currently I’m suspicious of Justine and this other staff member, but we’ll see where this goes. I don’t think this book will linger here long, as I don’t believe it’s a murder mystery novel.
Okay so we get some big news in this chapter
Vic’s youngest brother was murdered!
In a letter Vic receives from his father (whose name is Alphonse, it turns out!), he learns that while out on the town one day, Vic’s two younger brothers wandered off, and while Ernest returned in the afternoon, William never did. After papa Frank goes off and searches for him, he finds William’s body splayed out and apparently strangled to death.
Elizabeth is pretty wracked with guilt over this, considering that William was carrying around a picture of his mother that day which Elizabeth had given him, and when they found the body the picture had gone missing. This makes Liz think that the murderer must’ve wanted it. (I think it was in some kind of locket).
Upon receiving this news, Vic becomes distraught and sets to travel to Geneva right away. For a moment it seemed like Clerval would be coming with, which, while it would continue his characterization of being literally the too-perfect friend, would also have been sort of hilarious with its continuation of the idea that he’ll just kind of throw away everything for Vic at a moment’s notice. But no, Vic makes this journey alone.
On the road to Geneva, Vic has several really great melodramatic moments. Several times in particular he screams at nature. “Dear mountains! my own beautiful lake! how do you welcome your wanderer? Your summits are clear; the sky and lake are blue and placid. Is this to prognosticate peace, or to mock at my unhappiness?” and later he shouts that at an absent William that a storm is his funeral dirge. It reminds me a lot of this list I found online a while back called “how to tell if you’re in a Dostoevsky novel” where one of the entries is “At least once each day you stop in a stairwell to clutch the banister and yell out ‘My God, how loathsome it all is!’”
While at an inn one night in the mountains, Vic thinks he sees his creation in the shadows. The figure quickly disappears but Vic is convinced not only that it was the skaab that he saw, but that his creation is in fact the real murderer of his brother… like, okay? Vic just kinda ignores any and all logistics of this and is like “Yeah, my monster traveled 700 km over mountains, made it to my hometown, murdered my brother and took a picture of my mother away, then traipsed back to around Mont Blanc so that I could see it in the shadows… sounds about right.”
It’s not just that Vic thinks this to himself either. When he gets home he starts telling everyone that he knows who the real murderer is. When his family tells him that Justine has been arrested for it and is being tried that day, he’s distressed that there’s such an apparent miscarriage of justice. “no your honor, my monster from Ingolstadt killed my brother!” Vic is convinced that, because the courts are just, and because Justine is totes innocent, that she’ll get off and then they can set about doing some monster hunting. Of course, I will say that it’s kinda suspicious that some other member of the household staff just happened to find the photo in Justine’s room. Currently I’m suspicious of Justine and this other staff member, but we’ll see where this goes. I don’t think this book will linger here long, as I don’t believe it’s a murder mystery novel.
Frankenstein - Chapter 6
Dang, Vic’s good at remembering what letters say.
Elizabeth writes to Victor and… I’ve gotta confess, the letter was kind of boring to me. Elizabeth basically writes that not much has changed back home, except that one of Victor’s little brothers, Ernest, wants to pursue a job with the Swiss military; and one of their servants, Justine, has returned to their house after some time away at her home visiting her mother.
After the letter is finished, Vic decides he’ll (finally) write back. He then starts showing Clerval around Ingolstadt, but hates any mention of his old studies in natural philosophy. I’m honestly not sure why Vic “had to” go visit Waldman and Krempe. He does though, and Waldman and Krempe both are their usual selves: complimentary of Vic and pleasant/irritating respectfully.
After this, Vic spends some time studying literature with Clerval, trying to get out of the funk caused by this whole reanimating the dead business. In particular, the two are interested in literature from Persian and Arabic literature. It’s very steeped in orientalism, but hey, at least Shelley seems rather fond of the aesthetic she ascribes to that literature (which, I know, is part of the point of orientalism). Throughout all of this, Clerval still remains too good for everyone around him. He’s constantly trying to make Vic feel better, to tell him stories and jokes and go on hikes. The two of them return one day from some sojourn and Vic is finally really happy again.
Which, I think, is surprising given that there’s still a giant skaab on the loose (I’m going to use the term that Magic: the Gathering uses for a stitched together, animated corpse-beast in addition to “the creature” or “the monster” from now on, just for specificity sake).
