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The Last Man: (New Edition) - Mary Shelley
The Last Man ends in 2100, "the last year of the world." A devastating plague has wiped out humanity, except for one man. This novel of horror, originally published in 1826, was rejected in its time and out of print from 1833 to 1963, when the first Bison Books edition appeared. Some critics now rate The Last Man more highly than Frankenstein, by the same author. This Bison Books edition offers a new introduction by Anne K. Mellor, who writes, "In our era of AIDS and biological warfare, Shelley's apocalyptic vision of an incurable plague that gradually destroys the entire human species resonates with mythic power."
476 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1826
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October 18, 2016
Revisiting this during a global pandemic seems rather unnerving because this is a book in which the entirety of humanity dies after succumbing to plague.
And the more I read it the more I take from it. This is my third time round. The first was for enjoyment and the second two were for research purposes. I'm currently writing a PhD chapter on this along with Frankenstein and Matilda.
What draws me to this literary era, beyond that of any other, are the depictions of nature. The natural world is depicted as sublime, though there is also a strong focus on man discovering his/her own nature and his/her place in the natural world. The Shelley(s) were concerned particularly with diet and the effects of it on man's character. They believed eating vegetables (opposed to animals) made us better on a spiritual and ethical level and that the world could be reformed as a result.
And I find this ideology truly fascinating.
_______________________________________
(Original Review)
Mary Shelley loved her husband; she adored his poetical voice and he admired her intellect: theirs was a marriage of minds. So it’s not overly surprising that in her later work she spent a good part of it paying homage to her late partner.
The novel begins with a wretched youth, Lionel, utterly distraught at the injustice that is his life. He is poor, uneducated and desperate. Lionel wants revenge on what he perceives as the cause of his problems; however, when the said problem appears his life is turned around. It is a man, a noble and a landowner. When Lionel sees the man his anger at the tyranny of the world is quenched in an instant, such is the power of this individual. He embodies nobility and goodness: he is the romantic hero. He teaches Lionel to read and how to understand poetry: he teaches him how to live and how to open up his heart. Lionel is transformed by this experience; he develops true moral awareness and imagination. Poetry rejuvenates his character; it teaches him natural Shelleyan values. This man is Mary Shelley’s ode to her husband; he is called Adrian, and he is Percy Shelley incarnate. He becomes the only hope for the future of mankind, his philosophy is it’s only balm:
”I read or listened to Adrian; and his discourse, whether it concerned his love or his theories for the improvement of man, alike entranced me. Sometimes my lawless mood would return, my love of peril, my resistance to authority; but this was in his absence; under the mild sway of his dear eyes, I was obedient and good as a boy of five years old, who does his mother's bidding.”
But, first, another must try his hand at saving the world form the oncoming apocalypse. Enter Lord George Byron in the form of Adrian’s friend Raymond. Domination, manipulation and power are what his personality evokes. Adrian becomes quickly ill after their encounter. Raymond strives to be good; he strives to do the right thing but passion, in the Byronic sense is far too strong. He is a lover and user. He is poison and tonic. He is quick to change his mind, and is prone to rash and erratic behaviour; thus, he quickly falls in love and runs away from his dream of ruling in harmony. The wind ever changes his mind and his sexual interest. With this man a relationship would only end one way. Lionel later becomes his friend and is trapped between the influences of each.
As the novel progresses and the apocalypse comes ever closer, the world becomes darker. Raymond’s (Byron’s) ideas prove ineffective and he exits centre stage. A plague wrecks the world, one caused by man’s unnatural state. The population of the world decreases to mere thousands and eventually hundreds. And who does humanity look to in its most dire hour of need? Who do they look to as the last hope of mankind? Adrian (Percy Shelley) of course, and he comes. He does his best to teach mankind how to be itself again; he tries to bring back the tatters of civilisation, thought the unnaturalness of man has seeped into the very fabric of his being; it is in his soul: it is in his heart. The pure words of the vegetarian were heeded too late.
“Adrian welcomed us on our arrival. He was all animation; you could no longer trace in his look of health, the suffering valetudinarian; from his smile and sprightly tones you could not guess that he was about to lead forth from their native country, the numbered remnant of the English nation, into the tenantless realms of the south, there to die, one by one, till the LAST MAN should remain in a voiceless, empty world.”
And here’s where Mary Shelley voice comes through. The Last Man may refer to our narrator Lionel. But I think the meaning goes much deeper than this. Granted, he is the final witness of humanity’s fate. But there is more to consider. When Mary wrote this novel all of the major Romantics were dead. The young Romantics, Shelley, Keats and Byron, had all died tragically young. Some of the old Romantics like Wordsworth and Coleridge were still kicking around, but their glory days had gone. Byron saw to that. The point is Mary is the last of the generation. Her peers were dead, her friends were dead, and her lover was dead. This is their eulogy; this is a writer lamenting the loss of the greats of her literary generation; this is a writer who was forced to carry on living after her soul mate had perished.
Mary Shelley is The Last Man.
___________________________________
You can connect with me on social media via My Linktree.
__________________________________
And the more I read it the more I take from it. This is my third time round. The first was for enjoyment and the second two were for research purposes. I'm currently writing a PhD chapter on this along with Frankenstein and Matilda.
What draws me to this literary era, beyond that of any other, are the depictions of nature. The natural world is depicted as sublime, though there is also a strong focus on man discovering his/her own nature and his/her place in the natural world. The Shelley(s) were concerned particularly with diet and the effects of it on man's character. They believed eating vegetables (opposed to animals) made us better on a spiritual and ethical level and that the world could be reformed as a result.
And I find this ideology truly fascinating.
_______________________________________
(Original Review)
Mary Shelley loved her husband; she adored his poetical voice and he admired her intellect: theirs was a marriage of minds. So it’s not overly surprising that in her later work she spent a good part of it paying homage to her late partner.
The novel begins with a wretched youth, Lionel, utterly distraught at the injustice that is his life. He is poor, uneducated and desperate. Lionel wants revenge on what he perceives as the cause of his problems; however, when the said problem appears his life is turned around. It is a man, a noble and a landowner. When Lionel sees the man his anger at the tyranny of the world is quenched in an instant, such is the power of this individual. He embodies nobility and goodness: he is the romantic hero. He teaches Lionel to read and how to understand poetry: he teaches him how to live and how to open up his heart. Lionel is transformed by this experience; he develops true moral awareness and imagination. Poetry rejuvenates his character; it teaches him natural Shelleyan values. This man is Mary Shelley’s ode to her husband; he is called Adrian, and he is Percy Shelley incarnate. He becomes the only hope for the future of mankind, his philosophy is it’s only balm:
”I read or listened to Adrian; and his discourse, whether it concerned his love or his theories for the improvement of man, alike entranced me. Sometimes my lawless mood would return, my love of peril, my resistance to authority; but this was in his absence; under the mild sway of his dear eyes, I was obedient and good as a boy of five years old, who does his mother's bidding.”
But, first, another must try his hand at saving the world form the oncoming apocalypse. Enter Lord George Byron in the form of Adrian’s friend Raymond. Domination, manipulation and power are what his personality evokes. Adrian becomes quickly ill after their encounter. Raymond strives to be good; he strives to do the right thing but passion, in the Byronic sense is far too strong. He is a lover and user. He is poison and tonic. He is quick to change his mind, and is prone to rash and erratic behaviour; thus, he quickly falls in love and runs away from his dream of ruling in harmony. The wind ever changes his mind and his sexual interest. With this man a relationship would only end one way. Lionel later becomes his friend and is trapped between the influences of each.
As the novel progresses and the apocalypse comes ever closer, the world becomes darker. Raymond’s (Byron’s) ideas prove ineffective and he exits centre stage. A plague wrecks the world, one caused by man’s unnatural state. The population of the world decreases to mere thousands and eventually hundreds. And who does humanity look to in its most dire hour of need? Who do they look to as the last hope of mankind? Adrian (Percy Shelley) of course, and he comes. He does his best to teach mankind how to be itself again; he tries to bring back the tatters of civilisation, thought the unnaturalness of man has seeped into the very fabric of his being; it is in his soul: it is in his heart. The pure words of the vegetarian were heeded too late.
“Adrian welcomed us on our arrival. He was all animation; you could no longer trace in his look of health, the suffering valetudinarian; from his smile and sprightly tones you could not guess that he was about to lead forth from their native country, the numbered remnant of the English nation, into the tenantless realms of the south, there to die, one by one, till the LAST MAN should remain in a voiceless, empty world.”
And here’s where Mary Shelley voice comes through. The Last Man may refer to our narrator Lionel. But I think the meaning goes much deeper than this. Granted, he is the final witness of humanity’s fate. But there is more to consider. When Mary wrote this novel all of the major Romantics were dead. The young Romantics, Shelley, Keats and Byron, had all died tragically young. Some of the old Romantics like Wordsworth and Coleridge were still kicking around, but their glory days had gone. Byron saw to that. The point is Mary is the last of the generation. Her peers were dead, her friends were dead, and her lover was dead. This is their eulogy; this is a writer lamenting the loss of the greats of her literary generation; this is a writer who was forced to carry on living after her soul mate had perished.
Mary Shelley is The Last Man.
___________________________________
You can connect with me on social media via My Linktree.
__________________________________
May 21, 2009
I don't really like reading, which must strain credulity, since I devote so much of my time and energy to doing it. But reading, for me, is never an easy thing. Only rarely do I get caught up and find myself turning pages heedlessly, plunging into the text. More often, I am well aware of what page I'm on and how many pages until this chapter ends.
The reading itself is slow and ponderous, winding a sinuous path through the book, and this leisurely pace always sets my mind to wandering, looking for clues and foreshadowing, word use, structure, ideas, half-ideas, and flashes of brilliance. All of my friends read more quickly than I do, and many have described their experience as being totally divorced from the text: that once they get into the book, they grow unaware of the process of reading.
And yet I am the one who writes the reviews, whose mind whirls and reels with layered meanings and critical analysis. So I keep reading, though it is can be a chore, as my brain must always perk up and churn along, processing and considering.
Many a time, I've wished I had my friends' eyes, and could knock out a book in an afternoon, could simply read as if I were watching TV--then I could afford the luxury of rereading. I can read more quickly than is my habit: in college, I often forced myself to do so, to make due dates. Yet it was always unpleasant, rushing through without a moment free for thought, so that by the time I came out, I had only half the ideas and observations I would normally glean from a good book.
I was tempted to rush with The Last Man, not because it was dull or poorly written--which often tempts me to rush through worse books, knowing I won't miss much--but because it is thick and long, and may be even more ponderous than I am. This book was a haul, moreso than any other in my recent memory, it took time and energy to get through the long chapters, poetic language, and asides.
Yet it was not poorly-written, the poetry of its language was not misplaced, nor was its pacing some accident of language; it's a good book. It was merely a great deal of book to get through.
Like many Victorian authors, Shelley felt no need to rush the plot along, nor to curtail her flood of words. Luckily, she backed them up with ideas and feelings, so it was not merely the empty deluge of words so common in many American novels of the same period.
There were some problems with the book's structure, most notably that Shelley often passed over moments of action or character growth with a short summary, but almost never curtailed her descriptions of places or emotional states. But this gives the book a very introspective bent, which complements the protagonist's isolation as he attempts to come to terms with the world as it collapses around him.
The book is thematically intriguing, especially to someone who has an interest and a familiarity with the ideals, philosophies, and art of the Victorian period. Much of the book is a deconstruction of Romanticism, showing how an aesthete's optimism never long survives contact with the real world. This wasn't a problem for Shelley's compatriots, as they had the money and influence to avoid the more difficult aspects of reality, but after they all died young, only Mary was left, a lone woman in a changing world, writing a book about the death of the grand Romantic ideal.
The 'Last Man' from which she takes her title was not an original idea of Shelley's, either, but a Victorian notion that had been explored by many previous authors. It was Shelley's intention to create a whole story around the concept, presenting the fall of that last man with the image of the death of the Victorian ideal itself in the face of overwhelming democratic industrialization of ever aspect of modern life, including art.
For Shelley, man was not a uniform mass: there were remarkable men, and there were unremarkable men. This distinction has been widely condemned in modern democratic states, where Payne's notion that men should be treated equally was mistaken for the idea that men actually are equal. But Mary cuts us to the quick, reminding us that great men (and particularly great artists) can do little to stem the tide of the mob, or of industry.
It is a strikingly postmodern message, prefiguring Nietzsche and the American postwar authors. It is a message that Shelley's refined peers were not prepared to hear, so they attacked the book, and the author herself, calling her 'perverse' and 'ugly'. She presented a perverse and ugly world, a naturalistic world, which she had come to know through hardship, and which her peers failed to see looming on the horizon.
For them, Keats' ultimate line "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know" held few notes of irony, but for Shelley, they were already the words of a dead compatriot, whose beautiful ideas served mainly to ennoble his tragedy.
Shelley's book was reviled, and her career stagnated--despite all the promise of 'Frankenstein', 'The Last Man' would fall out of print for more than a century, and its prescient foreshadowing our modern obsessions with death, isolation, and other such eschatonic concerns went long unnoticed. Now, the story she told seems familiar and reasonable, and even somewhat idealistic in the throes of slow degradation, though it stands up beside the works of Eliot and Beckett as an unrelenting vision of doom.
What Shelley came to recognize, which none of her critics mentioned, was that the death of mankind is not merely marked by our spilled blood and lifeless bodies, but by the fall of art, of idealism, of love and joy, and all the heights that we have reached, or hoped to reach. The death of man is a tragedy only inasmuch as it cuts off our possibility, our future, our promise; though if we lived forever, we still might never reach it, there remains always, hope.
The reading itself is slow and ponderous, winding a sinuous path through the book, and this leisurely pace always sets my mind to wandering, looking for clues and foreshadowing, word use, structure, ideas, half-ideas, and flashes of brilliance. All of my friends read more quickly than I do, and many have described their experience as being totally divorced from the text: that once they get into the book, they grow unaware of the process of reading.
And yet I am the one who writes the reviews, whose mind whirls and reels with layered meanings and critical analysis. So I keep reading, though it is can be a chore, as my brain must always perk up and churn along, processing and considering.
