Not an easy read, given the verbosity of 19th century language and ideas, so don’t try to rush this seemingly short book. The critical introduction (by Maurice Hindle) in this Penguin Classic is also hefty, but worth persevering with. The backdrop to the novel’s themes is wild and romantic nature as in the description of the trek to Chamonix’s Mer de Glace (still impressive today, if one can get past the panoply of ski and tourist facilities). These dramatic features form an apt setting for discoveries and life-explorings, all rendered in a language of passion and extremes. It’s both a “mad scientist” story (the inventor going too far; referencing “Prometheus” and “Paradise Lost”) and an origin story as of a being experiencing our world from first principles (the tabula rasa concept that occurs in Locke and Rousseau’s thinking), set out in a glorious telling by the monster, a methodical but alike emotional account. All this energised sentiment and excess of “feelings wrought” recalls Goethe’s “Young Werther”, itself almost a source text for the Romantic spirit, and used as such by the Monster here who educates himself from a foundling parcel of key books. “The scenery of nature.. he loved with ardour.. The sounding cataract haunted him like a passion …” (p151). Epithets of evil are rampant in the narrative (monstrous, malignant, treacherous, wretched, malicious, hateful, hellish, hideous, daemon… to mention just a sample), flung out on sight of the “Monster” even before any actual misdemeanours have been committed, but as often for me, it’s hard to make the “baddie’s” motives or character convincing. Future film-makers of course have filled this gap. ( )

'Hateful day when I received life!' I exclaimed in agony. 'Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust? God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very resemblance. Satan had his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him; but I am solitary and abhorred.'"

Nascido e criado na Suíça, Victor Frankenstein sempre foi ávido de conhecimento. Na universidade, embarca em uma complexa e profunda pesquisa sobre a definição da vida. Uma noite, como por milagre, chega a um processo que lhe permite fazer reviver a matéria morta. Trabalhando dia e noite, ele descobre como animar um corpo feito de pedaços de cadáveres humanos e consegue criar uma criatura sobre-humana.

Quando vê sua criatura, horrorizado com a figura monstruosa, grotesca, horrenda, Frankenstein foge, deixando sozinho o ser a quem dera vida. Começa então uma série de acontecimentos dramáticos, numa narrativa que leva às últimas consequências os sentimentos humanos de amor e ódio, desejo, carência, abandono, vingança.

O desfecho é comovente e nos faz refletir sobre a natureza humana, sua ambição desmedida, seu egoísmo. Publicado pela primeira vez em 1818, este é um belíssimo livro, tenso, rico, uma das obras mais admiradas da literatura mundial. ( )

Contrary to popular belief, Frankenstein is not a book about a savage monster created by a crazed scientist who escapes to wreak havoc on unsuspecting nobodies. If anybody is the monster here, it's Victor Frankenstein himself, who has been given the power of a god to create a life, but doesn't consider the psychological flaws in the experiment. I see Frankenstein as more of a social novel than a horror novel in this respect. Shelley wants for the reader to sympathize with the Creature, not to condemn him like the cottagers do, who do so just because he's different. Frankenstein depicts the anti-Eden of new birth, a lonely soul without a companion, which is why the Creature rebels. The Creature is but a child without maturity or experience, summoned into a world which despises him, so how can we expect him to behave any differently? ( )

Versione didattica con CD e note di vocabolario, grammatica e lettura. Quest'opera appartiene allo stage 4 (media difficoltà)