Frankenstein

Retired English Professor Dr. Mason Harris drops by the podcast to discuss one of his favourite books Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. This book combines elements of Gothic, Horror and Romantic literature. Dr. Harris delves in to Shelley's scandalous background and draws parallels between the Romantics and 1960s radicalism.

Books and Resources discussed:
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
The Villa by Rachel Hawkins

Listen to my episode on the Villa here: The Age of Vice and The Villa, Season 3, Episode 15. 

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Transcript

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Hello, welcome back to the Red Fern book review. I am your host, Amy Mair. And today I am joined by retired English professor, Dr. Mason Harris. And today we're going to discuss, in my opinion, one of the best classics of all time, Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley. And this novel is a page turner. And I think it's very progressive. And it was written in 1818. And a lot of the themes remain relevant more than 200 years later. And this came about because I was reading a book, I'll just pick it up, that I reviewed last time called the villa by Rachel Hawkins, which is a popular book. And there's sort of a little Frankenstein through way in that novel. And it got me thinking. So with that, I want to say, Hello, Mason, thank you for joining. Hello, I'm glad to be here. Mason, I wanted to start out by asking you a little bit about your career. Because it's very interesting. And just out of personal curiosity, you were one of the first professors at Simon Fraser, second year at Simon Fraser University, and for those of you who are not from the Greater Vancouver area, it's a very good school. It's on the outskirts of Vancouver. And it was formed in the late 60s and Canada's liberal, Vancouver's liberal. And then there's Simon Fraser. And so I was just wondering, could you just explain why you decided to come to Vancouver and teach there, I was offered a job there. Of course, that was when I was just getting out of graduate school. Yeah. But it had a very good reputation as being a new Liberal University, where faculty could teach things you're interested in right away, instead of having all the interesting courses done by established faculty, and then you're sort of teach freshman English, and that's about it. And it was a university to encourage friendly relations between students and faculty. It was the first time students said call me by my first name, I called you. And it had very well, what I didn't realize, of course, was that it had a big department called PSA, political science, sociology, and anthropology. And that was supposed to be the center of the Faculty of Arts. And we could all relate our courses to that. And that was going to be chaired by a scholar of John Baltimore, who was British, well known British Mark scholar of Marx. I don't know whether he called the Marxist but he, he was the head of that department. And I felt I could link my courses up with that look very an interesting possibility. Well, the Board of Governors was very conservative. I think they're mainly local businessman. And they did not like the PSA department. And Botamo soon was forced to resign or he suddenly had to resign, I wish he hadn't. And then they started. They decided they didn't like the young faculty who were then took over the department who Baltimore hired. And they put the department and frustation and started non renewing people because they decided they were Marxists. And this, then the fact most of the faculty in the PSA department went on strike. And that was a big issue. What year was that? That Well, I got here and 66. And it happened right after that freedom. 66 and 70. All this stuff was going on. Okay. So it was late 60s? Yeah. Revolution. Wow. Yeah. And it was, I was an English department. So I wasn't on strike. Or I remember I've tried to respect the picket line. And I, I think I taught my first course in science fiction then. So I was teaching a Frankenstein at a church basement off campus. really radical. Yeah. Yeah, that was a day. Right? My neighbor said, How could you teach in a place where I was going on? And I said, it was great, because the students are so interested, right, then I've never had students. So the majority of whom were so interested in the course, right, because they're interested in what was going on around them and all the really important issues, right. And we went right into they're interested in teaching Victorian novels, which have a lot of social problems. Right, and they're interested in I'm interested in history of action, what do you do and so on? And it was an exciting period to be there. That's, that's, that is. That's a great story. Yeah, I love that. Okay, well, let's let's talk about, let's talk about this book, because I think it's pretty cool. And you know, to start off, everyone knows Frankenstein, or they think they do. They think they do. They know the name. And they picture a giant green monster