Here’s a line from the first paragraph of this section of the #TraLaFrankenstein readalong, so that y’all can understand how I felt when I opened this book back up.
I had not sufficient light for my employment, and I remained idle, in a pause of consideration of whether I should leave my labours for the night, or hasten its conclusion by an unremitting attention to it.
See, this is how you know that I’m at the end of my rope with Dude Nonsense. I blame Jason Bateman and Jeffrey Tambor, but a lot of different people are at fault. It’s probably reasonable for Dr. Frankenstein to take a break in this manner at the end of the day, but all I could think about was how this damn mediocre asshole thinks he can just do whatever he wants all the livelong day and never face a DAMN CONSEQUENCE, and then I decided to give myself the evening off from Frankenstein and see if I would bring a more receptive mindset to it in the morning.
Y’all, I know that I have bitched and moaned about toxic masculinity and red pillers and stuff over the course of this readalong, but I have to say that it’s been really fun reading Frankenstein. It’s a weird little book, but good-weird, and I like it when Romantics take a break from swanning about looking at vistas and just write some really weird shit, and that’s what Frankenstein is. At the end, the monster just sort of slips off into the wilds of the Arctic, and for all we know lives forever up there.
There are also a lot of vistas.
Okay, so what happens at the end is that Frankenstein starts thinking about this project of making a lady monster, and he realizes it’s a non-starter. Fair play to him, he considers the possibility that the lady-monster won’t want to bang the existing monster (as that monster is a murdering jerk), but the thing that makes him decide to destroy his work is the fear that the two monsters will procreate. Frankenstein, you are a moron. Just don’t put a uterus in the lady monster and you would be all set. This is why we shouldn’t let men be scientists.
Well, the monster is angry about Frankenstein’s decision and he tells him, ominously, I WILL BE WITH YOU ON YOUR WEDDING NIGHT. Frankenstein, a noted imbecile, decides that he should therefore get married as soon as possible. You know what I would do if an invincible creature told me I WILL BE WITH YOU ON YOUR WEDDING NIGHT? I don’t know exactly, but for damn sure I wouldn’t run right out to get married in the exact location where the creature already knows to look for me.
(Oh, I forgot to say that Clerval dies. The creature kills him, and Victor is tried and acquitted for that murder. The whole experience ruins his health, and he tells the magistrate about the monster, and the magistrate believes him. Nothing about this experience makes him reconsider his behavior w/r/t the conviction and execution of Justine.)
Victor marries Elizabeth and then, although he knows that a confessed murderer is lurking nearby, he lets Elizabeth go back to her room by herself without any protection. My annotations contain lots of ideas from various critics about why Victor acts like such a dodo. The one I enjoy the most is that the creature doesn’t exist and Frankenstein has just been making shit up while doing murders himself all over Europe. I love that idea. It doesn’t really make sense with the text of the book, but I’d enjoy a fic where it was true. I hate Frankenstein. Luckily he hates himself too.
So, yeah, the creature kills Elizabeth, and then Papa Frankenstein is so sad that he dies too, and then Frankenstein himself resolves to chase the creature all over the world until he can get revenge on him. But quelle surprise, he’s too useless even to succeed at revenge, and he dies on Walton’s ship after gently rejecting Walton’s request that they become best friends.
The creature shows up at Frankenstein’s deathbed and talks for a while about how much he regrets his own choices. It’s — actually kind of good to hear this? Cause the creature has been a real asshole, and I’m glad to know that he’s looking back on things and realizing he could have behaved differently. But what really pleases me is that the creature actually plans to do something about it. Granted, his plan is Romantic Poet-brand stupid — he plans to go to the uttermost north of the world and set himself on fire — but at least it’s not like all of Frankenstein’s plans to date, which have been 90% “do nothing and hope the problem goes away” and 10% “do the bare minimum to address the problem while deeply hoping that it goes away on its own.”
And that’s it! That’s the book! We have now read Frankenstein.
Yay us!! If you haven’t yet entered our giveaway, it’s not too late to do that!