Many a time, I've wished I had my friends' eyes, and could knock out a book in an afternoon, could simply read as if I were watching TV--then I could afford the luxury of rereading. I can read more quickly than is my habit: in college, I often forced myself to do so, to make due dates. Yet it was always unpleasant, rushing through without a moment free for thought, so that by the time I came out, I had only half the ideas and observations I would normally glean from a good book.
I was tempted to rush with The Last Man, not because it was dull or poorly written--which often tempts me to rush through worse books, knowing I won't miss much--but because it is thick and long, and may be even more ponderous than I am. This book was a haul, moreso than any other in my recent memory, it took time and energy to get through the long chapters, poetic language, and asides.
Yet it was not poorly-written, the poetry of its language was not misplaced, nor was its pacing some accident of language; it's a good book. It was merely a great deal of book to get through.
Like many Victorian authors, Shelley felt no need to rush the plot along, nor to curtail her flood of words. Luckily, she backed them up with ideas and feelings, so it was not merely the empty deluge of words so common in many American novels of the same period.
There were some problems with the book's structure, most notably that Shelley often passed over moments of action or character growth with a short summary, but almost never curtailed her descriptions of places or emotional states. But this gives the book a very introspective bent, which complements the protagonist's isolation as he attempts to come to terms with the world as it collapses around him.
The book is thematically intriguing, especially to someone who has an interest and a familiarity with the ideals, philosophies, and art of the Victorian period. Much of the book is a deconstruction of Romanticism, showing how an aesthete's optimism never long survives contact with the real world. This wasn't a problem for Shelley's compatriots, as they had the money and influence to avoid the more difficult aspects of reality, but after they all died young, only Mary was left, a lone woman in a changing world, writing a book about the death of the grand Romantic ideal.
The 'Last Man' from which she takes her title was not an original idea of Shelley's, either, but a Victorian notion that had been explored by many previous authors. It was Shelley's intention to create a whole story around the concept, presenting the fall of that last man with the image of the death of the Victorian ideal itself in the face of overwhelming democratic industrialization of ever aspect of modern life, including art.
For Shelley, man was not a uniform mass: there were remarkable men, and there were unremarkable men. This distinction has been widely condemned in modern democratic states, where Payne's notion that men should be treated equally was mistaken for the idea that men actually are equal. But Mary cuts us to the quick, reminding us that great men (and particularly great artists) can do little to stem the tide of the mob, or of industry.
It is a strikingly postmodern message, prefiguring Nietzsche and the American postwar authors. It is a message that Shelley's refined peers were not prepared to hear, so they attacked the book, and the author herself, calling her 'perverse' and 'ugly'. She presented a perverse and ugly world, a naturalistic world, which she had come to know through hardship, and which her peers failed to see looming on the horizon.
For them, Keats' ultimate line "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know" held few notes of irony, but for Shelley, they were already the words of a dead compatriot, whose beautiful ideas served mainly to ennoble his tragedy.
Shelley's book was reviled, and her career stagnated--despite all the promise of 'Frankenstein', 'The Last Man' would fall out of print for more than a century, and its prescient foreshadowing our modern obsessions with death, isolation, and other such eschatonic concerns went long unnoticed. Now, the story she told seems familiar and reasonable, and even somewhat idealistic in the throes of slow degradation, though it stands up beside the works of Eliot and Beckett as an unrelenting vision of doom.
What Shelley came to recognize, which none of her critics mentioned, was that the death of mankind is not merely marked by our spilled blood and lifeless bodies, but by the fall of art, of idealism, of love and joy, and all the heights that we have reached, or hoped to reach. The death of man is a tragedy only inasmuch as it cuts off our possibility, our future, our promise; though if we lived forever, we still might never reach it, there remains always, hope.
August 29, 2015
You are the last person on the face of the Earth every desire can be easily obtained, the best of the best shelter, food , clothes, toys, transportation an endless vacation go anywhere do anything , nobody can stop it the enormous world is all yours...Only one little problem the animals have inherited the planet, a lonely, solitary man no humans to speak to, he is just temporarily standing for a short while and will soon be gone too ( and welcomes this fact), civilization has collapsed buried under the rubble of its greed to the delight of his fellow creatures the horses and cows and others, they are now at the top nobody is left to mourn, the plague has destroyed a few thousand years... an experiment that never quite succeeded... England in the far future well not so far anymore, the time the late 21st century the king has abdicated the country becomes a republic but the royals still retain their precious titles, the Earl of Windsor Adrian (modeled after Percy Shelley) the son of the last monarch , he strangely supports the new democratic government to the great annoyance of his haughty mother, the former Queen now a widow, she wants the return of her privileges. Lord Raymond (Lord Byron) is ambitious, he desires to be king someday yet will settle now for being Lord Protector of the nation, to rule and make England great again, in the north of the country in hilly Cumberland a shepherd boy, Lionel Verney (loosely Mary Shelley) takes care of a farmer's sheep , his irresponsible still amusing father, was a close friend of the late king until gambling away his money which the generous monarch, had given him to start a business. Running from his unforgivable embarrassment, marries a local peasant girl, both died young leaving Lionel and younger sister Perdita orphans, to work at a very tender age to survive. Verney the angry young man becomes a petty criminal leading a gang of youths, fellow shepherds in minor destruction and killing animals in a park, which belongs to the new Earl of Windsor and ends up in jail for a day or two. When finally Adrian visits his mansion and property after a couple of heated incidents, Lionel who blames Adrian the son of his father's former friend, for his and Perdita troubles, becomes huge pals too and hears about Idris, the Earl's pretty sister. His life is transformed from the bottom in lowly abject poverty to the highest levels in society, schooling a job as a secretary to a diplomat in Vienna , coming back to his native land meeting every important person there, elected to parliament. Bringing him up the ladder , his sister and closest confident Perdita also. Lord Raymond is smitten by her, drops his intended the Greek Princess Evadne ( who Adrian loves) he marries the untitled but lovely Perdita to the surprise of everyone, the ruler of the nation has as a bride a commoner. Somethings never change in the future, Greeks are still fighting Turks technology has stalled , though the fastest transport is hot air balloons and another mysterious illness appears in a distant corner of the Earth killing many people and life continues but for how long? The first end of the world novel 1826, may seem a little primitive by today's standards, than again the public who vicariously read this in the past never thought it might become fact.
August 29, 2019
"Así pasé todo el día. Cada momento contenía una eternidad, aunque cuando todas sus horas hubieron transcurrido me asombré de que el tiempo pasara tan velozmente. Y sin embargo ni siquiera entonces había bebido toda la poción amarga. Aún no estaba convencido de mi pérdida. Todavía no sentía en todos mis latidos, en todos mis nervios, en todos mis pensamientos, que era el único superviviente de mi raza, que era el último hombre."
No todo es Frankenstein en la obra de Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. En cualquier lugar del mundo, cuando se habla de ella, instantáneamente la asociamos con esa novela dado que es la más conocida, pero también escribió otras, además de una buena cantidad de cuentos góticos.
Además de "El último hombre" escribió también "Mathilda" en 1819, "Valperga" en 1823, "Perkin Warweck" en 1830, "Lodore" en 1835 y "Falkner" en 1837, entre otras más, lo que nos da una idea de su vasta obra.
Dueña de un estilo poético que heredara de su amado esposo, Percy Bysshe Shelley, unos de los referentes ingleses más importantes del romanticismo junto con su amigo, el poeta Lord Byron, esa influencia se notará muy marcadamente a través de la lectura de las páginas de esta novela.
"El último hombre" es también una novela del estilo bildungsroman, ya que su personaje principal Lionel Verney nos cuenta su vida desde que es pequeño comenzando con la de su padre hasta que llega a la etapa adulta.
Uno de los puntos de conexión con "Frankenstein" es que los orígenes de Verney son similares a los de la criatura de Frankenstein, ya que es el vástago de una unión despareja entre padre y madre: "La muchacha era encantadora, amable, y, sobre todo, buena con él. No ha de sorprender que un ídolo caído de alcurnia y belleza pudiera, aunque en aquel estado, resultar elevado y maravilloso a los ojos de una campesina. Su unión dio lugar a un matrimonio condenado desde el principio del que soy vástago."
Al igual que la criatura creada por Víctor Frankenstein siente que no encaja en el mundo hasta pasados varios años de su vida y es a partir de ciertos hechos, como en el caso del monstruo, que va aprendiendo a cambiar sus puntos de vista.
Si bien Mary Shelley publica "El último hombre" en 1826, esta fue duramente criticada cuando apareció, y quedó en el olvido, pero fue rescatada en la década de 1960.
Tal vez, el fracaso que le deparó esta obra es que ambienta el escenario de la peste a fines del siglo XXI, en 2073 (y que concluye en el año 2100), y que a mi entender, fue un recurso verdaderamente innecesario, ya que a partir de las descripciones de Shelley, el lector sigue representando en su cabeza a la Inglaterra del siglo XIX -por ejemplo, viajan en globo o a caballo- y no hay descripciones futuristas de la autora para convencernos del tiempo en que vive el personaje principal.
Esta novela se encuadra claramente dentro de género post apocalíptico, como tantas otras que llegarán después: "La peste escarlata" de Jack London, de idéntica temática, "La peste" de Albert Camus, "La carretera" de Cormac McCarthy, "El eterno Adán" de Jules Verne, también ambientada en el futuro post plaga e incluso "Soy Leyenda" de Richard Matheson" en la que cambiamos peste por vampiros. En todas ellas nos encontraremos con últimos hombres caminando en soledad sobre la tierra.
De todas maneras, creo que Shelley ha tomado algunos recaudos a la hora de detallar los estragos que la peste causa en Inglaterra y creo que el "Diario del año de la peste" de Daniel Defoe publicado en 1722 y que refleja lo sufrió realmente ese país en la famosa epidemia de 1665 e incluso la introducción que Boccaccio hace en su "Decamerón" sobre la peste negra que devastó parte de Asia, África y Europa entre 1348 y 1351 le fueron de utilidad.
Esta frase resume con clarividencia esa clara influencia:
"¿De veras desea el lector conocer relatos de asilos para apestados en que la muerte era el mayor consuelo; del avance siniestro de los coches fúnebres; de la insensibilidad de los indignos y la angustia de los corazones amorosos; de los gritos desgarradores y los abrumadores silencios; de las muchas formas que adoptaba la enfermedad, de las huidas, del hambre, de la desesperación y de la muerte? Existen muchos libros con los que saciar el apetito de todas esas cosas. Recúrrase para ello a los escritos de Boccaccio, Defoe y Browne. La vasta aniquilación que lo ha engullido todo."
Es que la atmósfera deprimente, lúgubre, mortal, pestilente y sin esperanza que la autora le imprime a las más de quinientas páginas de su libro se torna difícil de soportar. Sólo su estilo poético para narrar lo que sucede oficia a manera de balance en el relato.
Los personajes en los que gira todo el entramado de la historia son el de Lionel Verney, su hermana Perdita, Adrian, que es el otro personaje fundamental, Lord Raymond, Evadne, Idris, hermana de Adrian y futura esposa de Lionel, y los niños Alfred, Evelyn y Clara, además de otros personajes secundarios como Juliet, Ryland, Merrival y Lucy.
A decir verdad, "El último hombre" se compone de dos novelas en una. El primer cuarto de la novela es una típica historia en torno a Lionel, Adrian, Perdita e Idris en donde Shelley establece el típico juego de pasiones y odios shakesperianos. Las luchas por el poder de unos, sumado a las pasiones amorosas conforman un tramado de odios y amores que se desarrollan sin pausa. El tironeos amorosos entre Raymond y Perdita abarcarán más de cincuenta interminables páginas, lo que hace que la novela se torne extremadamente densa y por momentos tediosa y aburrida. Lamentablemente, le sobran decenas de páginas y es otro de los puntos flojos que tiene.
En mi edición, la peste que es el tema principal de esta novela, tarda 216 páginas en llegar. Seguramente, gran partes de los lectores han abandonado la lectura del libro. La pesadez se hace eterna y cuesta mucho mantener la atención.
Pero por otro lado, lo que vuelve a balancear la lectura es el uso de ciertos recursos del romanticismo y las influencias del estilo gótico imperante en los años de Shelley que ofrecen verdaderas reminiscencias al Edgar Allan Poe más funesto.
En el libro nos encontraremos también con variados extractos de las obras de William Shakespeare, guiños al Apocalipsis de la Biblia, la "Teogonía" de Hesíodo y citas poéticas de sus autores más idolatrados.
A partir de la segunda mitad del libro todo es muerte y desolación, y cobra especial preponderancia cuando los personajes principales están recluidos en el castillo de Windsor en Londres.
La desesperanza, muerte, desolación, hambre y la miseria, todas ellas de la mano de la peste, pasan a ser lo que dominen la historia y lo que describe Verney es prueba fiel de ello:
"Peste... ¿Dónde?... En todas partes... Debemos huir, huir, pero ¿adónde?... Nadie lo sabe. No existe refugio en la tierra, nos ataca como mil manadas de lobos. Debemos huir todos. ¿Dónde iréis? ¿Dónde podemos ir?"
La acción posteriormente transcurrirá en Grecia y en la última parte del libro en Francia y Suiza para terminar en Roma, Italia.
La peste da paso a la muerte, y esta otra al hambre, las catástrofes naturales y la lucha por la supervivencia de los pocos seres humanos desesperados que van quedando que saquean, roban y matan para vivir. El cuadro de situación va de mal en peor y es graficado crudamente:
"¿Dónde estaba la peste? «Aquí, en todas partes», exclamó una voz impregnada de temor y espanto, cuando en los agradables días de un mayo soleado la Destructora del hombre volvió a cabalgar sobre la tierra, obligando al espíritu a abandonar su crisálida orgánica para penetrar en una vida ignorada. Con un solo movimiento de su arma poderosa, toda precaución, todo cuidado, toda prudencia, fueron aniquilados. La muerte se sentaba a las mesas de los notables, se tendía en el jergón del granjero, atrapaba al cobarde que huía, abatía al valiente que resistía. La desazón se apoderaba de todos los corazones, la pena velaba todos los ojos."