with lead and feed and scars on his forehead and bolts coming out the side of his head. But the original book is a lot different than most people's understanding. So could you explain a little bit more about that? Yes, I've been asking myself, I've become fascinated by this book. And I keep asking myself, What is it primarily about and I keep changing my ideas about? I've read it four times since I thought, since last summer, when I decided I was going to teach it. Yeah. And each time I came out with a slightly different interpretation. In fact, I'd give a lecture that I'd sell the next week, I'd say, Well, you know, I'm not so sure that no, but I think maybe this is possible. Because highly symbolic story can be interpreted many different ways. But I think what it's about is, it's the main theme is creating a human being. Okay, that's the big theme of the film, the film has to be different from the book, Mary Shelley gets away with stuff that no film you couldn't get away with on the screen, it's too improbable. And that's the that's the seems like the major theme. But actually, it's about what happens between the scientist who creates the creat alpha and the creature, I think it's always on the monster, you're not always a monster only sometimes. It's about the relationship between the person who creates the creature and the creature himself. And the creature is, of course, instantly repudiated by its creator, that just can't stand him causing a monster and the enemy immediately. And then the creature gets this lovely thing in the middle of where the preacher tells about his own life, and listens, I think at all, and he, he gets to live next to it with I don't know what a family called the delay sees. Right? He hopes to become human. He learns all the things about being human, including speaking and reading everything, by by spying on them on the wall is unbelievable that I believe it because I want to because Mary tells it was such enthusiasm. And, and, but then he's rejected by them, and a terrible confrontation. And then he started besides all humanity is is anime. But so to back up just a bit for those who this Frankenstein is the name of the creator, the Creator. And he's, his name is Victor Frankenstein. And he goes off to university and he creates this creature. Yeah. And who's extremely ugly, and he ended up and it's a big isn't it actually hideous? Did he mean for him? He didn't. I read that he tried. He tried to make. He tried. He said he was in a rush. He thought his creatures, he thought of his features as beautiful. But he's in it, he is creates a frenzy. And he didn't want to do it quickly. So we decided to make it eight to make it high. Because it's easier to work on something like bigger. Oh, that's why that's all kinds of things because he wants to do it more quickly. And he never stops to think what he's gonna look alike. And you know, it's funny, I was just yesterday reading a book, totally unrelated. And in it, there was just a line because Frankenstein has mentioned everywhere and it said, yelling like a Frankenstein. And actually, that's not it should be yelling like Frankenstein's creature, everybody, but even I make that mistake sometimes. Because you just you just said not the name of the creature. That's not the name of the name of the scientist who bedded it. Okay, so let's talk about Mary Shelley herself because that's that's very important to understand where she comes from, and she wrote this book, believe it or not as a teenage girl and can you explain a little bit about her background in 19 when she was she started when she was 18. And finishing when she was just wondering if I could make out that she was nine today was written by a 19 year old mostly. So tell us a little bit about her life. Now she is quite an interesting life. Her mother was Mary Wilson craft, who is known as probably the first modern feminist right indicate ation of the rights of women and was involved with the French Revolution and it was a well known radical. And her father was William Godwin, who was a very rigorous anarchist philosopher wanted to abolish government, everything, because people could become perfectly rational, those that are well treated. And at the beginning of the French revolution that was a very popular book or a radical book, everybody was upset by it, and they got married. And unfortunately, Mary never knew her mother because the mother died as a result of giving her giving birth to her, okay, and so, but she's venerated her mother's writings, and she read everything her mother wrote, and she would go out and sit on her mother's grave for the churchyard to read these books alone. She would get away from her family she wasn't getting on very well with and Percy Shelley knew she was doing that. So they were, I think Mary was wooed the grave of her mother. Craft the great feminist, okay. And yeah, but she was her family her she, she had a real problem in her family and that William Godwin married when she was about four ex wife was kind of low and vulgar and brought her children and preferred her children to