I’m surprised by the degree to which at least some (but let us hope Norton has chosen representative samples) contemporary critics missed so much of Frankenstein. All admire the descriptions of scenery, of course. Of course. But they are significantly more disturbed by the concept of the monster than I would have guessed, and often blind to any kind of moral. John Croker, for example, wrote in the Quarterly Review in January 1818:
But when we have thus admitted that Frankenstein has passages which appal the mind and make the flesh creep, we have given it all the praise (if praise it can be called) which we dare to bestow. Our taste and our judgment alike revolt at this kind of writing, and the greater the ability with which it may be executed the worse it is—it inculcates no lesson of conduct, manners, or morality; it cannot mend, and will not even amuse its readers, unless their taste have been deplorably vitiated—it fatigues the feelings without interesting the understanding; it gratuitously harasses the heart, and wantonly adds to the store, already too great, of painful sensations. The author has powers, both of conception and language, which employed in a happier direction might, perhaps, (we speak dubiously,) give him a name among those whose writings amuse or amend their fellow-creatures; but we take the liberty of assuring him, and hope that he may be in a temper to listen to us, that the style which he has adopted in the present publication merely tends to defeat his own purpose, if he really had any other object in view than that of leaving the wearied reader, after a struggle between laughter and loathing, in doubt whether the head or the heart of the author be the most diseased.
If I hadn’t just read Croker’s long exposition of the entire plot of the novel, I’d be wondering if we had read the same book. Particularly his statement that “the author, notwithstanding the rationality of his preface, often leaves us in doubt whether he is not as mad as his hero.” Really? An anonymous critic in Edinburgh Magazine is similarly scolding a couple months later:
It is one of those works, however, which, when we have read, we do not well see why it should have been written;—for a jeu d’esprit it is somewhat too long, grave, and laborious,—and some of our highest and most reverential feelings receive a shock from the conception on which it turns, so as to produce a painful and bewildered state of mind while we peruse it. We are accustomed, happily, to look upon the creation of a living and intelligent being as a work that is fitted only to inspire a religious emotion, and there is an impropriety, to say no worse, in placing it in any other light. It might, indeed, be the author’s view to shew that the powers of man have been wisely limited, and that misery would follow their extension,—but still the expression “Creator,” applied to a mere human being, gives us the same sort of shock with the phrase, “the Man Almighty,” and others of the same kind, in Mr Southey’s “Curse of Kehama.”
I honestly never would have guessed that the “incongruity…with our established and most sacred notions” would have caused such a problem for contemporary readers. The guy…created…a monster…. And it did not turn out well.
In any event, I much prefer the opinions of another anonymous reader, this time a fan, taking a second look at Frankenstein after being sorely disappointed by Valperga, in Knight’s Quarterly in 1824. Even he finds it a little messy—fair enough, I think.
Frankenstein is, I think, the best instance of natural passions applied to supernatural events that I ever met with. Grant that it is possible for one man to create another, and the rest is perfectly natural and in course. I do not allude to the incidents, for they are thrown together with a haste and carelessness so apparent as to be almost confessed; but the sentiments—both of thought and passion—are given with a truth which is equal to their extraordinary vigour.
I believe this is why, as I noted in my comment on the earlier post, the unsatisfying plot points didn’t ruin my suspension of disbelief. Clearly on the plot we have to be willing to go farther than normal, considering it involves animating a monster and all, but I agree with my anonymous friend, the sentiments are right. (Except the wedding night thing. That is still sort of impossibly stupid.)
My friend really likes the monster, too, which seems extremely unusual among his contemporaries.
For my own part, I confess that my interest in the book is entirely on the side of the monster. His eloquence and persuasion, of which Frankenstein complains, are so because they are truth. The justice is indisputably on his side, and his sufferings are, to me, touching to the last degree. Are there any sufferings, indeed, so severe as those which arise from the sensation of dereliction, or, (as in this case) of isolation? Even the slightest tinge of those feelings, arising as they often do from trivial circumstances, as from passing a solitary evening in a lone and distant situation—even these, are bitter to a severe degree. What it must be, then,—what is it to feel oneself alone in the world!
Of course, we are all alone in the world. But I digress! My friend continues to make a statement that I find somewhat theologically interesting: “Frankenstein ought to have reflected on the means of giving happiness to the being of his creation, before he did create him. Instead of that, he heaps on him all sorts of abuse and contumely for his ugliness, which was directly his work, and for his crimes to which his neglect gave rise.” I believe my friend may have been out of touch with his day. He doesn’t even mention the beautiful scenery!
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