Elizabeth writes to Victor and… I’ve gotta confess, the letter was kind of boring to me. Elizabeth basically writes that not much has changed back home, except that one of Victor’s little brothers, Ernest, wants to pursue a job with the Swiss military; and one of their servants, Justine, has returned to their house after some time away at her home visiting her mother.
After the letter is finished, Vic decides he’ll (finally) write back. He then starts showing Clerval around Ingolstadt, but hates any mention of his old studies in natural philosophy. I’m honestly not sure why Vic “had to” go visit Waldman and Krempe. He does though, and Waldman and Krempe both are their usual selves: complimentary of Vic and pleasant/irritating respectfully.
After this, Vic spends some time studying literature with Clerval, trying to get out of the funk caused by this whole reanimating the dead business. In particular, the two are interested in literature from Persian and Arabic literature. It’s very steeped in orientalism, but hey, at least Shelley seems rather fond of the aesthetic she ascribes to that literature (which, I know, is part of the point of orientalism). Throughout all of this, Clerval still remains too good for everyone around him. He’s constantly trying to make Vic feel better, to tell him stories and jokes and go on hikes. The two of them return one day from some sojourn and Vic is finally really happy again.
Which, I think, is surprising given that there’s still a giant skaab on the loose (I’m going to use the term that Magic: the Gathering uses for a stitched together, animated corpse-beast in addition to “the creature” or “the monster” from now on, just for specificity sake).
Frankenstein - Chapter 5
TW for brief mention of oedipal horror dream.
Well alright then
So Vic’s gone and done it.. He brought his monster to life. It’s actually surprisingly unceremonious. He just kinda says, in as laconic a manner as I think we’ll get out of Vic, that one night he just up and animated this patchwork of dead bodies.
This said, I think Vic’s behavior here is actually really bizarre. So let me see if I can run myself through this.
1)Vic is displeased with the fact that he couldn’t stitch together body parts well and his monster doesn’t look like Adonis
2)Vic awakens the monster. Rather than being happy about literally defying all the laws of nature, he’s pissed off that the monster looks ugly
3)Rather than deal with the thing he’s just made, even if it is in a negative fashion, his inclination is to just call it a night, just kinda… leaving the monster there, I guess?
During the night, Vic has a disturbing dream in which he kisses Elizabeth, who then turns into his mother’s corpse. It’s almost like Vic’s got issues surrounding the thought of other people dying.
He wakes up and finds his creation at the foot of his bed. Freaking out, Vic runs out of his house and into the courtyard, where he waits all night. That morning, he walks into town and runs into Henry Clerval of all people! The two agree to go catch up, but Vic’s really on edge. At first, he’s afraid of going back to his house and facing his creation. Then when he arrives and finds that Adam is nowhere to be found, he becomes jittery thinking that he’s going to pop out at any moment. Again, I think this actually shows that Victor’s become very selfish in this. He sees that his creature isn’t around and his first thought isn’t “OH MY GOD THAT THING COULD BE OUT AMONG PEOPLE!” instead it’s “that thing must be lurking around here somewhere!”
Amidst this rambling talk, Vic faints and finds himself in bed with Clerval tending to him. Apparently Vic spends the next several MONTHS in bed with Clerval helping him out. Jeez, Clerval’s kinda... more than just friendly to Vic, no? I mean, I know that my read on this is influenced by my more modern readers lens (I’ve learned that homosocial relationships were considered much more acceptable back then) but nursing a guy to health for MONTHS is really quite much. I also wonder if Captain Walton is realizing that hanging around this dude may be toxic at this point… Like, Vic seems like he’s the sort that charges himself into the ground and then just hopes others will help him back up, but he doesn’t really seem like he’d offer the same support to them.
Clerval is really kind of a saint, it feels like. After all of this care, Vic asks him if he can do anything to repay him. Clerval just asks Vic to write to his family. Like… wow Vic must feel like an ass now.
Well alright then
So Vic’s gone and done it.. He brought his monster to life. It’s actually surprisingly unceremonious. He just kinda says, in as laconic a manner as I think we’ll get out of Vic, that one night he just up and animated this patchwork of dead bodies.