marry. And without realizing that she'd be acting pretty well the role of the wicked godmother in Cinderella, and made Mary feel unwanted and garden was kind of a cold person who undertook to educate Mary. And she read all his stuff to she was very impressed by his work. But he she said he never made her feel valued as a person. Okay, 100 remote. And she was quite unhappy in this family. And I think that may be one reason why she was so ready to run off with Shelly when she was just 16 Turning 17 They couldn't marry, because he had a wife already that he was separated from. Right. And so she was in the position of living with God, she wasn't married, she wasn't on the birth control, she was going to have a baby one baby after another plot and from what was probably a very scholarly, serious childhood, all of a sudden, she was plunged into the adult world, and a very dangerous position in it too. And I think Frankenstein came out of that somehow. So there's a summer which is referred to in this book, The Villa, can you tell us about the summer and Lake Geneva and the ghost story, surely spent a good deal of time in continental Europe, okay, where they could associate with expatriate English people who probably got reasons for being expatriated. And therefore, we're going to consider them immoral, right? Much happier there. And they rented a villa that got into the shores of the white, that's next to Geneva. Right. And then Byron also had a big villa there. Okay. And Byron and Shelley got to be really good friends. And so they're all over environs all the time, it was turned out to be summer of terrible weather. And so there, they'd be thunderstorms. And they'd meet in the evening and the villa that Byron had believe it was a buyer and murder them this one would be blowing in the light flashing outside. And they started reading ghost stories, transit Bureau and Ghost Stories translated into French. Right. And after they got enough of this, Byron said, Let Us All right, the ghost story. So now, Shelley created Mary as an intellectually, he was very good at being an intellectual Alter Ego, okay. He had a notion of domesticity, but anyway, they, she felt she had to live up to her parents and do something remarkable. Okay. And so every evening they would ask her, have you thought that the ghosts are? And she said no. And she was feeling terribly embarrassed by this, she had to prove herself that he's a great writer that Chelsea thought she ought to be with Seth parentage. And then one morning she woke up it was a dream or one of those waking reveries where she saw the inventor with his Unhallowed art set created this hideous human being. And she he turned on the current and with a spark of life was given and the creature opened his eyes. That moment, the inventor knew how OXA how ugly it was, that he had gone against God's handiwork or something that he runs away. So I want to ask before we go further, can you kind of compare this cast of characters to anyone in modern day where they like, they were quite scandalous. So what would that be like? Would that be like The Rolling Stones in the 60s? Yes, it would be or would it be like political radicals who would There is a political right all that. But I'm fascinated by the Romantic movement because it was a period when people thought the world was going to be made a new revolution was going to change everything, okay? And there was great hope in the French Revolution. And then the French Revolution turned into a terror, right? That is the party in power started exit, guillotine, everybody in the opposition in the National Assembly, and mobs were killing people in Paris because they just thought they might be aristocratic family from a lamppost, or they break into a jail and just kill everybody. There is a group of people who are going to be put on trial for Subversion that they kill them anyway. For they went on trial. And this gave the relevant revolution a really bad name, and people get this illusion. So the question is, what do you give up revolution? Or what, what Wordsworth Coleridge chose was it through poetry, you could change people's sensibility, you wouldn't have to do it by politics. Shelley, like the late 60s, exact sounds like when you were, well, it wasn't gonna be made new. And then everybody got disillusioned. And that's it. So the Romantic movement was in the shadow of the enthusiasm and the failure of the French Revolution. Okay, and she was very late in the Romantic movement. I think she was probably disillusioned with some romantic attitudes, but she still believed in it. So this book has an eye you sent me some wonderful notes and I can you explain how it touches on a lot of different types of literature, whether the romantic novel The Gothic novel, horror novel, and, and you're starting to touch on the things that were going on that time in? Like, how did this and how did it? How was it a reaction to the time and also how was it groundbreaking reaction at the time and also he was a reaction to her life with Shelley and a lot of them and her father, right? Some people think Celli