Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
I’ve seen one or two versions of the movie but in reading Richard Holmes’ Age of Wonder I came across some passages/discussion about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. They whet my appetite to read the book - as books do refer us to other books - which can be part of the beauty of them~~ they introduce us to others. As is often the case when a book is made into a movie, some things are lost, some treasure, some depth, some great literal beauty and meaning, facts, twists and passages are excluded which would greatly enhance and enrich reflection/thought understanding and give justice to the book. And books so bring out the imagination in us in a way in which movies cannot. After I’ve read it, I will at some point watch Kenneth Branagh’s "Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
The way I look at it, given a voice…perhaps he is not all that different than we who are supposedly human…
“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 resemlance. Satan had his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him; but I am solitary and abhorred.’ - Frankenstein”
“You are in the wrong," replied the fiend; "and, instead of threatening, I am content to reason with you. I am malicious because I am miserable; am I not shunned and hated by all mankind? You, my creator, would tear me to pieces and triumph; remember that, and tell me why I should pity man more than he pities me? Would you not call it murder if you could Precipitate me into one of those ice-rifts, and destroy my frame, the work of your own hands. Shall I respect man, when he contemns me? Let him live with me in the interchange of kindness, and instead of injury, I would bestow every benefit upon him with tears of gratitude at his acceptance. But that cannot be; the human senses are insurmountable barriers to our union. Yet mine shall not be the submission of abject slavery. I will revenge my injuries: if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear; and chiefly towards you my arch-enemy, because my creator, do I swear inextinguishable hatred. Have a care: I will work at your destruction, nor finish until I desolate your heart , so that you curse the hour of your birth.”
If philosophy is only meant to accrue knowledge and to end there, where’s its practical application? It’s like a library full of books which no one ever enters to read. I also kind of intuited/sensed a strong connection between his stoicism and amor fati ~ though I think that stoicim can be/may be, a bit more laid back or involving less of a struggle than is amor fati.