"Inglaterra, antes cuna de excelencia y escuela de los sabios, tus hijos han muerto, tu gloria se ha esfumado. Tú, Inglaterra, fuiste el triunfo del hombre. Escaso favor ha demostrado el Creador contigo, Isla del Norte. Lienzo rasgado por la naturaleza, pintado por el hombre con colores ajenos. Mas los tonos que te prestó se han deslucido, y ya no han de renovarse."
Probablemente London y Camus también se hayan inspirado en este libro de Shelley, porque los condimentos que la autora pone en "El último hombre" son los mismos que describen estos dos autores, sobre todo Camus, pero con una diferencia: la narrativa poética de Shelley para contar lo que sufren sus personajes contrasta con la de Camus al relatar los estragos de la peste pero de modo más exacerbado en Camus, ya que nos cuenta aún más cruda y despiadada la manera en que peste arrasa con todo y todos en la ciudad de Orán.
Esta novela es una de las más depresivas que puedan leerse, a punto tal que el lector rápidamente necesitará desahogarse tomando un libro con una historia completamente opuesta a lo que nos advierte Lionel Verney en la fúnebre dedicatoria de su escrito final:
"DEDICATORIA
a los ilustres muertos.
sombras, ¡despertad y leed sobre vuestra caída!
contemplad la historia del último hombre."
No todo es Frankenstein en la obra de Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. En cualquier lugar del mundo, cuando se habla de ella, instantáneamente la asociamos con esa novela dado que es la más conocida, pero también escribió otras, además de una buena cantidad de cuentos góticos.
Además de "El último hombre" escribió también "Mathilda" en 1819, "Valperga" en 1823, "Perkin Warweck" en 1830, "Lodore" en 1835 y "Falkner" en 1837, entre otras más, lo que nos da una idea de su vasta obra.
Dueña de un estilo poético que heredara de su amado esposo, Percy Bysshe Shelley, unos de los referentes ingleses más importantes del romanticismo junto con su amigo, el poeta Lord Byron, esa influencia se notará muy marcadamente a través de la lectura de las páginas de esta novela.
"El último hombre" es también una novela del estilo bildungsroman, ya que su personaje principal Lionel Verney nos cuenta su vida desde que es pequeño comenzando con la de su padre hasta que llega a la etapa adulta.
Uno de los puntos de conexión con "Frankenstein" es que los orígenes de Verney son similares a los de la criatura de Frankenstein, ya que es el vástago de una unión despareja entre padre y madre: "La muchacha era encantadora, amable, y, sobre todo, buena con él. No ha de sorprender que un ídolo caído de alcurnia y belleza pudiera, aunque en aquel estado, resultar elevado y maravilloso a los ojos de una campesina. Su unión dio lugar a un matrimonio condenado desde el principio del que soy vástago."
Al igual que la criatura creada por Víctor Frankenstein siente que no encaja en el mundo hasta pasados varios años de su vida y es a partir de ciertos hechos, como en el caso del monstruo, que va aprendiendo a cambiar sus puntos de vista.
Si bien Mary Shelley publica "El último hombre" en 1826, esta fue duramente criticada cuando apareció, y quedó en el olvido, pero fue rescatada en la década de 1960.
Tal vez, el fracaso que le deparó esta obra es que ambienta el escenario de la peste a fines del siglo XXI, en 2073 (y que concluye en el año 2100), y que a mi entender, fue un recurso verdaderamente innecesario, ya que a partir de las descripciones de Shelley, el lector sigue representando en su cabeza a la Inglaterra del siglo XIX -por ejemplo, viajan en globo o a caballo- y no hay descripciones futuristas de la autora para convencernos del tiempo en que vive el personaje principal.
Esta novela se encuadra claramente dentro de género post apocalíptico, como tantas otras que llegarán después: "La peste escarlata" de Jack London, de idéntica temática, "La peste" de Albert Camus, "La carretera" de Cormac McCarthy, "El eterno Adán" de Jules Verne, también ambientada en el futuro post plaga e incluso "Soy Leyenda" de Richard Matheson" en la que cambiamos peste por vampiros. En todas ellas nos encontraremos con últimos hombres caminando en soledad sobre la tierra.
De todas maneras, creo que Shelley ha tomado algunos recaudos a la hora de detallar los estragos que la peste causa en Inglaterra y creo que el "Diario del año de la peste" de Daniel Defoe publicado en 1722 y que refleja lo sufrió realmente ese país en la famosa epidemia de 1665 e incluso la introducción que Boccaccio hace en su "Decamerón" sobre la peste negra que devastó parte de Asia, África y Europa entre 1348 y 1351 le fueron de utilidad.
Esta frase resume con clarividencia esa clara influencia:
"¿De veras desea el lector conocer relatos de asilos para apestados en que la muerte era el mayor consuelo; del avance siniestro de los coches fúnebres; de la insensibilidad de los indignos y la angustia de los corazones amorosos; de los gritos desgarradores y los abrumadores silencios; de las muchas formas que adoptaba la enfermedad, de las huidas, del hambre, de la desesperación y de la muerte? Existen muchos libros con los que saciar el apetito de todas esas cosas. Recúrrase para ello a los escritos de Boccaccio, Defoe y Browne. La vasta aniquilación que lo ha engullido todo."
Es que la atmósfera deprimente, lúgubre, mortal, pestilente y sin esperanza que la autora le imprime a las más de quinientas páginas de su libro se torna difícil de soportar. Sólo su estilo poético para narrar lo que sucede oficia a manera de balance en el relato.
Los personajes en los que gira todo el entramado de la historia son el de Lionel Verney, su hermana Perdita, Adrian, que es el otro personaje fundamental, Lord Raymond, Evadne, Idris, hermana de Adrian y futura esposa de Lionel, y los niños Alfred, Evelyn y Clara, además de otros personajes secundarios como Juliet, Ryland, Merrival y Lucy.
A decir verdad, "El último hombre" se compone de dos novelas en una. El primer cuarto de la novela es una típica historia en torno a Lionel, Adrian, Perdita e Idris en donde Shelley establece el típico juego de pasiones y odios shakesperianos. Las luchas por el poder de unos, sumado a las pasiones amorosas conforman un tramado de odios y amores que se desarrollan sin pausa. El tironeos amorosos entre Raymond y Perdita abarcarán más de cincuenta interminables páginas, lo que hace que la novela se torne extremadamente densa y por momentos tediosa y aburrida. Lamentablemente, le sobran decenas de páginas y es otro de los puntos flojos que tiene.
En mi edición, la peste que es el tema principal de esta novela, tarda 216 páginas en llegar. Seguramente, gran partes de los lectores han abandonado la lectura del libro. La pesadez se hace eterna y cuesta mucho mantener la atención.
Pero por otro lado, lo que vuelve a balancear la lectura es el uso de ciertos recursos del romanticismo y las influencias del estilo gótico imperante en los años de Shelley que ofrecen verdaderas reminiscencias al Edgar Allan Poe más funesto.
En el libro nos encontraremos también con variados extractos de las obras de William Shakespeare, guiños al Apocalipsis de la Biblia, la "Teogonía" de Hesíodo y citas poéticas de sus autores más idolatrados.
A partir de la segunda mitad del libro todo es muerte y desolación, y cobra especial preponderancia cuando los personajes principales están recluidos en el castillo de Windsor en Londres.
La desesperanza, muerte, desolación, hambre y la miseria, todas ellas de la mano de la peste, pasan a ser lo que dominen la historia y lo que describe Verney es prueba fiel de ello:
"Peste... ¿Dónde?... En todas partes... Debemos huir, huir, pero ¿adónde?... Nadie lo sabe. No existe refugio en la tierra, nos ataca como mil manadas de lobos. Debemos huir todos. ¿Dónde iréis? ¿Dónde podemos ir?"
La acción posteriormente transcurrirá en Grecia y en la última parte del libro en Francia y Suiza para terminar en Roma, Italia.
La peste da paso a la muerte, y esta otra al hambre, las catástrofes naturales y la lucha por la supervivencia de los pocos seres humanos desesperados que van quedando que saquean, roban y matan para vivir. El cuadro de situación va de mal en peor y es graficado crudamente:
"¿Dónde estaba la peste? «Aquí, en todas partes», exclamó una voz impregnada de temor y espanto, cuando en los agradables días de un mayo soleado la Destructora del hombre volvió a cabalgar sobre la tierra, obligando al espíritu a abandonar su crisálida orgánica para penetrar en una vida ignorada. Con un solo movimiento de su arma poderosa, toda precaución, todo cuidado, toda prudencia, fueron aniquilados. La muerte se sentaba a las mesas de los notables, se tendía en el jergón del granjero, atrapaba al cobarde que huía, abatía al valiente que resistía. La desazón se apoderaba de todos los corazones, la pena velaba todos los ojos."
"Inglaterra, antes cuna de excelencia y escuela de los sabios, tus hijos han muerto, tu gloria se ha esfumado. Tú, Inglaterra, fuiste el triunfo del hombre. Escaso favor ha demostrado el Creador contigo, Isla del Norte. Lienzo rasgado por la naturaleza, pintado por el hombre con colores ajenos. Mas los tonos que te prestó se han deslucido, y ya no han de renovarse."
Probablemente London y Camus también se hayan inspirado en este libro de Shelley, porque los condimentos que la autora pone en "El último hombre" son los mismos que describen estos dos autores, sobre todo Camus, pero con una diferencia: la narrativa poética de Shelley para contar lo que sufren sus personajes contrasta con la de Camus al relatar los estragos de la peste pero de modo más exacerbado en Camus, ya que nos cuenta aún más cruda y despiadada la manera en que peste arrasa con todo y todos en la ciudad de Orán.
Esta novela es una de las más depresivas que puedan leerse, a punto tal que el lector rápidamente necesitará desahogarse tomando un libro con una historia completamente opuesta a lo que nos advierte Lionel Verney en la fúnebre dedicatoria de su escrito final:
"DEDICATORIA
a los ilustres muertos.
sombras, ¡despertad y leed sobre vuestra caída!
contemplad la historia del último hombre."
Read
June 16, 2011Mary Shelley did not stop writing after Frankenstein and I was excited to come across her last novel "The Last Man", unfortunately I found it a difficult book to read and I came close to giving up on it all together. Indeed the first time I read it, I took a break of over a year in the middle of the book - it was not exactly compelling, read through the night material.
The idea is that a plague wipes out humanity leaving one man alone to survive. This story is set in the future, Shelley's vision of which includes airships as an important means of transport.
For added interest she revisits and re-imagines the interrelationships of herself , her husband P.B Shelley, and Byron, adding in their political interests in Greek independence and constitutional change in Britain as elements in the plot - all of which sounded promising. Here was early science fiction, written by a woman and rich in the ideals of the Romantic poets.
The problem however was in the execution.
The constitutional deposition of the King doesn't make waves in future Britain, the character based on Byron (inevitably a leading figure in the powerful House of Lords) makes unconvincing speeches before going on to defeat the Ottoman Empire (though admittedly with some help from a few Greeks, so it's not as the book is pure wish fulfilment), luckily the plague then intervenes and starts to kill people off.
Unfortunately this takes a long time time while the titular last man travels about in Europe with bands of people, who growing fewer and fewer in number as the plague bites, until eventually everybody else is dead bar our eponymous hero . Then the book continues for a while with the last man wondering about feeling lonely.
No doubt Mary Shelley also felt lonely after the deaths of the people who had played such a major part in her own early life, but the eventual effect in the novel was tedious, and from a biographical point of view one can feel that she saw herself as the last man standing from her group of early friends, as indeed she was. I did not feel engaged with the sentimental death scenes of characters that I hadn't spent much time with, or who don't feel as though they are more than pencil sketches of people from her past. Overall I found this a book more interesting to have read, than to read.
The idea is that a plague wipes out humanity leaving one man alone to survive. This story is set in the future, Shelley's vision of which includes airships as an important means of transport.
For added interest she revisits and re-imagines the interrelationships of herself , her husband P.B Shelley, and Byron, adding in their political interests in Greek independence and constitutional change in Britain as elements in the plot - all of which sounded promising. Here was early science fiction, written by a woman and rich in the ideals of the Romantic poets.
The problem however was in the execution.
The constitutional deposition of the King doesn't make waves in future Britain, the character based on Byron (inevitably a leading figure in the powerful House of Lords) makes unconvincing speeches before going on to defeat the Ottoman Empire (though admittedly with some help from a few Greeks, so it's not as the book is pure wish fulfilment), luckily the plague then intervenes and starts to kill people off.
Unfortunately this takes a long time time while the titular last man travels about in Europe with bands of people, who growing fewer and fewer in number as the plague bites, until eventually everybody else is dead bar our eponymous hero . Then the book continues for a while with the last man wondering about feeling lonely.
No doubt Mary Shelley also felt lonely after the deaths of the people who had played such a major part in her own early life, but the eventual effect in the novel was tedious, and from a biographical point of view one can feel that she saw herself as the last man standing from her group of early friends, as indeed she was. I did not feel engaged with the sentimental death scenes of characters that I hadn't spent much time with, or who don't feel as though they are more than pencil sketches of people from her past. Overall I found this a book more interesting to have read, than to read.
May 19, 2011
I desperately tried to convince myself that I didn’t loathe this, but I’m just not that good a liar.
Frankenstein, arguably my favorite book of all time, is so staggeringly good that I physically tremble when I read it, and I have read it over and over. So yes, I went into this with high expectations. I did not expect it to be as good as Frankenstein. I did expect it to be marginally more entertaining than reading a telephone book, but I was disappointed.
Granted: there are beautifully written passages. Prose and poetry weave together in a seamless lyrical ballet, and it is nothing less than sublimely elegant. But there’s a reason I read Mary Shelley and not Percy Shelley. Because I am interested in fiction, not in poetry. There is a story buried underneath hundreds of pages of scintillating, mellifluous verse. But it moves at the approximate pace that continents drift.