is the villain of his story, I think I've come to think it's probably more of her father that the rigorous and or rational anarchist, but many of the two of them whatever she was living with equal very exciting, but she was having children and trying to keep them alive, and face all the problems of domestic life. And here are these guys who are so idealistic and otherworldly. And I think that that may be part of it, that, that the, what Frankenstein does is he goes out, and when he's at college, he just disappears. And what we're all works all the time on creating a human being for two years communicates with nobody leaves his family in Geneva, have a right through them. And then he brings this hideous burst into being doing that. And it's like a project that goes a great project that's going to abolish death and create a new species, it's gone completely wrong. Right? And he can't face the consequences. Right? He can't face his own right, what his own radical acceptance resulted in, right. And I think that's something about the mood of that time he's taught, and also, romanticism and revolution being such a masculine preoccupation. That's something that came out of the 60s. Like, it was all the good guys were the great radicals and the women were supposed to be wearing a mimeograph machine, and doing the ad and changing the diapers and doing the housework and all that stuff. And the men were the great radicals in the 60s. And that I think is how modern feminism got started. So this is considered one of the first feminist novels, but it's narrated by three different men or eight different men, none of whom you can totally trust his narrators. And Mary's Point of View, isn't there. And why do you think that is? Well, and that's also because isn't like a got a gothic novel. There's an omniscient narrator, Victorian novel, Victorian, Victorian London 18th century too. But this doesn't have that sort of moral narrator who would moralize about everything. demoralize about the characters. This is narrated by three people who are very much implicated in the action. Okay, very far design for themselves. And another thing so this book is actually called the full title is Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus. So can you explain and tell people again about the Greek theory that's got a lot to do with the way that novel set up. So who is who is Prometheus? He brought Prometheus? Well, first of all, Shelley was married who I think were great admirers of the classics. Yes, actually the ancient Athenian drummer, and he wrote a book. Well, Prometheus is a character in a play by Escalus. Call Prometheus Bound for me Prometheus, there was a war between the titans of the gods, right? And Zeus was leading the gods and he won. And Prometheus was a titan who had sided with Zeus, right later on, fell out of Zeus decided to punish him. Because Prometheus had, there was a measurable species called human beings, some say Prometheus created them, and Zeus didn't like them and wanted to introduce a new species. So he didn't want anyone. Well, the human beings are so primitive, I hadn't even developed use of fire. And zoos didn't want anyone to joke about fire because he wanted to get rid of them or create a new species. Prometheus felt sorry for humans, he may have created them, and he stole fire from Mount Olympus and took it down to humans. And Zeus was very angry about that. Right. So he turned on Prometheus, is also the fact that Zeus as far as the myth, Zeus was Prometheus knew he could, he could foresee the future. And he knew that Zeus was going to marry somebody, he was going to have a son, and the son was going to overthrow it. And Zeus wanders know all about this, he thought it was for me, he's his duty to tell him, he wouldn't. And so he, he has Prometheus changed to the highest peak in the class, it has mountains. And every day an eagle comes in tears out his liver and eats it that it goes back at night, and it bears it out the next day. And until Prometheus comes around, and tells Zeus who not to marry, Zeus is going to keep this up. He hates Prometheus, but Prometheus as a great rebel and hates him. I just hate each other. And that's how the plate starts. What but it's Prometheus being tortured, and refusing to get in. And I think what Mary Shelley, ah, Shelley wrote a play. Ah, this was eventually reconciled, but the two plays in which Zeus and Prometheus are going to be reconciled to the loss, right? Oh, Shelley wrote a play where Prometheus where Prometheus takes back his Percy Shala. Yeah, forgive Zeus. And then Zeus collapses completely as tiring, because because after tyranny has been abolished, so in Frankenstein, Frankenstein, the two characters hate each other, like Zeus and Prometheus, and it's the creature who has the power over Frankenstein. He's more of the position of Zeus, but they are not reconciled. And I think Mary was with Mary and Shelly both felt was a great obstacle, the success of a revolution is a couple of fallacies. One is you think, you think everybody's bad, all of society's bad, or a particular group where