The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein: A Novel by Peter Ackroyd

The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein: A Novel



The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein: A Novel



The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein: A Novel Peter Ackroyd ebook
Details info: EPUB, PDF, MOBI, Retail, 368 pages, English
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The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein by Peter Ackroyd is a retelling of the gothic classic Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. As with all retellings, one approaches the new version with trepidation. Is there a need to retell a story that has already been told so well? Will this version offer anything new or interesting? What, if anything will be lost in translation? When I began the novel, I stepped back a bit from my own expectations and tried to allow Ackroyd to give me the pleasure of revisiting a story I found compelling and provocative. I quickly realized that story is told in first person by Victor Frankenstein I was put off. After all, for all intents and purposes, Shelley's version is told in the first person. Is there a need to tell the same story in the same point-of-view? My resistance grew, mostly because what details were added are lu1rid or meant to be salacious (after all, Shelley could not dare write in detail about erections and penises, could she?). Sadly, they are also predictable. Characters enter the stage with the inevitability of their future clearly evident. But of course one would expect a story that is retold to be somewhat predictable. And the fact is, for those readers who are disinclined to read classic literature because it is tedious or tiresome or the tone too archaic, Ackroyd's choice to tell this story again serves a purpose. He departs enough from the classic by inviting Mary Shelley herself into the cast of characters, along with Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron. The flavor of London is very well written. One cannot argue that Ackroyd knows his history and contextualizes the story both in content and voice. His ability to weave details leaves few, if any, stones unturned. And although the conclusion is different from the original novel's, it is not as surprising as it should have been. (How surprising would it have been had the author chosen to carry the story forth to the same ending, one that in Shelley's version occurs off the stage of the page? Perhaps bringing something new to an expected ending is too much to ask but if the ending must be changed can it not be changed in such a way as to surprise the reader?) What this retelling lacks is the spiritual and philosophical implications of Shelley's original vision. Given the evolution of society, the threat of science over religion is perhaps no longer an issue but there is still so much room for debate on the ethical implications of where science crosses lines of morality in the face of necessity. At what point does the need for knowledge become more necessary than the need for morality? And in a world where we can create virtual selves by simply logging into a website, what are the implications of revivifying something that is dead? In the end, Ackroyd presents a novel that waters down the original making it perhaps more palatable for the masses but offering little in the way of real meaning. A good summer beach book for those who don't want their summer reading light. Or perhaps the type of book one would read to fill a rainy afternoon in autumn. But for my tastes, I'll stick with the original which is, to this day, a more provocative story than many being published today.

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