Last week I finished reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which was first published in1918. I’m not going to do a full review of this book. What novel thing can I say about such a well established classic? Instead I will just make a couple of comments that will probably reveal more about me, than about this Romanticist novel.
The first thing I noticed was how much my “ideas” about Frankenstein was clouded by popular culture. Most people believe that the monster is named Frankenstein. Well I knew enough about the book before hand to know that that is not the case – it is actually the name of the scientist that created the monster: Victor Frankenstein. However, reading the book I kept waiting for those scenes from an old black and white movie with a man in a white overcoat asking his side-kick called Igor to pull the levers, which starts electric sparks to jump between gigantic capacitors and then another lever is pulled, and yet another; the inanimate body of the monster, constructed from various body parts, suddenly convulsing under a bolt of electricity. And then suddenly it opens its eyes and the mad scientist starts to laugh uncontrollably shouting: “It’s alive! It’s alive!”
Well . . . that scene is not in the book. Reading Frankenstein I came to the conclusion that almost all my ideas of the story are blighted by cinematic and other pop-culture depictions.
The second thing I noticed was how delectably rich I foundthe lexis in book. I just reveled in Shelley’s language. Did people in the 19th century really speak like that? If so, I think they were much more intellectual than most people are today. I am fully convinced that language ability (vocabulary) is an indicator of intelligence, for it is mostly words from which our thoughts are build up with. These days, few people speak with the precision and finesse as that of the characters in Shelley’s book. We use clumsily formed utterances, often cluttered with meaningless fillers such as “ya’ know” and “like ’n”. Most people make use of a limited number of adjectives and adverbs, leaving their speech dry and uninspiring.
This is all I have time for now. Let me conclude by saying Frankenstein is well worth reading, if for no other reason than to check your pop-culture conceptions of Frankenstein with the original.
For all things “Frankenstein”, visit the very interesting Frankensteinia-blog.
1 comment:
I read that book for a class called "Seminar in the Narrative". The background of the novel is interesting. Shelley had lost a baby and later dreamt that she had revived it near a fire. She also knew of experiments done on recently-hanged criminals that were jolted with electricity and then moved. There was also that year when there was no summer. A volcanic eruption was blamed for that. That must be why the novel has so much dreary weather described in it.
I do agree that educated people should speak like they are learned. My sister works as a nurse and had an elderly patient tell her that she needed to speak differently. She said "you are educated, you should speak like you are". My sister told me that the lady had a point.
Many years ago, higher education was scarce, so when people attained it they were proud of it. They wanted to show refinement in their speech. These days it is more attainable and is no longer reserved for the elite. I do think that is part of the reason why educated people talk like dimwits, but I also blame the ridiculous speech in brainless television shows like "Friends".
Post a Comment