the society is bad. Or you think that there's one person who's the root of all evil. And if you really believe that, then when you get power, you will listen to tyranny, too, because you think you're conquering evil. You have to have an attitude of forgiveness in order to bring about adjust government. And I think that was the point Shelley was making and writing is great versus drama. And I think it was that Mary was influenced by that. Now, the drama. Shelley's play, Prometheus unbound came out after the novel, couldn't have influenced it directly, but I'm sure they discuss this because they discussed everything like that. And the idea was, I think that it's partly about what made the French Revolution fail. That these two characters hate. Yes, yes. The creature is hard done by by his Creator, He has a right to be angry, but he shouldn't hate him. And why not? Because you have to understand. You can't derive your personality through hatred was easy to define yourself by hitting somebody else. So hating something else, I'm against something or other. That's your main identity. And I think that's the wrong attitude to have a successful revolution. You can't identify somebody as the root of all evil unless the monster identifies. Excuse me creature, I think impolite. creature that's creator abandoned him as evil as having done all this to him. And he also declares war on the human race. Right? They all hate him. And that means he feels free to kill people in the spirit of revenge. There there is a here I am. I pulled a quote that I liked in it. And the creature says, If I can inspire love, I will inspire fear. Yes. Yes. That's part of that big debate that goes on. One thing that distinguishes this completely from God, I know the Gothic novel I know is that we got that you might say the creature is the Gothic villain, and that's the role was given to him. But right in the middle of the novel, he meets with his creator Frankenstein. And they have a very bitter debate. But right in the middle of that debate, the monster gives a long confessional narration of his childhood, you might say, because he was abandoned, right? And he wakes up in the forest. And he doesn't know anything. And he learns, gradually learns things. And then he gets to spy on a family called the delay sees and learns from them, how to be human, and the value of human relationships and families and he learns a language and he learns to read and everything through just about two years of studying the family that doesn't know anything about him. I mean, that's highly improbable, but I believe it. I think Mary was talking about her own childhood and self education. And it's done in Central Europe. I believe the whole thing, even though I think it's wildly improbable, all this thing could have been done through an odd hole in a wall. The monsters preacher is living in the shed of the cottage. He's living in and watching him through chemo now. And yet they never know he's there. And he learns French that way, oh, everywhere he learns which language, French that way, he learns, he finds a friend of Paradise Lost. I find it hard to imagine Paradise Lost in French. But anyway, that's what he finds. And he decides that he's, he's, he says, I'm like Adam, but God loved Adam, and gave him all kinds of protection and education. And I'm all alone. He says, like more like Satan. i Okay, so I have a question about Victor Frankenstein. So I listened to this. I did read it in grade 10. And my doctor Salinger's English class, and I really enjoyed it, but I just listened to it on Audible. And I listened to it with Did you ever watch Downton Abbey? Yes, of course. Okay, so you're the so the guy who was the lead in the first season? Yeah, actors, Dan Stevens. He does a really great narration, which is, by the way free. I should have listened to that. But it's very good. But what this is my question, so you you see good and evil and both these main characters. I get it with the creature because he's been abandoned and everyone rejects them. But what I thought was interesting is the what I do know about Frankenstein, I always thought he was a narcissist and terrible person. But the way Dan narrates the character, you feel sympathy for this character. And so I want to know, do you feel sympathy for Frankenstein? Or do you think he's just a giant, high dude, definitely bad person. When he rejects the monster, creature, he cannot do this because of him. Here's, well, one thing from a feminist point of view. Here's a male trying to give birth to a whole race of creatures without a woman. Oh, and he's been he's been told from early in life that he is destined for Elizabeth. Right Lizabeth. She, first of all, in the original version, she's the first cousin. She gets into the family, she's adopted. And the mother likes it so much right away, she decides Frankenstein has to marry her when he grows up, right. And when the mother's dying much later, and they are sort of grown up, the mother puts their hands together and says you must marry and they agree. Now I wonder if a young man might not resent