On Mary Shelley’s birth anniversary, check out these four titles that reimagine her most influential work, Frankenstein
Frankenstein’s monster in a cartoon adaptation. Pics courtesy/Youtube
Mary Shelley was 18 years old when she wrote her most celebrated classic Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus. The story was written in 1816 as part of a friendly competition between PB Shelley, Lord Byron, John William Polidori and her. It led to a major shift in the genre of Gothic fiction directing the focus to the extremities of human desire.
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Richard Rothwell’s portrait of Mary Shelley. PIC COURTESY/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Frankenstein has carved a niche for itself in pop culture. Apart from several film adaptations like the 1994 Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Tim Burton’s 1984 Frankenweenie and Charles Burton’s horror comedy Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, the doctor and his monster have made cameo appearances on TV as well. In The Addams Family, the character of Lurch resembles the monster. Sesame Street, Scooby Doo, The Simpsons and Power Rangers have had episodes inspired by the narrative.
On her birth anniversary today, we pick books that have reimagined the classic in interesting ways.
1 Frankenstein in Baghdad: Ahmed Saadawi’s Man Booker International Prize shortlisted title is a retelling of the narrative in the war-torn city of Baghdad. The period after the US invasion of Iraq forms the background for the book. Hadi collects what’s left behind by the victims from the streets, and one day finds the body of a man. Having found it in a wretched state with a disfigured nose, he brings it home to ‘complete it’ and give it a ‘proper burial’. To Hadi’s shock, the body takes on a life of its own; meanwhile, killings of the criminals are being reported in the city.
Boris Karloff as Frankenstein’s monster in a film adaptation
2 Poor Things: Alasdair Gray reimagines the classic through the story of Archibald McCandless, a Scottish public health officer, and Bella Baxter, the 25-year-old woman created by his colleague Dr Godwin Baxter. She is stitched together from the body of a pregnant young woman found unclaimed at the Clyde Basin, and possesses the brain of a child. The book begins in the 1970s, when a series of discarded letters surface in Glasgow, and moves on to tracing Bella’s journey of self-discovery, detached from her creator.
3 Spare and Found Parts: Sarah Maria Griffin’s YA novel is set in a futuristic world, where Nell Starling-Crane, a girl with a clockwork heart, sets out to create a companion for herself. The fictitious Black Water City in Ireland, where she lives, has seen a shattering machine-generated epidemic with survivors missing body parts. This has led to a ban on computers from the city. Does she find a way around it and build an android friend for herself? The book is inspired by Frankenstein. However, unlike Victor Frankenstein, Nell’s curiosity derives partly from her loneliness and partly from the pressure of her grandmother who wants her to leave a legacy behind.
4 Pride and Prometheus: This one is for Jane Austen and Mary Shelley fans. John Kessel’s book is a collision of the worlds of two writers from the Romantic period with contrasting sensibilities — Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Shelley’s Frankenstein. Mary Bennett, the middle Bennet sister, is the protagonist who meets the scientist Victor Frankenstein at a dance ball. He is in the midst of his experiments and later is threatened by his secretly created monster to fulfil his promise of creating a female companion for him. Kessel adds maturity to Mary Bennett’s now older and evolved version from Austen’s younger Mary who “read great books and [made] extracts.”
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