Book recommendation: Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
Frankenstein
A few personal reading notes
The Audible recording I picked up is based on the text from 1831, which is a revised version of the original text written by Shelley in 1818. Being familiarized only with the later text, I can't really comment on the differences between the two, but I enjoyed browsing through the detailed comparison notes posted here by Edward James.
The book tells the story of a man - Victor Frankenstein - whose ambition to accomplish great scientific feats leads him to create a monster that would haunt him for the rest of his days.
The first thing that came to mind upon finishing this audiobook was that it made a lot of sense to have listened to it during a break in my current reading spree of Greek-Roman classics. Indeed, one of the core elements of Frankenstein is hubris (the "overweening presumption that leads a person to disregard the divinely fixed limits on human action in an ordered cosmos", according to Encyclopaedia Britannica), which was often a pivotal element in the mythic tales from the past.
Frankenstein is also a tale of horror, not so much in a cinematic sense but rather in a psychological and philosophical sense. In it, we are confronted with some of the grimmest aspects of human nature, while being asked to reflect on themes such as action and responsibility, free choice and external constraints to human conduct, potential benefits and dangers of scientific innovation and the value of truth against appearances.