There are actual poetic passages all through the novel, just sprinkled in liberally right in the middle of chapters, where they might have proven highly distracting, if there were some sort of story being told, which, fortunately, did not present a problem. These are quoted from famous poets, all from sometime before the early 19th century, of course. Which immediately implies that not a single poet worth quoting arises throughout the rest of the 19th, the 20th and the 21st centuries. (A sentiment with which I might be inclined to agree, but then again, I’m not a big fan of poetry that does not involve Nantucket.)
Last summer I was part of a panel discussion of the five essential science fiction authors. Mary Shelley topped my list, because I feel that she essentially invented the genre, half a century before Wells and Verne. She was the first writer to take the cutting edge science of her own day, and envision the philosophical implications of a rational extrapolation of existing technology. It was such an impressive leap of imagination that right now, as I’m typing this review, I just want to reread Frankenstein yet again.
It is not accurate to say that the picture Shelley paints of the late 21st century includes no allusions whatsoever to technological advances. There were two. In the first, she describes 21st century air travel, which consists of very fast balloons. Fair enough. In the second, she makes a brief, vague reference to improved methods in agricultural and industrial production. But that’s it. She foresaw artificial intelligence but not light-bulbs? Cars? Recording sound? Some means by which people communicate at a distance? Was that really so hard to imagine, Mary? You wrote Frankenstein!
Her time was slightly before that of Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur, and so she couldn’t have been expected to know much about the germ theory of disease. But while the world slowly succumbed to a deadly plague of unprecedented virulence, none of the characters, essentially the leaders of the free world, the Lord Protector of the most powerful nation on Earth and his inner circle, none of them think for a moment “let’s get some scientists to look into this!” No, the Lord Protector’s actions in this moment of crisis are essentially limited to ensuring that the theaters remain open to keep the nation’s spirits up.
Isaac Asimov (my other favorite science fiction writer) once noted that when science fiction writers had grown bored with exploring speculative developments in technology, they would turn (as he did) to social science fiction, centered not on gadgets and gizmos, but instead toward an examination of the progression of societies themselves. Shelley does this, to a degree, but the depth of her vision is disappointingly myopic. She doesn’t predict grand sweeping changes in society over the course of 300 years. Instead, she is so bold to suggest that by the end of the 21st century, England might relinquish hereditary monarchs in favor of a small group of privileged elitist nobles electing the same guy who would have inherited the throne. For the daughter of two of the most radical political philosophers of her day, I expected a slightly more dramatic prognostication of political upheaval.
None of this is going to diminish the high opinion I have of Mary Shelley. I remain steadfast in ranking her as one of the most influential novelists ever. And even while I was bored to tears and crushed with disappointment as I trudged through this elegantly dreary, beautifully dull tome, I still took note of how majestically all her words were put together as they went absolutely nowhere. I only wished that she would not have tried so hard to emulate her husband and his poems, all of which together could not hold a candle to her first novel. I wish she would have stuck with crafting imaginative stories in which visionary ideas are examined, raising deep philosophical questions, while simultaneously keeping the reader on the edge of his seat. Percy had far too great an impact on her if you ask me, and Mary would have done well to seek out some different literary influences. I wish she would have read Frankenstein.
Frankenstein, arguably my favorite book of all time, is so staggeringly good that I physically tremble when I read it, and I have read it over and over. So yes, I went into this with high expectations. I did not expect it to be as good as Frankenstein. I did expect it to be marginally more entertaining than reading a telephone book, but I was disappointed.
Granted: there are beautifully written passages. Prose and poetry weave together in a seamless lyrical ballet, and it is nothing less than sublimely elegant. But there’s a reason I read Mary Shelley and not Percy Shelley. Because I am interested in fiction, not in poetry. There is a story buried underneath hundreds of pages of scintillating, mellifluous verse. But it moves at the approximate pace that continents drift.
There are actual poetic passages all through the novel, just sprinkled in liberally right in the middle of chapters, where they might have proven highly distracting, if there were some sort of story being told, which, fortunately, did not present a problem. These are quoted from famous poets, all from sometime before the early 19th century, of course. Which immediately implies that not a single poet worth quoting arises throughout the rest of the 19th, the 20th and the 21st centuries. (A sentiment with which I might be inclined to agree, but then again, I’m not a big fan of poetry that does not involve Nantucket.)
Last summer I was part of a panel discussion of the five essential science fiction authors. Mary Shelley topped my list, because I feel that she essentially invented the genre, half a century before Wells and Verne. She was the first writer to take the cutting edge science of her own day, and envision the philosophical implications of a rational extrapolation of existing technology. It was such an impressive leap of imagination that right now, as I’m typing this review, I just want to reread Frankenstein yet again.
It is not accurate to say that the picture Shelley paints of the late 21st century includes no allusions whatsoever to technological advances. There were two. In the first, she describes 21st century air travel, which consists of very fast balloons. Fair enough. In the second, she makes a brief, vague reference to improved methods in agricultural and industrial production. But that’s it. She foresaw artificial intelligence but not light-bulbs? Cars? Recording sound? Some means by which people communicate at a distance? Was that really so hard to imagine, Mary? You wrote Frankenstein!
Her time was slightly before that of Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur, and so she couldn’t have been expected to know much about the germ theory of disease. But while the world slowly succumbed to a deadly plague of unprecedented virulence, none of the characters, essentially the leaders of the free world, the Lord Protector of the most powerful nation on Earth and his inner circle, none of them think for a moment “let’s get some scientists to look into this!” No, the Lord Protector’s actions in this moment of crisis are essentially limited to ensuring that the theaters remain open to keep the nation’s spirits up.
Isaac Asimov (my other favorite science fiction writer) once noted that when science fiction writers had grown bored with exploring speculative developments in technology, they would turn (as he did) to social science fiction, centered not on gadgets and gizmos, but instead toward an examination of the progression of societies themselves. Shelley does this, to a degree, but the depth of her vision is disappointingly myopic. She doesn’t predict grand sweeping changes in society over the course of 300 years. Instead, she is so bold to suggest that by the end of the 21st century, England might relinquish hereditary monarchs in favor of a small group of privileged elitist nobles electing the same guy who would have inherited the throne. For the daughter of two of the most radical political philosophers of her day, I expected a slightly more dramatic prognostication of political upheaval.
None of this is going to diminish the high opinion I have of Mary Shelley. I remain steadfast in ranking her as one of the most influential novelists ever. And even while I was bored to tears and crushed with disappointment as I trudged through this elegantly dreary, beautifully dull tome, I still took note of how majestically all her words were put together as they went absolutely nowhere. I only wished that she would not have tried so hard to emulate her husband and his poems, all of which together could not hold a candle to her first novel. I wish she would have stuck with crafting imaginative stories in which visionary ideas are examined, raising deep philosophical questions, while simultaneously keeping the reader on the edge of his seat. Percy had far too great an impact on her if you ask me, and Mary would have done well to seek out some different literary influences. I wish she would have read Frankenstein.
February 27, 2019
(NOTE: Oxford Classics' introduction-part can be spoilery.)
Mary Shelley wrote more than Frankenstein (still need to read that one). This book was written 8 years after that book, after returning from Italy back to England, and after losing her husband to death. This and the loss of most of her children with him no doubt inspired the mood and the losses happening in this book, a book about gradual dwindling of people on earth due to a plague (which started in Egypt, then spread eastwards and westwards gradually, especially during the warmer season.) The explanatory notes afterwards give clues to the poetry included in the book, influences and such.
This book can be a hard read if you're not used to how people wrote at this time; also the plague isn't even mentioned before chapter 12, though you are already informed about our main character, Lionel Verney, being all alone. Until that chapter, the background of our main character's life until-then has to be formed, and you might need patience with the romances and misundertandings that appear. But when you reach that chapter, the story afterwards unfolds into real, heartbreaking beauty.
So: Lionel and his sister, Perdita, have been left to fend for themselves after their parents died. Perdita especially suffers from being left so much alone, though she loves her brother. Lionel's job as a shepherd toughens him, in good ways since it will useful decades later. One day the son (Adrian) of Lionel's father's former protector (the last king of Britain) comes to live near him, and seeks him out to both pay back for what brought Lionel's father to ruin, and to make them become friends. Much friendships, hardships, and love follows... and then one day he follows Adrian's close friend, Raymond, to another round of heroic battles in the Greek-Turkey war, which unfortunately is the time the plague starts to spread westwards...
This book was published in 1826. Although the book is set towards the end of 21st century, it's not much different from the world of 1826. A means of flying has been invented - the use of balloon-flying, in good weather. And the small-pox has gone extinct (but how is not told). Otherwise nothing more modern has been included. There's a Greek-Turkey war going on, but no other current wars are mentioned. The book seems to express a reaction against romanticism - so many hopes are dashed, even if the end is not completely empty of optimism. The conversations in the book may feel like speeches, but are far from boring.
About characters:
Lionel - tells the story (somewhat passively); faithful, voice of reason, hungry for knowledge
Raymond - the Byron-figure; pretends easily, a charming rogue, with a hunger for action and heroism, impulsive with constantly-changing emotions, prone to some infidelity
Adrian - based on Mary Shelley's husband, Percy. optimistic, very supportive, vulnerable, stubborn, somewhat weak health in youth
Idris - Adrian's sister and Lionel's wife; tender, family-centric, worries easily
Evadne - a Greek; another voice of reason, possessed much (good) pride/integrity, much bad luck in life (and ).
Perdita - Lionel's sister (what a fitting name) and Raymond's wife. wild nature girl, with some prophetic skills, stubborn, prone to anxiety and melancholy, very faithful
My favorites are Evadne and Perdita; Lionel is also quite close to the top. I did get angry at Raymond for his ways sometimes, but he made me forgive by the end of his path. There are also a few other characters in the book that stay in mind, like the children from the relationships, a few that we meet during the travels in various places. There's some literature and other culture mentions that are quite delightful to notice.
There were many scenes in this book that I could imagine being great in a movie, like: when Lionel and Perdita meet at , when the traveling group sees the Alps the first time, a local festival in Windsor that is spoiled by
Also the astronomer Merrival's fate is something to imagine despite its horror. Same can be said about Lionel seeing the play "Macbeth" played in the plague-frightened London.
Why does Lionel survive? He does get the plague, but recovers - guess that makes him go immune, though not immortal. And not everyone dies from this disease - some die because of old age, or grief, or from some other disease like typhus, before the plague can reach them. Accidents and storms can also kill (). But with all the losses, I feel there's a sense of hope, stubborn positivity, in how Lionel chooses to go on, traveling around the world's coasts... I can imagine Mary here seeing herself within him, going on through her losses and frustrations (and she did live many years after the release of this book). A rewarding, visiual, realistic yet hopeful story - I felt a little sorry, having to exit this book's world, no matter how empty of people it was. But full of nature reclaiming and of going-on.
Mary Shelley wrote more than Frankenstein (still need to read that one). This book was written 8 years after that book, after returning from Italy back to England, and after losing her husband to death. This and the loss of most of her children with him no doubt inspired the mood and the losses happening in this book, a book about gradual dwindling of people on earth due to a plague (which started in Egypt, then spread eastwards and westwards gradually, especially during the warmer season.) The explanatory notes afterwards give clues to the poetry included in the book, influences and such.
This book can be a hard read if you're not used to how people wrote at this time; also the plague isn't even mentioned before chapter 12, though you are already informed about our main character, Lionel Verney, being all alone. Until that chapter, the background of our main character's life until-then has to be formed, and you might need patience with the romances and misundertandings that appear. But when you reach that chapter, the story afterwards unfolds into real, heartbreaking beauty.
So: Lionel and his sister, Perdita, have been left to fend for themselves after their parents died. Perdita especially suffers from being left so much alone, though she loves her brother. Lionel's job as a shepherd toughens him, in good ways since it will useful decades later. One day the son (Adrian) of Lionel's father's former protector (the last king of Britain) comes to live near him, and seeks him out to both pay back for what brought Lionel's father to ruin, and to make them become friends. Much friendships, hardships, and love follows... and then one day he follows Adrian's close friend, Raymond, to another round of heroic battles in the Greek-Turkey war, which unfortunately is the time the plague starts to spread westwards...
This book was published in 1826. Although the book is set towards the end of 21st century, it's not much different from the world of 1826. A means of flying has been invented - the use of balloon-flying, in good weather. And the small-pox has gone extinct (but how is not told). Otherwise nothing more modern has been included. There's a Greek-Turkey war going on, but no other current wars are mentioned. The book seems to express a reaction against romanticism - so many hopes are dashed, even if the end is not completely empty of optimism. The conversations in the book may feel like speeches, but are far from boring.
About characters:
Lionel - tells the story (somewhat passively); faithful, voice of reason, hungry for knowledge
Raymond - the Byron-figure; pretends easily, a charming rogue, with a hunger for action and heroism, impulsive with constantly-changing emotions, prone to some infidelity
Adrian - based on Mary Shelley's husband, Percy. optimistic, very supportive, vulnerable, stubborn, somewhat weak health in youth
Idris - Adrian's sister and Lionel's wife; tender, family-centric, worries easily
Evadne - a Greek; another voice of reason, possessed much (good) pride/integrity, much bad luck in life (and ).
Perdita - Lionel's sister (what a fitting name) and Raymond's wife. wild nature girl, with some prophetic skills, stubborn, prone to anxiety and melancholy, very faithful
My favorites are Evadne and Perdita; Lionel is also quite close to the top. I did get angry at Raymond for his ways sometimes, but he made me forgive by the end of his path. There are also a few other characters in the book that stay in mind, like the children from the relationships, a few that we meet during the travels in various places. There's some literature and other culture mentions that are quite delightful to notice.
There were many scenes in this book that I could imagine being great in a movie, like: when Lionel and Perdita meet at , when the traveling group sees the Alps the first time, a local festival in Windsor that is spoiled by
Also the astronomer Merrival's fate is something to imagine despite its horror. Same can be said about Lionel seeing the play "Macbeth" played in the plague-frightened London.