This said, I think Vic’s behavior here is actually really bizarre. So let me see if I can run myself through this.
1)Vic is displeased with the fact that he couldn’t stitch together body parts well and his monster doesn’t look like Adonis
2)Vic awakens the monster. Rather than being happy about literally defying all the laws of nature, he’s pissed off that the monster looks ugly
3)Rather than deal with the thing he’s just made, even if it is in a negative fashion, his inclination is to just call it a night, just kinda… leaving the monster there, I guess?
During the night, Vic has a disturbing dream in which he kisses Elizabeth, who then turns into his mother’s corpse. It’s almost like Vic’s got issues surrounding the thought of other people dying.
He wakes up and finds his creation at the foot of his bed. Freaking out, Vic runs out of his house and into the courtyard, where he waits all night. That morning, he walks into town and runs into Henry Clerval of all people! The two agree to go catch up, but Vic’s really on edge. At first, he’s afraid of going back to his house and facing his creation. Then when he arrives and finds that Adam is nowhere to be found, he becomes jittery thinking that he’s going to pop out at any moment. Again, I think this actually shows that Victor’s become very selfish in this. He sees that his creature isn’t around and his first thought isn’t “OH MY GOD THAT THING COULD BE OUT AMONG PEOPLE!” instead it’s “that thing must be lurking around here somewhere!”
Amidst this rambling talk, Vic faints and finds himself in bed with Clerval tending to him. Apparently Vic spends the next several MONTHS in bed with Clerval helping him out. Jeez, Clerval’s kinda... more than just friendly to Vic, no? I mean, I know that my read on this is influenced by my more modern readers lens (I’ve learned that homosocial relationships were considered much more acceptable back then) but nursing a guy to health for MONTHS is really quite much. I also wonder if Captain Walton is realizing that hanging around this dude may be toxic at this point… Like, Vic seems like he’s the sort that charges himself into the ground and then just hopes others will help him back up, but he doesn’t really seem like he’d offer the same support to them.
Clerval is really kind of a saint, it feels like. After all of this care, Vic asks him if he can do anything to repay him. Clerval just asks Vic to write to his family. Like… wow Vic must feel like an ass now.
Frankenstein - Chapter 4
And here’s where Vic’s starting to lose me.
I’m actually surprised that we’re getting into the “horror” stuff this quickly. Victor basically decides that it’s about time for him to drop out of college after two years, thinking he’s learned everything he can from the institution. Okay, this right here is problem number one. Now, the problem here isn’t Victor dropping out of the university. I’m one of those people who, aside from the unfortunate financial environment in which universities have been placed all but necessitating bachelor’s degrees (and accompanying debt), thinks that college is necessary. (<-that sentence is a mouthful). I know plenty of people who get along perfectly well without college. My brother is perfectly content doing work as a carpenter. I think there’s definitely something to be said for gaining knowledge outside of academia. No, the problem here isn’t Victor dropping out, it’s that he’s dropping out because he holds a lot of contempt for the people around him. While M. Krempe wasn’t exactly friendly, Victor seems to regard him as entirely unfit to be in an institution at all.
I mean, I’ve been frustrated at times with what I see as the niche focus of certain academic fields. However, it’s important to remember, I think, that academics are more than the papers they write. Victor starts to see those around him as being lesser than him in terms of ambition, and begins to pursue his interests less out of a fondness for knowledge so that others might benefit, and more out of a personal wish for fame and power to come from his experiments. It’s then that he comes upon the question of “what causes life” and decides that he’s going to figure this out by examining the dead. (ASOIAF spoilers up through book five: V nyjnlf gubhtug gung gur pbzcnevfbaf orgjrra Dlohea naq Senaxrafgrva jrer znvayl qhr gb gur rkcrevzragf jvgu Tertbe. Ubjrire, abj V'z frrvat gung Dlohea ernyyl qbrf frrz gb whfg or Ivpgbe Senaxrafgrva chg vagb gur jbeyq bs Jrfgrebf. Tenagrq, Ivp unfa'g fgnegrq gbeghevat crbcyr lrg.)