that. Right. At the same time kind of sealed in family. The father has renounced his position as a syndrich of Geneva because he wants to be a father, femicide of eventually ideal but it's cut off, right? And nobody can revolt because everything's so wonderful. And yet beyond Frankenstein has got to marry it got just got to marry the saintly Elizabeth. He might have resented that, and he's trying to bring into being a new race of creatures without the assistance of a female. Okay, he could have any opportunity. He wanted to be married Elizabeth, but he doesn't do that. He doesn't he doesn't even write to over two years. No, and they're supposed to be engaged. And then, but when he suddenly discovers the creatures terribly ugly, he just runs from him. He won't he won't acknowledge his parental responsibilities at all. And of course, what he has to do is both teach the creature and he also has to try to reconcile the creature with society that's going to be real. really hard. But that would be the responsibility of the parent. Right? You haven't formed child, right? Do you have a child who's seriously autistic? Well, that's, that's tough, but you're not trying to shine. So do you think dreams of being the Divine Father? So it's gonna create one of the great narcissists in nature? Yes, I would say he's, he's narcissistic, and his science is narcissistic, and very male. So is this when you haven't listened to it? But when Dan Stevens, I felt was portraying him as sympathetic Is this him is an unreliable narrator. But perhaps Yeah, he thinks that he thinks I say thinks he's thoughtful. I think he's, I can feel like I've done a Frankenstein because I recognize he would just unsettle the apparent. And his whole attitude is he thinks he's going to be a father of a species that will worship. And the species grown into being without a female participant in a way. Right. And he's not prepared to play the role of parent, psychologically, he just isn't. You run through his life. The form child comes out and they run disappears. Right. I mean, that's, that's not the right thing to do. But he, that's what he does. And he said, There's something in him that had see inadequacy of being a male, but maybe that's not the totally the fall of a male. Right? It's just it's just how it's what he does. Okay, another thing that really stood out for me in this book was the descriptions of nature. And you've got these lush descriptions of the countryside and rivers and streams, the Arctic, you're going there going to the Alps, and you kind of feel like you're there, it reads in part, like a travel log, it begins and ends with nature travelogues. So can you explain the role of nature in this romantic period? Yes, nature is a divine order. It's like a mystical world you can get involved with, and it'll solve all your problems. It's a substitute for religion, for the romantic, right, a secular kind of religion. And then to admire the great mountains. This is that's when you're most human and most elevated. And there's this crucial point that the creature after he, whoa, what he's trying to do, first of all, with the delay ceases, he wants to get the father of the there's a benevolent father, who's also blind. Right? And to him. This is the ideal father, the father that Frankenstein wasn't this father alone, the father can't see him. Right, right. And he's gonna work verbal persuasion on him. Right now, I'm all about his plight, because the Father and His Son, and the Father is going to explain to the rest of the family, and then maybe they'll accept the creature. Ugly is a yes, that's just hope. And he pins everything on that. And that's why after that point, he has a really nice personality. He has hope of becoming human and participating in the wonderful life that he sees with them. And unfortunately, Felix comes into the young man comes in too soon, she's under the father, thanks, some horrible ogres attacking the father and discharged attacking the creature. And then it turns out until the whole family, the women fight with terror when they see him and the whole family will never come back. And then the creature is terribly upset. He says, it goes into a rage against humanity sets the the cabinet and they've been living in on fire. And then he he goes, he says, the only identity I had, and I was the person who created even though I hate him, and I'm going to meet this person I hate. And so he's gonna go to Geneva, long Wyatt winter across frozen streams and all that. Finally, as a day of spring, he's going through the forest, and a beautiful day, and he feels nature is wonderful. He says, I dare to be happy. And I think at that point, he could have freed himself, right? He could have gone into nature and become a new person. That's what nature can do is renew your soul. But what happens is a young girl falls into a swift moving stream, a great danger zone life, he he gets her out. And then the father or father was 100 Thumbs up and truths, because the father thinks he's attacking the girl. And it's a really serious wound. And as he recovers from it, he comes to hate the