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In Search of Frankenstein
Dec. 18th, 2005 11:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
joysilenceLJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY vonjunzt)
I'm reading Radu Florescu's In Search of Frankenstein. It's badly in need of an editor. In fact, it reminds me of some of the better self-published books I've read. It's poorly organized and full of extraneous material. Nevertheless, there's some interesting material in there. The really new stuff -- the claim that Frankenstein was based on the alchemist Konrad Dippel who was born in Castle Frankenstein -- is very poorly supported. The life of Dippel doesn't really parallel Frankenstein's very much -- but it's an interesting possibility. I wish Florescu had written more about Dippel, perhaps looking deeper for parallels between the alchemist and Shelley's scientist. As it is Dippel gets only a chapter in the book. Florescu should probably pay attention to the fact that Frankenstein doesn't work in a castle. The introduction and annotations to the Penguin edition of Frankenstein are more worthwhile than this book, at least from the 160+ pages I've read so far. I was expecting better from the co-author of In Search of Dracula, but then I've never read that book and the folks I know who read it and liked it were all in high school at the time.
But at least I learned a few things. For example, although Florescu says that Louis Edouard Fournier's Funeral of Shelley, reproduced below, is as good as any, it's actually rather inaccurate. At it turns out, after being in the ocean for days, it was recovered by fishermen and then buried in the sand for days. Shelley's body was therefore badly decomposed when his friends tracked it down and dug it up. Byron wanted to keep the skull -- apparently he thought Shelley's was particularly nice -- but it got hit with a mattock when they were digging him out of his shallow grave in the sand and fell to pieces when the body was being pulled out. As his body burned, one of Shelley's friends stuck his arms into the fire and pulled out Shelley's heart when his chest fell open. After some prodding, he finally gave it to Shelley's widow.
Not quite the romantic image in the painting, which I've always liked.
vonjunzt)I'm reading Radu Florescu's In Search of Frankenstein. It's badly in need of an editor. In fact, it reminds me of some of the better self-published books I've read. It's poorly organized and full of extraneous material. Nevertheless, there's some interesting material in there. The really new stuff -- the claim that Frankenstein was based on the alchemist Konrad Dippel who was born in Castle Frankenstein -- is very poorly supported. The life of Dippel doesn't really parallel Frankenstein's very much -- but it's an interesting possibility. I wish Florescu had written more about Dippel, perhaps looking deeper for parallels between the alchemist and Shelley's scientist. As it is Dippel gets only a chapter in the book. Florescu should probably pay attention to the fact that Frankenstein doesn't work in a castle. The introduction and annotations to the Penguin edition of Frankenstein are more worthwhile than this book, at least from the 160+ pages I've read so far. I was expecting better from the co-author of In Search of Dracula, but then I've never read that book and the folks I know who read it and liked it were all in high school at the time.
But at least I learned a few things. For example, although Florescu says that Louis Edouard Fournier's Funeral of Shelley, reproduced below, is as good as any, it's actually rather inaccurate. At it turns out, after being in the ocean for days, it was recovered by fishermen and then buried in the sand for days. Shelley's body was therefore badly decomposed when his friends tracked it down and dug it up. Byron wanted to keep the skull -- apparently he thought Shelley's was particularly nice -- but it got hit with a mattock when they were digging him out of his shallow grave in the sand and fell to pieces when the body was being pulled out. As his body burned, one of Shelley's friends stuck his arms into the fire and pulled out Shelley's heart when his chest fell open. After some prodding, he finally gave it to Shelley's widow.
Not quite the romantic image in the painting, which I've always liked.
