Happy, Happy Birthday Brother
Frankenstein-On the 200th Anniversary Of The “Birth” of Mary
Shelley’s Avenging Angel “Frankenstein”-A Comment
A link to a 200th
anniversary discussion of Mary Shelley and her “baby” Frankenstein on NPR’s On Point.
http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2018/02/12/working-in-the-lab-late-one-night
By Lenny Lynch
We all know in the year 2018 that it is impossible to create
a human being, maybe any being, out of spare human parts, and few jolts of
electricity. Back in day 1818 when Mary Shelley (she of the thoroughbred
breeding via feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft and anarcho- philosopher William
Godwin and channeling Romantic era poet Percy Shelley and who hung around with
ill-fated heroic Lord Byron) wrote her iconic classis Frankenstein. I like the Modern Prometheus part of her title better
since science was pretty primitive on that count, not much better that the
former’s clay process, about the way our brother was put together in a slapdash
manner but provided an impetus to further discovery. Unlike today where through
genetic engineering we have better understanding of science and medicine
although at times we need to treat science like a thing from which we have to
run. (Example, a very current example, running the rack on discovering
everything there is to know about the atom and then have such a discovery threatening
a hostage world with nuclear weapons once the night-takers latched on to the
military possibilities. At that point running away like cowardly Victor
Frankenstein doesn’t mean a thing, not a thing.)
Still Mary Shelley was onto something, some very worthy
thoughts about human beings, about sentient and sapient beings, about where
women fit into the whole scheme of things if we can at the flip of a button
create life without human intervention which has already accrued to us today in
marginal cases and probably would have shocked her sensibilities. Better if
humankind can make itself out of odd spare parts, a little DNA that also puts a
big crimp in the various ideas about God and his or her tasks once he or she
becomes a sullen bystander to human endeavor. Not a bad thing not a bad thing
at all. But the most beautiful part of her story is the possibility, once again,
that we may get back to the Garden to retrofit that Paradise Lost that the blind revolutionary 17th poet
John Milton lost his eyesight over. Yeah, tell us that we might be able to get back
to the Garden. Nice choice Ms. Shelley.
We know, or at least I know, that Frankenstein aka Modern
Prometheus, has gotten a bad rap. Prometheus remember him from subtle Greek
mythology and how he was able to create his brethren out of clay. Nice trick.
Better, the brother did not leave humankind hanging by offering the gift of fire
to move human progress at a faster clip. To keep the race from cold and hunger.
Took a beating from psychopath Zeus for his lese majeste by having to roll that
rock for eternity. Mister Frankenstein really has been misunderstood especially
since the rise of the cinema starting from that first libelous presentation in
1931 which turned him from that misunderstood and challenged youth who if you
will remember actually learned English, despite being “born” out in the wilds
of 19th century Germany, so movie audiences could understand what he
was saying.
The bad ass in the whole caper is this dolt Victor Frankenstein,
the human so-called scientist who built a thing from which he had to run like
some silly schoolgirl. If the guy had the sense that God, yes God, gave geese he
would not have abandoned his brethren, his avenging angel. Wouldn’t have
started a string of murders for which he not the so-called “monster” was
morally responsible for. Instead the dink just let the bodies stack up like a
cord of wood as he let his “creation” get out of control.
On this site my fellow writer Danny Moriarty has recently
taken it upon himself to smash what he has called the unearned reputation of
one Lanny Lamont, aka Basil Rathbone, aka Sherlock Holmes the so-called deductive
logic detective who also let innocent bodies pile up before he got a bright
thought in his dope-addled head about how to stop the carnage. That Danny’s
take, Danny not his real name by the way but an alias he had been forced to use
to protect himself and his family who have been threatened by a bunch of hooligans
who are cultist devotees and aficionados of this Lanny Lamont known as the
Baker Street Irregulars.
I don’t know enough about the merits of Danny’s crusade to
decide whether he too is also an avenging angel, a blessed brethren in the fight
for human progress against the night-takers, against the “alternate fact” crowd.
But I do know that the idea behind what he is trying to do is solid. In his
case the bare knuckle blowing up of an undeserved legend. That is my plan this bicentennial
year of the existence our beautiful Mister Frankenstein, the Old Testament
avenging angel, to defend his honor against all the abuse he has taken for far
too long. That may be a tough task but so be it.
Mary Shelley started something for us to think about and now
we have to try to put the genie back in the bottle.
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