human rights, all of them. He just says I'm going to declare war on the human race. And then when he gets to Geneva, the first kiddie runs into his course the unfortunate little Liam, but his plan is to kidnap the child. Make him grow up with him, so he'll learn to love him. Not just wants love, he wants love, but he thinks he can do it through force, which is a total contradiction, right? He doesn't understand children, his kids gonna be attached to his own family. And then William refuses, quite insultingly. And then it turns out his last name was Frankenstein before he knows that the monster has killed God, but so it's almost an accident. But then he says, I discovered I could create desolation. He rejoices in the fact that he's killed it. So that means when he meets Frankenstein, on the glacier, and they have their serious talk, he has already killed me. And that's that sort of prejudice Frankenstein against him. But Frankenstein finally decides he listens. And he's really impressed by the monster story of his assignments delays, the February's learning, trying to learn to be human. And the monster says, Okay, I've got a proposition make me a wife. So I can have a family of my own. Yeah, I can see my father, and Frankenstein, as well as this, knowing the trouble in this could happen, but I'm gonna do it, I owe it to him. Right, he decides to do it, right. And then the month, the creature is waiting around for Frankenstein to do it. And Frankenstein gets up into an island of the Hebrides. And he's made trying to create the woman I guess. And the creature is lurking about waiting for this to happen. And then Frankenstein decides he's not going to do with the creature appears and he tears the woman apart right in front of them. And why did you decide not to do that is do you think that is a real problem? He says, I found it all over. And they're going to propagate a race of Devils of the monster, excuse me, creature says, I'll go away to Patagonia someplace. And we'll never have contact with humans. And he swears this. And but the Frankenstein says to himself, I don't know whether he's going to do this. I don't know what she's going to do. She may hate him. Who knows what these people are going to do? Is this, this could be a menace to the human race. And it seems he decides these highly, highly idealistic reasons that he'll take the risk even for his own family, who the monster has threatened to kill. And refuse to do it is just about as this very quickly. Is this an allegory about scientific discovery? I don't know what to make of that. I, some critics accept this as a as his Ovilus moment. Others? I do not. I think it's peculiarly abstract. It's come through very quickly. He has considered all of this and his big confrontation, verbal confrontation with the creature on the glacier before. There's nothing that's changed. Creature hasn't killed anybody in the meantime. And he suddenly that not only decided not to do it, but dismembers that the bride in front of him, that's so cool. Yeah. And then the creature says, I will be whether you are part of our wedding night. And trying Stein thinks it's going to be a personal duel between him and the creature. And he is going to as I don't know, if I had six years in those days, is that a pistol in his pocket? Right, ready for the creature never occurs to him, but the creature is gonna kill Elizabeth. But of course, he's going to do it because it's rent. That's revenge. It's revenge. And the creature is clearly operating in terms of revenge. He thinks revenge is a kind of justice. How was this book received at the time, they liked it. People liked it. She She published it anonymously. And she dedicated it to her father. And there are some points in there where she may be satirizing your father's ideas. I think she might have gotten a kick out of the idea. He might have noticed that. But um, that it was very sound well, and you might have made a splash. Why do you think when I read it, I mean, I try to read a classic every year or two and I often will put it down because I'm like, Oh, this is boring. I'm not in school anymore. This is not This is trouble with classics like school. But this isn't like that. This this I actually I mean, I was meeting you. But I really found it a page turner. Why do you find it has a modern quality? Why do you think as a modern quality to it, I put it in I was really interested in running the ancient bear with this. And of course, I thought people would be interested in it. I became obsessed with it. Right? So I still am here. Why do you think it's has Why do you think An average person could pick it up and I find it. It's so wonderfully narrated by the characters. And it's interesting. It's very, as you pointed out, it's very interesting of this, which is not maybe they certainly drafted some very good feminist criticism. It's if told entirely by man. Yes. And one of them is the Gothic villain, the creature that was in the role of the Gothic villain, but is he really seen as a villain? I think I got to like him so much when he was educating himself with the devices