Victor learns how to animate dead bodies, at least physically, using electricity I’m going to assume, given the mention of galvanism a few chapters back, and because the pop culture image of the lightning storm is so ingrained. He then decides he’s going to go about making a creation. I mean, dude, you could’ve done any of this experiment with single-celled organisms, or even animals, and gotten essentially the same results. He decides that he’s going to create a fully-formed person out of body parts from dead people. I like that the reason the monster is going to be eight-feet tall is only just because Vic noticed that the pieces were too small to work with easily at a more standard size.
Vic also notes that during this time his father tried contacting him and Vic repeatedly shunned any contact from him. Aww, poor papa Frank. Though I will say the standard he sets for his son is pretty passive aggressive, “You must pardon me if I regard any interruption in your correspondence as a proof that your other duties are equally neglected”.
Also, I’m just realizing now that Victor is doing this at the age of nineteen. Someone really needs to put this kid in an ethics class. Like, Vic what’s your plan here? Even if you do create a functional person are you just going to go parent it? Will it have the same rights as you? There’s a lot of thought surrounding this, even in your time (read some Spinoza). I’m wondering if we’ll meet our creation soon, and if so, how much more there is in the book. I always kind of figured that the events after the monster is born are kind of in rapid succession.
I’m actually surprised that we’re getting into the “horror” stuff this quickly. Victor basically decides that it’s about time for him to drop out of college after two years, thinking he’s learned everything he can from the institution. Okay, this right here is problem number one. Now, the problem here isn’t Victor dropping out of the university. I’m one of those people who, aside from the unfortunate financial environment in which universities have been placed all but necessitating bachelor’s degrees (and accompanying debt), thinks that college is necessary. (<-that sentence is a mouthful). I know plenty of people who get along perfectly well without college. My brother is perfectly content doing work as a carpenter. I think there’s definitely something to be said for gaining knowledge outside of academia. No, the problem here isn’t Victor dropping out, it’s that he’s dropping out because he holds a lot of contempt for the people around him. While M. Krempe wasn’t exactly friendly, Victor seems to regard him as entirely unfit to be in an institution at all.
I mean, I’ve been frustrated at times with what I see as the niche focus of certain academic fields. However, it’s important to remember, I think, that academics are more than the papers they write. Victor starts to see those around him as being lesser than him in terms of ambition, and begins to pursue his interests less out of a fondness for knowledge so that others might benefit, and more out of a personal wish for fame and power to come from his experiments. It’s then that he comes upon the question of “what causes life” and decides that he’s going to figure this out by examining the dead. (ASOIAF spoilers up through book five: V nyjnlf gubhtug gung gur pbzcnevfbaf orgjrra Dlohea naq Senaxrafgrva jrer znvayl qhr gb gur rkcrevzragf jvgu Tertbe. Ubjrire, abj V'z frrvat gung Dlohea ernyyl qbrf frrz gb whfg or Ivpgbe Senaxrafgrva chg vagb gur jbeyq bs Jrfgrebf. Tenagrq, Ivp unfa'g fgnegrq gbeghevat crbcyr lrg.)
Victor learns how to animate dead bodies, at least physically, using electricity I’m going to assume, given the mention of galvanism a few chapters back, and because the pop culture image of the lightning storm is so ingrained. He then decides he’s going to go about making a creation. I mean, dude, you could’ve done any of this experiment with single-celled organisms, or even animals, and gotten essentially the same results. He decides that he’s going to create a fully-formed person out of body parts from dead people. I like that the reason the monster is going to be eight-feet tall is only just because Vic noticed that the pieces were too small to work with easily at a more standard size.
Vic also notes that during this time his father tried contacting him and Vic repeatedly shunned any contact from him. Aww, poor papa Frank. Though I will say the standard he sets for his son is pretty passive aggressive, “You must pardon me if I regard any interruption in your correspondence as a proof that your other duties are equally neglected”.
Also, I’m just realizing now that Victor is doing this at the age of nineteen. Someone really needs to put this kid in an ethics class. Like, Vic what’s your plan here? Even if you do create a functional person are you just going to go parent it? Will it have the same rights as you? There’s a lot of thought surrounding this, even in your time (read some Spinoza). I’m wondering if we’ll meet our creation soon, and if so, how much more there is in the book. I always kind of figured that the events after the monster is born are kind of in rapid succession.
Sunday, May 22, 2016
Frankenstein - Chapter 3
Well Vic’s life became awful pretty quickly. As he turns
seventeen, Elizabeth comes down with a case of scarlet fever and, ignoring the
advice of the doctors, Caroline tends to her daughter which causes her to get
sick. Elizabeth gets better but Caroline passes away from her illness.