Why does Lionel survive? He does get the plague, but recovers - guess that makes him go immune, though not immortal. And not everyone dies from this disease - some die because of old age, or grief, or from some other disease like typhus, before the plague can reach them. Accidents and storms can also kill (). But with all the losses, I feel there's a sense of hope, stubborn positivity, in how Lionel chooses to go on, traveling around the world's coasts... I can imagine Mary here seeing herself within him, going on through her losses and frustrations (and she did live many years after the release of this book). A rewarding, visiual, realistic yet hopeful story - I felt a little sorry, having to exit this book's world, no matter how empty of people it was. But full of nature reclaiming and of going-on.
November 22, 2014
I'm glad I read this book.
As a fan of the post-apocalyptic genre, I felt like it was a must. Shelley didn't originate the concepts found here, but this is still arguably, the first actual post-apocalyptic novel, as such.
It was quite fascinating to see how many of the common tropes we find in so much of today's post-apocalyptic fiction are also found in this book: the urge to travel, even in the absence of a clear goal. Scavenging and exploring abandoned places. Hordes of those willing to victimize the unwary. Religious cults with a dark edge. The list could go on...
However, I have to say - normally, I am passionately opposed to any kind of bowdlerization or abridgement of any artistic work. BUT - I have never encountered another work which could so clearly have benefited from the ruthless work of a zealous editor.
This is touted as a book about a plague which lays waste to the earth. There is not even a passing mention of a plague until 37% of the way through the [extremely long] book. The entirety of the first part of the book is a dull pastoral drama which slowly introduces the characters and their romantic complications and woes. Note the emphasis on the pastoral. It's classically Romantic, bucolic idealism - with a bit of politics thrown in. I felt like I was reading about what the characters in a Maxfield Parrish painting do when they're not posing...
Although I found this part of the book frankly boring, in some ways it was definitely the best-written part of the work. It has the best character development and interactions. The characters are apparently based on Shelley herself and her close friends (the Romantic circle including her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, &c.), which generated interest in the book both at its time of publication and among Victorianists today.
In parts 2 and 3, the plague finally kicks in and some action starts happening. However, the narration style becomes very removed and distancing. It's all 'telling' not 'showing.' There's pretty much no dialogue. Although there are some quite interesting contents, actually getting through the pages was an effort.
Below, I've put in links to some contemporary reviews of 'The Last Man' which I found highly entertaining. [Incidentally, they also serve as a good reminder to some of today's more sensitive authors that scathing reviews full of personal attacks are nothing new in publishing.] I neither agree with nor condone the blatant sexism in some of Shelley's contemporaries' critiques, however, some of their complaints are all too valid.
One thing I was willing to give the author a 'pass' on was her utter failure to predict what the 21st century might actually be like. (The lifestyle of her characters feels more medieval than modern, in many ways). I found it interesting that even the reviewers of 1826 noted that the book lacked a sense of futuristic modernity.
They also noted the oddness - [and, to my view, inutility and lopsidedness] of the 'Sibylline' framing device.
But most of all - they noted the unnecessary bloatedness of the language used [The style is nothing like that of 'Frankenstein' - I would never have identified it as the same author had I not known that both books came from the same pen.]:
"But the pages in the work, of which this can be said, are comparatively few:--ornament, ornament, ornament, glittering conceit and spangled metaphor, heaped together without order, till meaning is lost in the glare of affected brilliancy, is the vice of these pages, the prevailing vice of the prose, and the poetry--of all that is called the amusive, and ought to be elegant literature of the day. Metaphors are not used to minister to compression, or enforce by vivid illustration; but to dilate sentences into pages, or substitute shewy verbiage for ideas."
http://www.rc.umd.edu/reference/chron...
The Panoramic Miscellany, or Monthly Magazine and Review of Literature, Sciences, Arts, Inventions, and Occurences,1 (March 1826): 380-386.
Review of The Last Man (1826)
http://www.rc.umd.edu/reference/chron...
http://www.rc.umd.edu/reference/chron...
As a fan of the post-apocalyptic genre, I felt like it was a must. Shelley didn't originate the concepts found here, but this is still arguably, the first actual post-apocalyptic novel, as such.
It was quite fascinating to see how many of the common tropes we find in so much of today's post-apocalyptic fiction are also found in this book: the urge to travel, even in the absence of a clear goal. Scavenging and exploring abandoned places. Hordes of those willing to victimize the unwary. Religious cults with a dark edge. The list could go on...
However, I have to say - normally, I am passionately opposed to any kind of bowdlerization or abridgement of any artistic work. BUT - I have never encountered another work which could so clearly have benefited from the ruthless work of a zealous editor.
This is touted as a book about a plague which lays waste to the earth. There is not even a passing mention of a plague until 37% of the way through the [extremely long] book. The entirety of the first part of the book is a dull pastoral drama which slowly introduces the characters and their romantic complications and woes. Note the emphasis on the pastoral. It's classically Romantic, bucolic idealism - with a bit of politics thrown in. I felt like I was reading about what the characters in a Maxfield Parrish painting do when they're not posing...
Although I found this part of the book frankly boring, in some ways it was definitely the best-written part of the work. It has the best character development and interactions. The characters are apparently based on Shelley herself and her close friends (the Romantic circle including her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, &c.), which generated interest in the book both at its time of publication and among Victorianists today.
In parts 2 and 3, the plague finally kicks in and some action starts happening. However, the narration style becomes very removed and distancing. It's all 'telling' not 'showing.' There's pretty much no dialogue. Although there are some quite interesting contents, actually getting through the pages was an effort.
Below, I've put in links to some contemporary reviews of 'The Last Man' which I found highly entertaining. [Incidentally, they also serve as a good reminder to some of today's more sensitive authors that scathing reviews full of personal attacks are nothing new in publishing.] I neither agree with nor condone the blatant sexism in some of Shelley's contemporaries' critiques, however, some of their complaints are all too valid.
One thing I was willing to give the author a 'pass' on was her utter failure to predict what the 21st century might actually be like. (The lifestyle of her characters feels more medieval than modern, in many ways). I found it interesting that even the reviewers of 1826 noted that the book lacked a sense of futuristic modernity.
They also noted the oddness - [and, to my view, inutility and lopsidedness] of the 'Sibylline' framing device.
But most of all - they noted the unnecessary bloatedness of the language used [The style is nothing like that of 'Frankenstein' - I would never have identified it as the same author had I not known that both books came from the same pen.]:
"But the pages in the work, of which this can be said, are comparatively few:--ornament, ornament, ornament, glittering conceit and spangled metaphor, heaped together without order, till meaning is lost in the glare of affected brilliancy, is the vice of these pages, the prevailing vice of the prose, and the poetry--of all that is called the amusive, and ought to be elegant literature of the day. Metaphors are not used to minister to compression, or enforce by vivid illustration; but to dilate sentences into pages, or substitute shewy verbiage for ideas."
http://www.rc.umd.edu/reference/chron...
The Panoramic Miscellany, or Monthly Magazine and Review of Literature, Sciences, Arts, Inventions, and Occurences,1 (March 1826): 380-386.
Review of The Last Man (1826)
http://www.rc.umd.edu/reference/chron...
http://www.rc.umd.edu/reference/chron...
March 12, 2013
Shelley's apocalypse
13 December 2013
Being a lover of older books and science-fiction when I discover a book that is in effect both I become really interested, so when I discovered that Mary Shelley (of Frankenstein fame) wrote a book about the last man left alive on Earth (or as she puts it in her book the LAST MAN), I was immediately interested, so instead of attempting to troll through the chain store bookstores here in Australia (which generally consists of Dymoks, now that Borders has effectively gone, and all of the other bookshops simply sell rubbish that you read once and then toss – not that I am in favour of book burning, but these books are the types of books that simply take up space on an overcrowded bookshelf) I jumped onto Amazon and ordered it (along with a bunch of other stuff, but now that the Australian government is doing is damndest to undermine the strength of the Australian dollar, that is going to be an unlikely event in the future).
Anyway, when I started reading this book I found that it was pretty slow going, and because I did not want to waste my overseas holiday earlier this year reading a boring and dull book, I put it away to go back to it again later. Granted, this book does start off really slow, but when you hit part two it really begins to pick up.
The book is set three hundred years in the future (at least from Shelley's perspective, though it is only a hundred years from ours) though the thing that I noticed was that technology had not effectively advanced that much. While Shelley did not have much to work from with regards to speculative science-fiction (this only started to occur with Verne and Wells) one would have expected that there was a suggestion that people were not running around in horses and carriages. However, as I have suggested, the concept of speculative science-fiction was still at least fifty years off, so one cannot blame Shelley for not creating a more futuristic like world (and in any case, it was not her intention to write a speculative piece). However, the story begins with a political crisis in England (actually it begins with the narrator being found wondering around as a man beast and being brought back to civilisation) where there is a push for the abdication of the king and a movement to a parliamentary democracy. This occurs at the end of book one, and book two begins with the former king and the narrator going on a European holiday and ending up in Greece.
This is interesting because at the time of writing the Greeks had just won the a war of independence (with a lot of help from the likes of Lord Bryon and the British) but there was still a large Turkish influence in the land. The story fast forwards to the future where the protagonists join the ongoing struggle where the Turks have been completely removed from Greece and they are laying siege to Istanbul, and this is where things begin to pick up, because while the Turks are pretty much defeated, out of the ashes of Istanbul comes this disease which spreads out from the ruins of this great city to begin to envelope the world. The rest of the book has the protagonist watch as the disease begins to decimate the civilised world and as one by one everybody close to him begins to die eventually leaving him left as the LAST MAN left on Earth.
The Last Man is a somewhat dark, yet poetic, book, and Shelley does drop in numerous lines from poets throughout the ages (something that is generally not done anymore, but then again the writers back then wrote for the sake or writing rather than writing simply for money – Shelley did not really have a need for money). If you look at the Wikipedia page on this book you will see that the main characters all relate to people that Shelley knows, and it is suggested (quite strongly in fact) that the book is written after all of her friends had died effectively leaving her alone in the world.
Loneliness is a funny thing because you can be surrounded by people yet feel utterly alone, and this is the feeling I get from Shelley, being the last of her peer group to survive (and since she was a woman, and back in those days women were not supposed to write because that was a male domain, it must have been very lonely for her). I guess this is one of the curses of old age in that as we watch the people that we know and have known for a while begin to die we lose part of ourself because at that age, while we can still make new friends, the thing that a new friend does not have is the time spent with our old friends, the influence that we have had on each other, and the connections that a lifetime of friendship has created. I know that I have friends which simply cannot be replicated by a new person because that past simply does not exist. This is much more truer when it comes to family because, once again, there is an aspect of the relationship that simply cannot be replicated. Every relationship is different, in fact every relationship is unique because there are things and events that cannot be replicated (for instance if you go to the 2010 Stereosonic Music Festival with a friend, no other friend is going to have the same experience, and the same relationship, that you had with this friend at the 2010 Stereosonic Music Festival).
The last thing I wish to note is that as I read this book I felt that there was a lot of Day of the Triffids here. Obviously Shelley did not base her book on that book (since it was written about 150 years after) but I suspect that John Wyndham had been influenced somewhat by Shelley. Shelley is pretty much famous for Frankenstein, however it is clear that she wrote much more than just that one book. While we may consider Jules Verne to be the father of Science-fiction, we can go further back and consider Shelley to be its mother (though this is not the first apocalyptic story written, because St John wrote one 1800 years earlier called the Book of Revelation).
13 December 2013
Being a lover of older books and science-fiction when I discover a book that is in effect both I become really interested, so when I discovered that Mary Shelley (of Frankenstein fame) wrote a book about the last man left alive on Earth (or as she puts it in her book the LAST MAN), I was immediately interested, so instead of attempting to troll through the chain store bookstores here in Australia (which generally consists of Dymoks, now that Borders has effectively gone, and all of the other bookshops simply sell rubbish that you read once and then toss – not that I am in favour of book burning, but these books are the types of books that simply take up space on an overcrowded bookshelf) I jumped onto Amazon and ordered it (along with a bunch of other stuff, but now that the Australian government is doing is damndest to undermine the strength of the Australian dollar, that is going to be an unlikely event in the future).
Anyway, when I started reading this book I found that it was pretty slow going, and because I did not want to waste my overseas holiday earlier this year reading a boring and dull book, I put it away to go back to it again later. Granted, this book does start off really slow, but when you hit part two it really begins to pick up.
The book is set three hundred years in the future (at least from Shelley's perspective, though it is only a hundred years from ours) though the thing that I noticed was that technology had not effectively advanced that much. While Shelley did not have much to work from with regards to speculative science-fiction (this only started to occur with Verne and Wells) one would have expected that there was a suggestion that people were not running around in horses and carriages. However, as I have suggested, the concept of speculative science-fiction was still at least fifty years off, so one cannot blame Shelley for not creating a more futuristic like world (and in any case, it was not her intention to write a speculative piece). However, the story begins with a political crisis in England (actually it begins with the narrator being found wondering around as a man beast and being brought back to civilisation) where there is a push for the abdication of the king and a movement to a parliamentary democracy. This occurs at the end of book one, and book two begins with the former king and the narrator going on a European holiday and ending up in Greece.
This is interesting because at the time of writing the Greeks had just won the a war of independence (with a lot of help from the likes of Lord Bryon and the British) but there was still a large Turkish influence in the land. The story fast forwards to the future where the protagonists join the ongoing struggle where the Turks have been completely removed from Greece and they are laying siege to Istanbul, and this is where things begin to pick up, because while the Turks are pretty much defeated, out of the ashes of Istanbul comes this disease which spreads out from the ruins of this great city to begin to envelope the world. The rest of the book has the protagonist watch as the disease begins to decimate the civilised world and as one by one everybody close to him begins to die eventually leaving him left as the LAST MAN left on Earth.
The Last Man is a somewhat dark, yet poetic, book, and Shelley does drop in numerous lines from poets throughout the ages (something that is generally not done anymore, but then again the writers back then wrote for the sake or writing rather than writing simply for money – Shelley did not really have a need for money). If you look at the Wikipedia page on this book you will see that the main characters all relate to people that Shelley knows, and it is suggested (quite strongly in fact) that the book is written after all of her friends had died effectively leaving her alone in the world.