that I saw why he turned to hate the human race. I saw what kind of fallacy that was. And it's a fallacy of adolescence. You know, you, you hate everybody, there's an adolescent or you want to overthrow the system, right? I grew up in a world of never trust anybody over 30. Now, I wouldn't agree with that today. That wouldn't be very good for you have to revise? Is there anything? What Where do you think this book falls down at all? I mean, when one thing that I read was that he doesn't really it is considered perhaps one of the first science fiction books but they don't really get into the mechanics of the how the creatures created. It does that matter? Or they're never be told. Because no one was ever do this again. Oh, Walden. The Explorer wants to know, and Frankenstein absolutely refuses to tell him die with me says so well. It's the same thing in Wells's time machine. It's time travel, he goes off to that goes off to look at the past and never comes back. If he did we know how to make a time machine. You have to get rid of him. If you weren't quite sure how to make a human being better to fudge it by having the guy die on you, after he refuses to tell. But he this is a dread dread secret verses never be told. I was just like, Ancient Alchemy. Ah, Frankenstein is that the child is very attracted to alchemy. Okay, there's a lot of names of alchemists thrown around here. I looked them all up. And now I can't remember which one is which group or whatever those people were. And I think he may have an his father says, oh, that's all trash. Right? So awesome. And this makes him more interested in Alchemist than ever. And then as a scientist, as this truly goes to, who points out, yes, he says these guys were wrong and their theories, but they were leading towards the discovery, chemistry. That's the progressive view of alchemy. I think he's animated by old fashioned alchemy, and trying to create human beings. And one thing God, one thought, right, the amazing paragraph at the end of his famous book, political justice, he says, eventually, when we really develop reason, and human beings have discovered how to become immortal, we can give up this sexual love nonsense. And he said, and he started talking about men being perfectly rational, as though somehow women were going to disappear. It's a shocking little paragraph. I think everybody laughs that right at the end of the book, and I think Mary's making fun of that paragraph. Okay. And when she has this guy glorying In a world he's going to create, which is just him a father, No, Mother, no mother necessary. Never again, after Marianne, Elizabeth, after all. Well, was that I just wanted to thank you so much. And thank you for spending time with me. And I think that I recommend everyone try this book out if you haven't read it, or if you think you know, and, yeah, I've come to think it's about two people who hate each other, that identify themselves, like hating each other. And that's not a great idea. So maybe in that we could get and surely relevant today. Yes, I'm bound to say that doesn't work. For me. It is after the fruit give us it was, and then the utopia will appear. So if we give this book to political leaders, maybe yeah. solve all problems? Don't don't go around at the opposition. Well, I think down in the states now they get to the point where the Republicans are saying the election was stolen, and there's not a court left country that will will agree with this. Right. And when you believe that and you're saying the opposition is just hateful, right? And you've got to see the opposition as her majesty's loyal opposition. Right, with a bit of respect with respect. Yeah, and understand they're gonna get elected eventually, and they won't be so different. We'll say Thank you so much Mason. That was a lot of fun. Thank you. This is terrific. Thanks so much to Dr. Mason Harris for coming on the podcast. That was a lot of fun. And I loved his comparison with what went on in the Romantic era. And Mary Shelley's influences, and the radicals, the 1960s, which he is one. And it reminds me a lot of the villa, which I reviewed last couple of weeks ago, where it's a really interesting concept where two women go on vacation, and they uncover a mystery involving some 1970s kind of wild radicals. And there's also a reference to Frankenstein to check that out. Anyway, I'm ending nearing the end of season three. And I just wanted to tell you about my last two episodes, I have an episode coming up on May 12, with Jeff and we're going to look at the very popular book, pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson. And a trippy ghost story about mushrooms. Not the psychedelic kind or might see it that way, but called Ghost music by on you. And then I'm going to wrap up at the very end of May with my friend Susan Matheson, who's going to give us a preview on what to read this summer. So and she'll be appearing on the podcast on May 26. And then I'm going to take a little break again over the summer, and we'll be back in the fall. So thanks so much for tuning in. I'll talk to you later.