In the edition I read an Afterword by literary critic Harold Bloom who states the book "affords a unique introduction to the archetypal world of the Romantics" and it's amazing how many of the movement's hallmarks I found. The book famously was the result of a rainy day challenge that included the poets Lord Byron and the author's husband, Shelley, it mentions Coleridge and quotes Wordsworth and includes encomiums to nature.
Framed as a letter by a ship's captain to his sister about his guest, this is mostly the first person narration of Victor Frankenstein about how his scientific ambitions led to the creation of his monster and his ruin. I find Victor Frankenstein a rather despicable character. He abandons his creation at it's "birth" simply because it's ugly. He keeps evading responsibility, even allowing an innocent women to be executed rather than try to own up to what he had done, and even at the end calls himself "guiltless" and not "blamable."
The surprise for someone whose impression of the story comes from popular culture is the monster himself. This isn't some shambling animal, but an articulate creature who formed his view of life from Werther, Plutarch's Lives and especially Paradise Lost. He's capable of kindness and craves love--despite his acts, I have much more sympathy for this unnamed, lonely creature than I have for Frankenstein. It seems the sin of the scientist in this tale, isn't creation, but abandoning it.
I don't feel Shelley achieved her purpose "to make the reader dread to look around, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart" and the flowery, melodramatic style sometimes made me roll my eyes, but this novel that can claim to be one of the first science fiction stories is a thought-provoking, disturbing tale worth a read.