Loneliness is a funny thing because you can be surrounded by people yet feel utterly alone, and this is the feeling I get from Shelley, being the last of her peer group to survive (and since she was a woman, and back in those days women were not supposed to write because that was a male domain, it must have been very lonely for her). I guess this is one of the curses of old age in that as we watch the people that we know and have known for a while begin to die we lose part of ourself because at that age, while we can still make new friends, the thing that a new friend does not have is the time spent with our old friends, the influence that we have had on each other, and the connections that a lifetime of friendship has created. I know that I have friends which simply cannot be replicated by a new person because that past simply does not exist. This is much more truer when it comes to family because, once again, there is an aspect of the relationship that simply cannot be replicated. Every relationship is different, in fact every relationship is unique because there are things and events that cannot be replicated (for instance if you go to the 2010 Stereosonic Music Festival with a friend, no other friend is going to have the same experience, and the same relationship, that you had with this friend at the 2010 Stereosonic Music Festival).
The last thing I wish to note is that as I read this book I felt that there was a lot of Day of the Triffids here. Obviously Shelley did not base her book on that book (since it was written about 150 years after) but I suspect that John Wyndham had been influenced somewhat by Shelley. Shelley is pretty much famous for Frankenstein, however it is clear that she wrote much more than just that one book. While we may consider Jules Verne to be the father of Science-fiction, we can go further back and consider Shelley to be its mother (though this is not the first apocalyptic story written, because St John wrote one 1800 years earlier called the Book of Revelation).
November 19, 2017
That was long! Good in places, boring in others, it wasn't really what I expected. From the author of Frankenstein: The 1818 Text & set in the end of the 21st century, I expected some SF elements, but there were none. The war is one that could have taken place any time in the prior centuries & was taking place then. While there is some travel by balloon, most is by horse. Ships still rely on sails save for a few steam powered ones. Being published in 1826, there is no knowledge of germ theory so the plague is basically the Black Plague on steroids, but she left out or skimmed over many of the most horrific parts.
Few stories could have used an editor more. If they were to make a movie of this brick, they could pack it into a 2 hour made for TV movie without much trouble. The story is worth reading, though. It gets 3 stars for in it lie the seeds for many great action, SF, apocalyptic, & post apocalyptic novels, but be warned; most are contained in the last half of the last volume. It's a long hike to get there. Although it contains spoilers, I'd highly recommend reading the Wikipedia entry on this story.
The introduction uses an interesting device for finding the story. Shelley is on vacation & finds her way into the rarely visited, scary cave of Sibyl where she finds Verney's manuscript. Edgar Rice Burroughs adored this device & used it often. He shared Shelley's theories of physiognomy which I remarked on in my recent review of The Mucker, too.
The book is broken into 3 volumes. The first is a pastoral English novel that introduces the characters in 'stunning' detail. By 'stunning', I mean that I was almost stunned into insensibility by sheer boredom. Think Pride and Prejudice on Prozac. The most redeeming features were the autobiographical (She's Verney.) & biographical references/comparisons to her circle of friends (Most especially Percy as Adrian & Byron as Raymond.) so if you're not familiar with who she was & hung out with, read her bio on Wikipedia first. These references run throughout the novel.
The second volume is about the final war between Greece & Turkey in which the plague is born, but not through any scientific artifice, just typical bad sanitation, siege, & general war. Warning, the Plague is first mentioned not long before the 40% mark - a LONG time coming, IMO. The Plague strikes the world & generally everything breaks down, but Adrian provides a shining example. There's a thread of just how good benevolent tyrants are for a nation.
The final volume was by far the best part & even that is told in a distant voice that rarely elicits much in the way of empathy. Verney tells of great emotions, but I never really felt them due to the writing style & his self-centeredness. For instance, at the end, wretched with loneliness, he finds a dog who is really happy to see him, but he doesn't mention anything about making provisions for it in his final journey. As a dog lover, that's an oversight that I can't overlook.
It's this final volume that holds the germ of so many great & popular novels that came after. Verney's access to the abandoned fruits of civilization, the dog, the False Prophet, & more were brought to life in I Am Legend & Earth Abides. Toss in zombies & you have "Dawn of the Dead". His visit to the abandoned monuments forms an iconic scene in This Immortal. The Road has the same despair & aimless wandering. (OK, the last isn't even particularly good, but it does have some popularity.)
Shelly has a real flair for description, although a grounding in the classics is required to understand many of her allusions. There I was on firm ground, but again I wish I knew Latin. I had to translate that which required searching the text copy & I don't spell Latin any better than American. It was trying at times, but generally the meaning was clear enough without translation. I see her influence here on Zelazny & this part of her style, more than anything else, gave me the ability to get through the seemingly interminable first volume.
My edition (I'll try to correct it later.) is the Librivox recording which can be found here:
https://librivox.org/the-last-man-by-...
It's 30 chapters were read by a dozen or so narrators so the quality varied, but most were quite good & all were acceptable. My appreciation to all of them. The text is available for free on Project Gutenberg in a variety of formats here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18247
Overall, I recommend this to anyone with an interest in the origins of SF who is feeling somewhat masochistic.
;)
Few stories could have used an editor more. If they were to make a movie of this brick, they could pack it into a 2 hour made for TV movie without much trouble. The story is worth reading, though. It gets 3 stars for in it lie the seeds for many great action, SF, apocalyptic, & post apocalyptic novels, but be warned; most are contained in the last half of the last volume. It's a long hike to get there. Although it contains spoilers, I'd highly recommend reading the Wikipedia entry on this story.
The introduction uses an interesting device for finding the story. Shelley is on vacation & finds her way into the rarely visited, scary cave of Sibyl where she finds Verney's manuscript. Edgar Rice Burroughs adored this device & used it often. He shared Shelley's theories of physiognomy which I remarked on in my recent review of The Mucker, too.
The book is broken into 3 volumes. The first is a pastoral English novel that introduces the characters in 'stunning' detail. By 'stunning', I mean that I was almost stunned into insensibility by sheer boredom. Think Pride and Prejudice on Prozac. The most redeeming features were the autobiographical (She's Verney.) & biographical references/comparisons to her circle of friends (Most especially Percy as Adrian & Byron as Raymond.) so if you're not familiar with who she was & hung out with, read her bio on Wikipedia first. These references run throughout the novel.
The second volume is about the final war between Greece & Turkey in which the plague is born, but not through any scientific artifice, just typical bad sanitation, siege, & general war. Warning, the Plague is first mentioned not long before the 40% mark - a LONG time coming, IMO. The Plague strikes the world & generally everything breaks down, but Adrian provides a shining example. There's a thread of just how good benevolent tyrants are for a nation.
The final volume was by far the best part & even that is told in a distant voice that rarely elicits much in the way of empathy. Verney tells of great emotions, but I never really felt them due to the writing style & his self-centeredness. For instance, at the end, wretched with loneliness, he finds a dog who is really happy to see him, but he doesn't mention anything about making provisions for it in his final journey. As a dog lover, that's an oversight that I can't overlook.
It's this final volume that holds the germ of so many great & popular novels that came after. Verney's access to the abandoned fruits of civilization, the dog, the False Prophet, & more were brought to life in I Am Legend & Earth Abides. Toss in zombies & you have "Dawn of the Dead". His visit to the abandoned monuments forms an iconic scene in This Immortal. The Road has the same despair & aimless wandering. (OK, the last isn't even particularly good, but it does have some popularity.)
Shelly has a real flair for description, although a grounding in the classics is required to understand many of her allusions. There I was on firm ground, but again I wish I knew Latin. I had to translate that which required searching the text copy & I don't spell Latin any better than American. It was trying at times, but generally the meaning was clear enough without translation. I see her influence here on Zelazny & this part of her style, more than anything else, gave me the ability to get through the seemingly interminable first volume.
My edition (I'll try to correct it later.) is the Librivox recording which can be found here:
https://librivox.org/the-last-man-by-...
It's 30 chapters were read by a dozen or so narrators so the quality varied, but most were quite good & all were acceptable. My appreciation to all of them. The text is available for free on Project Gutenberg in a variety of formats here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18247
Overall, I recommend this to anyone with an interest in the origins of SF who is feeling somewhat masochistic.
;)
July 18, 2012
Every once in a while in my reading life I’ve come across a book that has taken me completely by surprise—one that forces me to inhale deeply at the end and then, exhaling, utter an overwhelmed “Wow.”
“The Last Man” is such a book for me.
Despite my love of Mary Shelley’s great “Frankenstein,” I went into “The Last Man” without much hope, based on its relative obscurity as well as some of the slams it has received right here on Goodreads. Yet I was awed by the power of this story. It’s true that if today’s readers go into it expecting, say, “I Am Legend” or “The Stand,” they’re going to be disappointed (just as readers expecting the fast pacing and graphic violence of contemporary horror novels are invariably disappointed by “Frankenstein”). “The Last Man,” set in the late 21st century, is a long novel, and in some ways it’s unfair to characterize it simply as “apocalyptic,” though it is certainly that. Shelley spends the entire first volume of this 1826 triple decker on developing her characters: the narrator, Lionel Verney; his sister, Perdita; Adrian, the Earl of Windsor, who rejects the machinations of his mother in trying to secure for him the British throne; and Raymond, who eventually becomes Lord Protector of England in its new, republican form of government. Readers complain about this first part of the novel, but for anyone accustomed to the fiction of the period, it all reads just fine; my interest held firmly throughout the entirety of the first volume, even though the coming plague is never mentioned.
In Part 2, events grow darker. The plague begins to receive glancing, foreboding references, and by the halfway point, the devastation has reached England. Suffice it to say that things go downhill from there.
Part 3, the section that even people who dislike the novel as a whole are willing to praise, is indeed magnificent, as the human race begins to die out. Any number of indelible images arise in this section, and the final pages of the novel are both unbearably sad and unforgettably beautiful—writing as powerful as the hallucinatory final chapters of “Frankenstein.”
Does the novel have flaws? Yes. Some of the characters (not all, as a few reviewers claim) are flat, the dialogue is often impossibly literary, and there are occasional jumps of logic or credibility in the development of the plot. (All of these problems, it should be pointed out, are also present in “Frankenstein.”) Yet, at least for me, they detract little from the sweeping grandeur and tragic power of “The Last Man.” To think that this book was published in 1826 is simply mind-boggling, and perhaps its failure at the time shouldn’t be a surprise. (It received extremely harsh reviews, one critic referring to the author’s “diseased imagination”; despite this, it remained one of Shelley’s favorites among her own works). “The Last Man” quickly fell out of print, and would not be rediscovered until the Cold War era of the 1960s, when no one could any longer dismiss as “diseased” its horrifying images of the end of humanity.
“The Last Man” is an astonishing novel, one that deserves to be far better known than it is.
“The Last Man” is such a book for me.
Despite my love of Mary Shelley’s great “Frankenstein,” I went into “The Last Man” without much hope, based on its relative obscurity as well as some of the slams it has received right here on Goodreads. Yet I was awed by the power of this story. It’s true that if today’s readers go into it expecting, say, “I Am Legend” or “The Stand,” they’re going to be disappointed (just as readers expecting the fast pacing and graphic violence of contemporary horror novels are invariably disappointed by “Frankenstein”). “The Last Man,” set in the late 21st century, is a long novel, and in some ways it’s unfair to characterize it simply as “apocalyptic,” though it is certainly that. Shelley spends the entire first volume of this 1826 triple decker on developing her characters: the narrator, Lionel Verney; his sister, Perdita; Adrian, the Earl of Windsor, who rejects the machinations of his mother in trying to secure for him the British throne; and Raymond, who eventually becomes Lord Protector of England in its new, republican form of government. Readers complain about this first part of the novel, but for anyone accustomed to the fiction of the period, it all reads just fine; my interest held firmly throughout the entirety of the first volume, even though the coming plague is never mentioned.
In Part 2, events grow darker. The plague begins to receive glancing, foreboding references, and by the halfway point, the devastation has reached England. Suffice it to say that things go downhill from there.
Part 3, the section that even people who dislike the novel as a whole are willing to praise, is indeed magnificent, as the human race begins to die out. Any number of indelible images arise in this section, and the final pages of the novel are both unbearably sad and unforgettably beautiful—writing as powerful as the hallucinatory final chapters of “Frankenstein.”
Does the novel have flaws? Yes. Some of the characters (not all, as a few reviewers claim) are flat, the dialogue is often impossibly literary, and there are occasional jumps of logic or credibility in the development of the plot. (All of these problems, it should be pointed out, are also present in “Frankenstein.”) Yet, at least for me, they detract little from the sweeping grandeur and tragic power of “The Last Man.” To think that this book was published in 1826 is simply mind-boggling, and perhaps its failure at the time shouldn’t be a surprise. (It received extremely harsh reviews, one critic referring to the author’s “diseased imagination”; despite this, it remained one of Shelley’s favorites among her own works). “The Last Man” quickly fell out of print, and would not be rediscovered until the Cold War era of the 1960s, when no one could any longer dismiss as “diseased” its horrifying images of the end of humanity.
“The Last Man” is an astonishing novel, one that deserves to be far better known than it is.
February 26, 2020
Gorgeous. I liked this one even more than Frankenstein, which is one of my favourite books. It's strange that this book is so often referred to as science fiction. The only scifi aspect is that it takes place in the future—fortunately for us because, as the title portends, the human species is wiped out at the end of the twenty-first century when a plague devastates our planet.
The Last Man was published in 1856 and it reads as if it is taking place in 1800s. That gets a bit confusing at times, when we are suddenly reminded that it's supposed to be the end of the twenty-first century. Well, there is a brief flight in a hot-air balloon, which was still a new form of human transport when Shelley wrote The Last Man, but nothing else in the novel is especially modern or reflects how things have changed since the nineteenth century. There are no cars, planes, or even steamships. No electricity, radios, televisions, computers, internet, or modern medicine. Shelley did not have a Wellsian vision for her book; in fact, it's not even as modern as Frankenstein. I am not entirely sure, therefore, why she chose to set her book in the late twenty-first century; there's no attempt to introduce a futuristic setting or props or to speculate on what might change in the forthcoming two centuries from when she was writing. Nevertheless, that's a minor point because guess what doesn't change? Us. She knew that because she was a genius.
