books

I’ve always found the concept of wabi-sabi quite fascinating and I’d love to find out a bit more. Are there any books that explore this concept? Something quite approachable would be good.

So, I just read Frankenstein for the first time. Very enjoyable. I have read a lot about the themes over the years, and of course one of the most common is that Frankenstein is actually the monster and that the “Monster” is innocent.

I’ll come back to that.

Despite reading about the book and hearing it discussed in popular culture, there were still a few surprises:

• Dr. Frankenstein is not a doctor at all. He is a brilliant, although somewhat miseducated young man, more akin to an overzealous grad student than anything else.
• The Monster is not made of corpses. Although one of the plot elements is the concealing of the exact nature of his construction, it is alluded to. Mr. Frankenstein consults bones from the mortuary, but it is not clear that he uses them in actually making the Creature. It is just as likely that he is using them to study their anatomy and recreate them from other materials. At one point he specuates that he could use this method to reanimate decaying flesh, but dismisses it out of hand. Lastly, the proportions and properties of the monster make it impossible that it was made of human bodies. Which leads me to:
• The monster is truly terrifying. The Creature possess superhuman speed, strength, agility, is both massive at 8 feet tall, and supernaturally stealthy. It can move at tremendous speed across any type of terrain, enter any closed room virtually at will, and go undetected to suddenly appear within feet of a victim. It is relentless and able to endure conditions that would kill an average person. It is also possess incredible intelligence and strategic capability.
• It is incredibly creepy. Despite the Creature’s superhuman intelligence and ability to understand and learn about human social mores, it desperately chooses to reveal itself in the most disturbing ways. Imagine a beggar coming to your home, saying he hopes to live with a family that he has been watching closely for a long time and profoundly loves but they do not know he exists. Then he suddenly reveals that it is you and your family he has been secretly watching for months. This is exactly how the monster chooses to reveal himself to the world, and is it any surprise that the family is disturbed to the point that they kick him out and move away?

Now, the young Mr. Frankenstein is not a complete innocent either. He does create a living, feeling, thinking being without considering the consequences. He does abandon the creature (or rather allows the creature to wander away and doesn’t go looking for it). He engages in unethical research, but he is also not ever given any training in ethics. He is a grad student who, in essence, stumbled on the secret to give life and decided to test it. How many young students right now are developing programs that they don’t fully understand in hopes of achieving AGI? Are they all monsters, too? Or are they young curious people who love science, have hopes for high achievement, and no proper ethical education?

It is relevant that Frankenstein is not a Doctor, in that he has not been thoughtfully in the field, seen the errors of others, experienced setbacks and implications of his work, or shared his work with others. He is just a little more than a kid in his parents basement hacking away on something in solitude (well, the attic of his boarding school, but you get the idea).

He should have shared what he was working on. He should have warned those he loved that they were in danger of this monster, he should have risked the disbelief that he feared in sharing the truth. Most of the people who are killed by the monster could have been saved, or at least warned of the danger if he was not so intent on keeping it a secret. Frankenstein is a complex hero.

And the Creature is a complex villain. He is abandoned in the world and mistreated by those who are afraid of his appearance. He is desperately lonely. So he decides to force his creator to make him a mate against his will. He does so through violent threats, proven by murders that the monster has already committed without hesitation.

He is what we would today call a violent incel. He thinks he is too ugly to be loved except by a monster like himself. He has no interest in whether such a creature would have any interest in him. Frankenstein almost caves, and in fact begins to make a bride for the creature, only to finally consider the moral implications of such an act. He destroys his work before the monster’s eyes.

Let’s talk about Justine. Following the (probably) first murder, of Frankenstein’s kid brother, the monster frames her for the act. Justine is basically an orphan that the Frankenstein family took in as something of a charge or perhaps maid. But the monster, crucially, doesn’t know this. He sees a random woman asleep in a barn and instantly thinks of making her his girlfriend (she had fallen asleep while looking for the missing boy). But then he decides that she would only reject him too, so he plants evidence of the murder on her because Justine is guilty of being a somewhat attractive young woman - who would surely reject him if given the chance. You see why I characterize him as a violent incel.

People sometimes point to the occasional gentle and even heroic nature of the creature as proof that Frankenstein made him into the monster he became. He helps the family he (innocently) stalks for months in numerous ways. He tries to save a little girl from drowning. He ultimately expresses remorse for his actions and claims he will go to the wilderness and kill himself. But in the meantime, he just straight up murders a lot of innocent people to “punish” Frankenstein. He is not a hero or even an antihero. He is just a complex villain.

Anyway, this is already longer than I really intended. I’m happy to hear the thoughts of others. Have you read the book? Do you agree or disagree?

Frankenstein by Mary Shelly on Project Gutenberg

I read the first 3 Dune books after seeing the movie and hearing about the challenges of getting that story on the screen. Love the first 2, the ending of the 3rd was ok.

I’m 3/4ths through the 4th and final Hyperion books. Absolutely incredible, I’m disappointed knowing I’ll be done with it soon. I highly recommend it if you’re at all curious. The author does an excellent job sneaking deep references into the colorful narrative; Keats and Ancient Greek mythology among them. The characters are vivid, varied, and somehow all relatable.

When I was younger I liked Vonnegut, specifically Galapagos, cats cradle, and slaughter house 5. I recently read Philip K Dicks “do androids… electric sheep” and wasn’t a fan. I loved the film blade runner, but the book kind of trudged on for me with, what I felt was, a let down of an ending. Asimov’s foundation was ok, but it lacked action and the characters seemed thin; I do like the concept a lot, it was just missing something for me.

So what’s next? I read a few classics in school and wasn’t terribly moved by most of them. I’ve considered giving Philip K Dick another chance, and possibly exploring the Dune books not authored by Herbert. I’m not a big fan of fantasy- at least in the horse riding, sword wielding, magic and sorcery vein.

Thanks for any suggestions

I went back recently and reread Arrows of the Queen from the Heralds of Valdemar series. I remember being absolutely in love with this series when I was a young teen. After rereading it, I was surprised to find the world building still held up. It’s a little silly to get sparkly eyed over magical justice horses but, hey, it’s still a fun fantasy.

The writing in general doesn’t hold up as well as I remember. Not that it’s bad–but events moved at a much faster clip than I had remembered them doing. I could have sworn there was a lot more time and attention paid to certain events that wound up taking about a chapter or so to resolve. There was also a lot more references to historical events than I remembered–in such a way that stuck out to me as odd, since this was the first book in publication order if I’m not mistaken. But they were very “Oh yeah remember when Herald So and So did Thing?” and it definitely feels like a mid-series book in that regard.

And Talia, though sweet, did have a bit of a “Everyone loves her and she’s too good, too pure for this sinful world” about her that got a little tiresome towards the end.

So–either what are some of your experiences rereading old YA classics. Or, alternatively, how did you feel about this series at whatever point in your reading lifetime?

Wondering if anyone else thought this book tried to push an anti environment agenda…it felt like it.

I like MC’s books but for a science ish based writer this book seems like an old man angry that his generation destroyed the planet and now needs to say its all a lie made up my eco terrorists.