Elizabeth in particular is apparently pretty shaken up over this. Which I mean,
I totally understand! Even if I knew that it was Caroline’s decision to be
around me when I was sick, I’d still feel all sorts of guilty if she got sick
as a result of my sickness. Victor tries to console Elizabeth, but she’s trying
to “be strong” and hide her grief (though I will say, we don’t really know much
about Elizabeth other than what Victor’s projecting onto her).
Victor departs for university, saying goodbye to his family
and his best friend Cherval, who had appeared last chapter but I didn’t mention
because I can never be sure in these older books which characters will come
back and be important and which ones act more as window dressing for other
characters. So, because it seems we may see more of him—Cherval is Vic and
Elizabeth’s friend who, growing up, was fascinated with knights, chivalry, and
adventure. He comes from a merchant family and while he seems like he may be
interested in going to university (again, could be Vic’s projection) his father
sees the life of an academic as one of idleness that isn’t worth living. So
Cherval, Elizabeth, and Vic’s father (still unnamed) bid him farewell.
Vic arrives at Ingolstoldt and immediately meets M. Krempe
who…. Wow I didn’t think this book would speak to me on so many levels. So
let’s talk about mentorship. I think toxic mentorship is probably one of those
unspoken topics in academia that deserves a lot more attention than it gets. Here
in the US, there are certainly more pressing issues attached to the academy
that may warrant more immediate attention, especially relating to the political
sphere (here in Illinois, particularly, we’ve been faced with financial
concerns beyond the national as our state governor is…not helping, let’s say);
but, I think that as far as promoting the spirit of the academy, and of
knowledge promotion in general, we need to have a bit of a look at how we
approach alternative knowledge, and specifically that sort of new fervor
brought in by upcoming students.
I know this is getting a bit side-tracked from the book but
I feel it’s appropriate given that I know where this story’s going, and
Shelley’s taking the time to give us all of this background. I’ve been in toxic
mentorships like the one Vic runs into with M. Krempe here. Ones where a mentor
tells you that whatever you know is basically worthless to what you’ll be
pursuing. When Krempe tells Vic that everything he’s ever learned is basically
garbage, I had some serious rememberances of the times when I tell people one
of my biggest influences in research is Carl Jung. Now, if I were studying
research psychology, I would understand the objection probably (though I’d
still maybe wonder about the usefulness of the rejection), but even in a more
qualitative field like communication studies, I’m told by certain mentors that
Jung is essentially worthless, and that, by extension, everything that could be
gleaned from him is worthless.
I’m getting way too off track, so I’m going to return to the
chapter. I really could go on about this all day. My point is that I’m in major
disagreement with M. Krempe here about outright rejecting a student’s knowledge
coming in, and that this stuff still happens in academic settings.
I’m lucky that my own advisor is more akin to M. Waldman,
who Vic attends a lecture from. Waldman, while still practicing the more
“modern” sciences, holds a respect for the alchemists and occultists who Vic
read, saying that even if they were wrong, they laid the groundwork for later
researchers, and should not be thought of as a waste. Waldman encourages Victor
to go into chemistry, though I love the way he frames it. Saying that while
chemistry is currently the most useful of the sciences, Vic would do best to
learn from a number of different fields. I wholeheartedly agree with Waldman’s
suggestion; and I realize some of this may just be because it affirms my own
academic tendencies. I may be a communication studies student, but I also try
to read from political science, artists, philosophers, mathematicians,
psychologists, physicists and others. It’s all worthwhile to me, as long as the
aim remains toward an advancement of knowledge, the method—qualitative or
quantitative—doesn’t seem to particularly be of much import to me, as long as
it’s rigorous.
[so I realize looking back over this review that it’s pretty
me-centric rather than focusing on the book. I may go into these sorts of
tangents if I feel my interests or areas are touched upon. I hope that it
doesn’t alienate too many of you fine readers. I realize that there may be a
lot of different opinions about the academy, and some of you may disagree with
my assessments, or my interpretation of Vic, and I’m willing to continue having
that discussion, certainly. However, I hope that whatever may come of it that
the ideas presented therein will be respectful.]
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