What I love about this book is that it is philosophical, poetic, and deeply tender. It's a Gothic romance on a grand scale. Shelley allows her main character, Lionel Verney, to tell his story slowly and beautifully, staying focused on the thoughts and feelings he experiences as humanity faces its extinction. Normally, I don't like dystopian fiction; but MWS, just like her husband, was a devoted humanist. She had a tragic life herself and both her love and loss shine through—talk about making the most of your misfortunes. Even in the worst of all possible events, she gives Lionel some little hope to cling to, some small reason to carry on. She believes, ultimately, that love and virtue are possible in the human spirit, and worth fighting for even if we fail.
I suppose what I also love is that I adore the Shelleys and they are here, written into this fiction. So much of their own life story is present in the deep love, the sorrows, the high ideals, and even the loss of their own children, and Percy's drowning in Italy. It's very obvious that Lionel is based on Mary Shelley herself, Adrian (Lionel's best friend) on Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Raymond (another great friend and hero of the Greeks) on Lord Byron. I won't go into details about that but if you've read any of their biographies, you will see this right away.
Once I got to the last third of The Last Man, I found I could not put it down, so continued reading all night. I highly recommend, but not if you have no taste for Gothic literature written with a poetic turn, and books that unwind slowly but with great care.
The Last Man was published in 1856 and it reads as if it is taking place in 1800s. That gets a bit confusing at times, when we are suddenly reminded that it's supposed to be the end of the twenty-first century. Well, there is a brief flight in a hot-air balloon, which was still a new form of human transport when Shelley wrote The Last Man, but nothing else in the novel is especially modern or reflects how things have changed since the nineteenth century. There are no cars, planes, or even steamships. No electricity, radios, televisions, computers, internet, or modern medicine. Shelley did not have a Wellsian vision for her book; in fact, it's not even as modern as Frankenstein. I am not entirely sure, therefore, why she chose to set her book in the late twenty-first century; there's no attempt to introduce a futuristic setting or props or to speculate on what might change in the forthcoming two centuries from when she was writing. Nevertheless, that's a minor point because guess what doesn't change? Us. She knew that because she was a genius.
What I love about this book is that it is philosophical, poetic, and deeply tender. It's a Gothic romance on a grand scale. Shelley allows her main character, Lionel Verney, to tell his story slowly and beautifully, staying focused on the thoughts and feelings he experiences as humanity faces its extinction. Normally, I don't like dystopian fiction; but MWS, just like her husband, was a devoted humanist. She had a tragic life herself and both her love and loss shine through—talk about making the most of your misfortunes. Even in the worst of all possible events, she gives Lionel some little hope to cling to, some small reason to carry on. She believes, ultimately, that love and virtue are possible in the human spirit, and worth fighting for even if we fail.
I suppose what I also love is that I adore the Shelleys and they are here, written into this fiction. So much of their own life story is present in the deep love, the sorrows, the high ideals, and even the loss of their own children, and Percy's drowning in Italy. It's very obvious that Lionel is based on Mary Shelley herself, Adrian (Lionel's best friend) on Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Raymond (another great friend and hero of the Greeks) on Lord Byron. I won't go into details about that but if you've read any of their biographies, you will see this right away.
Once I got to the last third of The Last Man, I found I could not put it down, so continued reading all night. I highly recommend, but not if you have no taste for Gothic literature written with a poetic turn, and books that unwind slowly but with great care.
October 20, 2018
"One word, in truth, had alarmed her more than battles or sieges, during which she trusted Raymond’s high command would exempt him from danger. That word, as yet it was not more to her, was PLAGUE. This enemy to the human race had begun early in June to raise its serpent-head on the shores of the Nile; parts of Asia, not usually subject to this evil, were infected. It was in Constantinople; but as each year that city experienced a like visitation, small attention was paid to those accounts which declared more people to have died there already, than usually made up the accustomed prey of the whole of the hotter months."
There are spoilers ahead.
I don’t know what I expected from the book, but from rather early on it was very clear that Shelley wrote a novel as means to mainly immortalise her group of friends – specifically her husband and Byron.
Both had died only shortly before she wrote the book and for the most part the book actually reads like a tribute to them. She captured Percy in the figure of Adrian, who would become leader of the people and try and valiantly save them from the plague, but ultimately fails and dies.
Lord Byron, a larger than life character, has been split over several characters.
There are numerous references to he groups travels in Italy, Greece, and to Lake Geneva, which will be familiar to anyone who’s read the story about how Shelley created her main work, Frankenstein.
While I truly did appreciate Shelley’s effort to commemorate her family and friends, it did nothing to help work out a plot to the story. The story itself is simple: the main character feels alone in the world and becomes a bit of a grump. Then he meets a some new friends who transform his life. A plague breaks out. Everyone dies…except for the main character.
However, all of this is stretched over nearly 500 pages and most of those are about the main character remembering the greatness of his friends and how empty his life is without them.
In short, this was a 479-pages-long eulogy.
And yet, I really wanted to finish it. I wanted to know how it ends. This was not because I was interested in the story itself of the specific main character, but because it became clear that this book actually was Shelley trying to work through her grief and through a period of depression – and I really felt sore for her.
There are paragraphs where the main character’s and Shelley’s pain literally drips off the page. There are pages where suicide is considered … and in the end dismissed. I had lost interest in the story pretty early on, but the author’s mental journey was as fascinating as it was depressing as she embodied herself in the main character. Shelley herself is The Last Man.
Also, Shelley was a progressive badass! Much of the story is based on the monarchy being abolished and England becoming a republic. Let’s just remember that this was published in 1826. The height of Empire!
Oh, and if you don’t mind the sloooooooooooow plot development and you’re into depressing books that ooze with lush Gothic atmosphere. This book has it all.
"It was a melancholy thing to return to this spot so dear to us, as the scene of a happiness rarely before enjoyed, here to mark the extinction of our species, and trace the deep inerasable footsteps of disease over the fertile and cherished soil. The aspect of the country had so far changed, that it had been impossible to enter on the task of sowing seed, and other autumnal labours. That season was now gone; and winter had set in with sudden and unusual severity."
Previous reading updates:
Halloween Bingo – Genre: Horror
I only have 3 books left to read (plus one in progress that I need to finish) for Halloween Bingo, so I’m going to take some time and figure out which ones will be next.
I’m going to pick Mary Shelley’s The Last Manfor Genre: Horror because I am all horrored-out at this point, and need something that is more Goth than Gore.
I’m also super intrigued by a post-apocalyptic sci-fi novel written by Shelley in 1826. I mean, she’s not the first author that immediately comes to mind when thinking about post-apocalyptic sci-fi.
Bring it, Mary!
I’ll be listening to The Last Man mostly on my commute next week.
Reading progress update: I’ve read 34 out of 479 pages.
"The ex-queen of England had, even during infancy, endeavoured to implant daring and ambitious designs in the mind of her son. She saw that he was endowed with genius and surpassing talent; these she cultivated for the sake of afterwards using them for the furtherance of her own views. She encouraged his craving for knowledge and his impetuous courage; she even tolerated his tameless love of freedom, under the hope that this would, as is too often the case, lead to a passion for command. She endeavoured to bring him up in a sense of resentment towards, and a desire to revenge himself upon, those who had been instrumental in bringing about his father’s abdication. In this she did not succeed."
Oooh, … how seditious!
Let’s see where Mrs Shelley is going to take us. 😀
The writing has been easy to follow so far, much clearer than what I remember the writing in Frankenstein to have been (even tho I adore Frankenstein).
With her proposing the idea of the abolishment of the monarchy in favour of a republic, I can see that the novel may not have been popular at the time of its publication in 1826.
I keep forgetting how progressive Mary Shelley was.
Reading progress update: I’ve read 118 out of 479 pages.
"Pride and tenderness now struggled, and at length made a compromise together. She would see Raymond, since destiny had led him to her, and her constancy and devotion must merit his friendship. But her rights with regard to him, and her cherished independence, should not be injured by the idea of interest, or the intervention of the complicated feelings attendant on pecuniary obligation, and the relative situations of the benefactor, and benefited. Her mind was of uncommon strength; she could subdue her sensible wants to her mental wishes, and suffer cold, hunger and misery, rather than concede to fortune a contested point. Alas! that in human nature such a pitch of mental discipline, and disdainful negligence of nature itself, should not have been allied to the extreme of moral excellence!"
Some lady – Evadne (probably a personification of either any classical goddess or a symbol for about every woman who’s ever met Byron) pining for Raymond, a.k.a. Byron.
While the condensed story of the Shelley-Byron Set is fascinating for its time, the drawn out description that Shelley gives of their relationships – as portrayed through the characters of this book – can only have been interesting for Shelley herself, and maybe for some of her close friends.
I get that she wrote this as part of dealing with the grief of loss over the deaths of both Shelley and Byron, I really do, but there are limits to my interest in the group when it comes to looking for a plot / storyline in this book.
Bring on the damn plague!
Reading progress update: I’ve read 171 out of 479 pages.
Ah, the apocalypse has started:
"One word, in truth, had alarmed her more than battles or sieges, during which she trusted Raymond’s high command would exempt him from danger. That word, as yet it was not more to her, was PLAGUE. This enemy to the human race had begun early in June to raise its serpent-head on the shores of the Nile; parts of Asia, not usually subject to this evil, were infected. It was in Constantinople; but as each year that city experienced a like visitation, small attention was paid to those accounts which declared more people to have died there already, than usually made up the accustomed prey of the whole of the hotter months."
Finally.
Reading progress update: I’ve read 203 out of 479 pages.
While there are lots of interesting angles to the story, and the history of the story, riveting it is not.
There are spoilers ahead.
I don’t know what I expected from the book, but from rather early on it was very clear that Shelley wrote a novel as means to mainly immortalise her group of friends – specifically her husband and Byron.
Both had died only shortly before she wrote the book and for the most part the book actually reads like a tribute to them. She captured Percy in the figure of Adrian, who would become leader of the people and try and valiantly save them from the plague, but ultimately fails and dies.
Lord Byron, a larger than life character, has been split over several characters.
There are numerous references to he groups travels in Italy, Greece, and to Lake Geneva, which will be familiar to anyone who’s read the story about how Shelley created her main work, Frankenstein.
While I truly did appreciate Shelley’s effort to commemorate her family and friends, it did nothing to help work out a plot to the story. The story itself is simple: the main character feels alone in the world and becomes a bit of a grump. Then he meets a some new friends who transform his life. A plague breaks out. Everyone dies…except for the main character.
However, all of this is stretched over nearly 500 pages and most of those are about the main character remembering the greatness of his friends and how empty his life is without them.
In short, this was a 479-pages-long eulogy.
And yet, I really wanted to finish it. I wanted to know how it ends. This was not because I was interested in the story itself of the specific main character, but because it became clear that this book actually was Shelley trying to work through her grief and through a period of depression – and I really felt sore for her.
There are paragraphs where the main character’s and Shelley’s pain literally drips off the page. There are pages where suicide is considered … and in the end dismissed. I had lost interest in the story pretty early on, but the author’s mental journey was as fascinating as it was depressing as she embodied herself in the main character. Shelley herself is The Last Man.
Also, Shelley was a progressive badass! Much of the story is based on the monarchy being abolished and England becoming a republic. Let’s just remember that this was published in 1826. The height of Empire!
Oh, and if you don’t mind the sloooooooooooow plot development and you’re into depressing books that ooze with lush Gothic atmosphere. This book has it all.
"It was a melancholy thing to return to this spot so dear to us, as the scene of a happiness rarely before enjoyed, here to mark the extinction of our species, and trace the deep inerasable footsteps of disease over the fertile and cherished soil. The aspect of the country had so far changed, that it had been impossible to enter on the task of sowing seed, and other autumnal labours. That season was now gone; and winter had set in with sudden and unusual severity."
Previous reading updates:
Halloween Bingo – Genre: Horror
I only have 3 books left to read (plus one in progress that I need to finish) for Halloween Bingo, so I’m going to take some time and figure out which ones will be next.
I’m going to pick Mary Shelley’s The Last Manfor Genre: Horror because I am all horrored-out at this point, and need something that is more Goth than Gore.
I’m also super intrigued by a post-apocalyptic sci-fi novel written by Shelley in 1826. I mean, she’s not the first author that immediately comes to mind when thinking about post-apocalyptic sci-fi.
Bring it, Mary!
I’ll be listening to The Last Man mostly on my commute next week.
Reading progress update: I’ve read 34 out of 479 pages.
"The ex-queen of England had, even during infancy, endeavoured to implant daring and ambitious designs in the mind of her son. She saw that he was endowed with genius and surpassing talent; these she cultivated for the sake of afterwards using them for the furtherance of her own views. She encouraged his craving for knowledge and his impetuous courage; she even tolerated his tameless love of freedom, under the hope that this would, as is too often the case, lead to a passion for command. She endeavoured to bring him up in a sense of resentment towards, and a desire to revenge himself upon, those who had been instrumental in bringing about his father’s abdication. In this she did not succeed."
Oooh, … how seditious!
Let’s see where Mrs Shelley is going to take us. 😀
The writing has been easy to follow so far, much clearer than what I remember the writing in Frankenstein to have been (even tho I adore Frankenstein).
With her proposing the idea of the abolishment of the monarchy in favour of a republic, I can see that the novel may not have been popular at the time of its publication in 1826.
I keep forgetting how progressive Mary Shelley was.
Reading progress update: I’ve read 118 out of 479 pages.
"Pride and tenderness now struggled, and at length made a compromise together. She would see Raymond, since destiny had led him to her, and her constancy and devotion must merit his friendship. But her rights with regard to him, and her cherished independence, should not be injured by the idea of interest, or the intervention of the complicated feelings attendant on pecuniary obligation, and the relative situations of the benefactor, and benefited. Her mind was of uncommon strength; she could subdue her sensible wants to her mental wishes, and suffer cold, hunger and misery, rather than concede to fortune a contested point. Alas! that in human nature such a pitch of mental discipline, and disdainful negligence of nature itself, should not have been allied to the extreme of moral excellence!"
