Play Book Tag discussion

There is a lot of debate over whether this is a feminist novel or not. Or at least an awful lot of essays. I personally do not think it is a feminist novel but given the author and the impact this story has had, and the fact that there is a debate over whether it is feminist, I'm considering it appropriate for the tag.

There is no surprise or mystery to the story itself: Dr. Victor Frankenstein, who has a bit of an obsessive and uncontrolled mind, sets out to build a man from spare body parts and bring him to life using alchemy, natural science and maybe a touch of electricity. When he succeeds, he unleashes a 'monster' on the world. Or does he? It's a dramatic story, often slipping into melodrama, but one that also poses many questions that are not necessarily answered:
-who really is the 'monster'
-what makes one a criminal or a monster.
-judgment by appearance vs. soul/heart/mind
-responsibility of the scientist for what creates or causes

I really enjoyed reading this again. Yes, it was a re-read for me but I truly did not remember much from that read 40 years ago - more a general idea of how the book differs from all the adaptions. The original novel written in 1818 should be required reading somewhere during one's education. It reads surprisingly modern in language and concepts.

There are some problems with the book for the modern reader - the structure is clunky, the characters swing between extreme emotional highs and lows, the women are all saintly and beautiful, Victor becomes ill whenever he might have to take action or take responsibility. Oh, and you do have to suspend disbelief a lot. Most of that are hallmarks of the Romantic Era style of writing, but also of the works no doubt the author had read up to that time, such as gothic novels, classics like Dante, Plutarch and the Greek myths (the subtitle of the original text is 'the Modern Prometheus') and even Goethe, especially The Sorrows of Young Werther (all referenced in some way in the novel).

But those do not detract from the timelessness of the themes or that this is just a really good horror SciFi story that just happens to have been written in 1818. Now to read some of the essays that have been written over the years -- is it a feminist novel? is it a gothic novel? What happened to Ernest?
But first, I must read the essay about how a 17 year old came to write a horror story that started a entire genre called Science Fiction -- it's a soap opera melodrama if ever there was one.

When my F2F book club discussed this a few years back we had a pretty spirited discussion on "how society creates monsters."

I absolutely love this book and have read and listened to it several times.