Some lady – Evadne (probably a personification of either any classical goddess or a symbol for about every woman who’s ever met Byron) pining for Raymond, a.k.a. Byron.
While the condensed story of the Shelley-Byron Set is fascinating for its time, the drawn out description that Shelley gives of their relationships – as portrayed through the characters of this book – can only have been interesting for Shelley herself, and maybe for some of her close friends.
I get that she wrote this as part of dealing with the grief of loss over the deaths of both Shelley and Byron, I really do, but there are limits to my interest in the group when it comes to looking for a plot / storyline in this book.
Bring on the damn plague!
Reading progress update: I’ve read 171 out of 479 pages.
Ah, the apocalypse has started:
"One word, in truth, had alarmed her more than battles or sieges, during which she trusted Raymond’s high command would exempt him from danger. That word, as yet it was not more to her, was PLAGUE. This enemy to the human race had begun early in June to raise its serpent-head on the shores of the Nile; parts of Asia, not usually subject to this evil, were infected. It was in Constantinople; but as each year that city experienced a like visitation, small attention was paid to those accounts which declared more people to have died there already, than usually made up the accustomed prey of the whole of the hotter months."
Finally.
Reading progress update: I’ve read 203 out of 479 pages.
While there are lots of interesting angles to the story, and the history of the story, riveting it is not.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 24, 2023
Cuando decidi realizar a lo largo del 2023 el #retopiaspirit de la cuenta @victorianspiritblog el primer libro que tuve claro fue “El Último Hombre”, una de las obras más conocidas de Mary Shelley. Independientemente de que me hubiera decido a hacer un reto que consistía en leer libros de temática distópica, en 2023 hubiera acabado leyendo esta novela. Llevaba muchos años detrás de ella, era un libro al que tenía muchas ganas, no sabéis cuanto. “Frankenstein es una de mis novelas favoritas, y siempre que la he leído me ha emocionado tanto como la primera vez. Y la otra obra que leído de la autora “Mathilda” también me gustó mucho en su momento. No tanto como su trabajo más popular, pero es una novela que merece mucho la pena de ser leída aunque solo sea por su historia.
A finales del siglo XXI Inglaterra se ha convertido en una república parlamentaria, aboliéndose la monarquía. El hijo de un noble caído en desgracia, Lionel Verney, se ha criado como un pastor, convirtiéndose en un joven inculto, hosco, misántropo y delictivo. Todo cambiara cuando conozca al hijo del rey destronado, Adrian. Bajo su influencia, Lionel se convertirá en un hombre educado, sensible y sabio. Gracias a su amistad y al amor de la hermana de Adrian, la principesca Idris, Lionel encontrara la paz y la tranquilidad hogareñas. Sin embargo, su felicidad quedará irremediablemente destrozada cuando una terrible plaga se extiende por todo el mundo, acabando paulatinamente con toda la humanidad, implacable incluso con todos aquellos que son importantes para nuestro protagonista…
Publicada en 1826 y considerada como la primera novela de corte apocalíptico y el inicio del género distópico, “El Último Hombre” es un trabajo que no puede entenderse sin comprenderse el contexto personal en el que Mary Shelley estaba envuelta durante el tiempo de su composición y publicación. Estas circunstancias ayudan a entender muchas de las cosas que leemos en estas páginas y a contextualizar muchas de las desventuras de Lionel Verney.
Y es que en ese 1826 nos encontramos con el periodo probablemente más oscuro de la dificultosa vida de Mary Shelley. En 1822 había perdido a su esposo, el poeta Percy Bysshe Shelley, quien murió ahogado en el Golfo de La Spezia. Las finanzas nunca fueron el fuerte del poeta, quien dejó a su viuda en una situación económicamente precaria y con un hijo al cargo. Este niño, Percy Florence Shelley , fue el único que sobrevivió de los cuatro que la pareja tuvo, siendo las muertes de sus tres hermanos mayores una de las grandes desgracias de la vida de Mary. A todo esto se le sumaba la pérdida del círculo de amigos íntimos que rodeaba a la pareja en sus primeros años. Algunos de sus integrantes simplemente se marcharon para hacer sus vidas, como fue el caso de Claire, hermanastra de Mary y compañera del matrimonio en sus peregrinajes por Europa (y cuya relación con Percy ha hecho correr ríos de tinta a lo largo de los siglos). Y otros fallecieron, como fue el caso del polémico y famoso Lord Byron, víctima de la sepsis y la enfermedad mientras luchaba por la independencia de Grecia.
Para poder mantener a su hijo, Mary, que en ese entonces tenía veintinueve años, se vio obligada a aceptar la ayuda monetaria de su suegro, bajo la condición de no escribir ni publicar nada sobre su difunto marido. Para poder sortear esta censura patriarcal, nuestra autora se valió de varias triquiñuelas. Una de ellas fue dedicarse simplemente a editar todos los escritos que Percy Shelley había dejado escritos antes de morir. Y otra fue crear obras de ficción que contuvieran componentes y personajes biográficos, camuflar de irrealidad su realidad y sus recuerdos, usar la ciencia ficción para hablar de su situación. Algo que con dieciocho años ya hizo con “Frankenstein”. Y eso es “El Último Hombre”, el lamento de un cisne solitario y desgraciado en un mundo en el que todo apoyo y amistad le faltan. Así muchos de sus conocidos vuelven a resurgir a través de la tinta y el papel. No es muy difícil reconocer que Lord Byron es la influencia detrás del carismático y aguerrido personaje de Raymond, el noble ambicioso y apasionado que cuando el amor le aleja del trono, busca la gloria y la fama en la independencia griega. En el triángulo amoroso que este conforma con su esposa Perdita, hermana del protagonista, y la princesa griega Evadne, uno puede encontrar los resonantes ecos de un posible (los estudiosos no están de acuerdo de si esto se dió o no) menage a trois que Mary se vio obligada a personificar junto a Shelley y la antes mentada hermanastra Claire. Hay algo poderosa y conmovedoramente resonante y cercano en como la autora nos habla de como esta circunstancia pudo afectarle cuando es Perdita quien habla del tema. El culmen de la tragedia de Lionel, las escenas finales de la novela y la materialización de su soledad, tienen lugar en Italia un país queda a la vez el paraíso y el infierno para Mary, pues fue ahí donde fue más feliz, pero también donde vio morir a su esposo y a sus hijos. Y, por supuesto, el inteligente, sensible, capaz y bondadoso Adrian es un trasunto idealizado del añorado Percy Shelley, resucitado, como héroe romántico que se trasciende así mismo, cuando trata de ayudar a la humanidad en sus horas más bajas.
En la Inglaterra de ese entonces se creía que era el hombre quien gobernaba a la naturaleza, quien controlaba el universo que le rodeaba. Siendo dios quien controlaba los destinos de los hombres. Pero en esta novela, Mary Shelley nos habla como la naturaleza y el destino se convierten en los grandes enemigos de la humanidad, hasta acabar con ella después de destrozarla sin ningún tipo de miramientos. Resulta muy novedosa para ese momento esta perspectiva apocalíptica que la autora idea en este libro por esto, como habla de que, al final, el hombre no es capaz de controlar muchas de las cosas que le rodean. Hace más interesante como todos los escenarios de este libro representan de alguna forma toda la pena y el sufrimiento que Mary padecía mientras lo escribía. Hay que estar muy deprimido y triste para recrear algunas de las escenas que jalonan esta obra tan desoladora. Desde luego, aunque estemos hablando de un libro escrito en el siglo XVIII, pero ambientado en el XXI, no deja de ser un hijo de su tiempo y de la época en que fue creada. El lector no puede dejar de percatarse que a la autora no le interesa tanto recrear un hipotético futuro como usar esa ambientación para hablar de cuestiones que la preocupaban o interesaban tanto a nivel personal como a nivel social. Todos los tópicos y toda la ideología de la época están perfectamente perfilados dentro de la trama y de la forma de pensar y comportarse de los personajes. Es cierto que a lo largo del libro Mary Shelley coloca algunos elementos que tratan de adelantarse a un posible futuro, como es el uso de globos para transportarse de un sitio a otro por el aire, o la ya citada República inglesa. Pero aparte de eso, uno nunca deja de sentirse ubicado en la época en la que la obra fue escrita mientras la lee. Y sinceramente no creo que Mary quisiera ir mucho más allá. Para ella, la ambientación es solo una excusa con la que busca alejar de su propio contexto, todo lo que realmente quiere decir. Y para mi en eso radica la gran originalidad de “El Último Hombre” como libro, en como de su vida Mary Shelley saca el material para idear una de las obras pioneras de la ciencia ficción y sentar las bases del genero.
A todas las plagas y enfermedades que nos encontramos a lo largo y ancho de la obra se le une un fino tratado sobre la política de la Inglaterra del siglo XVIII, con una critica hacia la estratificación social y hacia ese terremoto que fue la Revolución Francesa y sus consecuencias, la cual, curiosamente, fue defendida y alabada por los padres de la propia Mary Shelley, Edward Goodwin y Mary Wollstonecraft. Todo esto es tratado desde el prisma del romanticismo en el que la propia Mary, sus familiares y amigos estuvieron inscritos. Sin embargo, es aquí donde podemos ver el desencanto de la autora, que critica duramente estos ideales, demuestra lo insuficientes y patéticos que pueden resultar cuando la dura y cruel realidad es la que se impone y gana la partida. La plaga representa como el propio romanticismo acaba siendo infectado por los intereses humanos y políticos. Un romanticismo que no puede ocultar lo lúgubre de la realidad cuando ésta llega. Y esto puede verse en la primera parte, en la que la independencia de Grecia y la lucha de los griegos, por dejar de ser parte del imperio otomano, son los grandes protagonistas. Este conflicto llamó mucho la atención de los Románticos, quienes abogaban por la identidad cultural de todos los pueblos y la libertad. Lord Byron no fue el único europeo que se trasladó a las islas para luchar contra el titán otomano, enamorados del valor de los habitantes de un país que alimentaba sus fantasías con su rica historia y cultura. Pero incluso este conflicto ;considerado como una empresa noble, justa y valiente, a semejanza de las gestas realizadas por los grandes héroes de la mitología clásica) es representado por Mary desde un prisma muy melancólico que demuestra su absoluto desencanto con el movimiento y sus ideales. La guerra, se haga por lo que se haga, es un sinsentido que siga vidas, que priva al mundo de grandes personajes, que destroza familias y trae mucho dolor. La niña ha crecido a golpe de desgracias, ya no encuentra consuelo en los ideales que una vez la movieron. De la misma manera en que el grupo que conforman sus protagonistas se ven obligados a despertar del mundo idílico que han creado a su alrededor cuando la plaga llama a sus puertas. Lo cual no significa que formalmente esta estética siga presente en la obra. Un par de muestras: Lionel Verney pasa de ser un delincuente a convertirse en un ilustrado gracias al poder de la educación y la benevolencia. Y en el prólogo dos personas visitan la cueva de la Sibila, desde la cual Eneas bajó a los infiernos según Virgilio. Al aventurarse dentro de ella es cuando encuentran una sala oculta durante siglos, dentro de la que hayan un manuscrito donde está escrita la propia historia que nos ocupa. Una historia dentro de la historia con todos los ingredientes románticos por antonomasia bien colocados.
Centrándonos en lo meramente literario me toca ser sincera: la verdad es que, a pocas horas de haberlo terminado, no tengo muy claro si me ha gustado o no. Ha sido una lectura para nada amena o ligera, pero si muy tensa y difícil de hacer. Ha habido algunos momentos en los que, sinceramente, me ha subido bastante. Y alguna que otra vez aparcarla por el momento, que nunca abandonarlo. Ya os he dicho que era una lectura a la que tenía muchas ganas es que hacía tiempo, pero creo que ni circunstancias personales no han ayudado a que la disfrute como sinceramente creo que se merece. No tengo ahora mismo en la cabeza para obras demasiado complejas, y esta lo es pese a la sencillez aparente de su argumento. Una sencillez engañosa, porque una vez que te sumerges en ella, ve que la autora hace que todo sea bastante complejo. En “El Último Hombre” se tratan muchas cuestiones aunque no te des cuenta hasta que las tienes delante. Mary Shelley tiene una prosa muy bonita y poética, muy pulida y con un ritmo narrativo bastante plácido. Incide mucho en el mundo interior de sus personajes, en su psicología y, sobre todo, en su estado emocional. De ahí que uno sienta, mientras le que todo va a paso de tortuga, y que se sorprenda al echar la vista atrás al ver la cantidad de cosas que pasan en cien páginas. Todo eso se ve especialmente con su narrador , Lionel, quien escribe la historia de su vida y en recordar como se convirtió en el último hombre vivo sobre la tierra. La autora y el personaje se recrean al hablar de todas sus penurias, de todas las desgracias que azotan a Lionel y a sus familiares y amigos. Hay una atmósfera mórbida y masoquista en todo el texto, una especie de placer melancólico, en revolcarse de alguna manera en el sufrimiento psicológico y las desgracias que prácticamente en toda la obra.
Desde luego, no estamos ante una crónica amena, sino que es muy melancólica y dramática. De ahí que se me haya hecho, a nivel personal, muy pesada de leer. Aunque el título no me ha llevado en ningún momento a engaños, a veces me daba la impresión de que la autora ideaba personajes con el único fin de que tuvieran finales impactantes y tristes, si bien la mayoría de ellos sí que tienen su impacto dentro de la narración. Y lo mismo puede decirse de muchos de los hechos que se dan a lo largo de la historia. Además, para mí ha pesado mucho que al principio de la novela se metiera todo lo relacionado con Raymond, Perdita y la lucha por la independencia de Grecia. Siento que todo eso, no tenía ningún sentido, aparte de ser un canto al héroe perdido (Lord Byron) y ser usado a modo de introducción de los personajes y del contexto familiar histórico del protagonista y como recurso para presentarnos la plaga. Siento que esa introducción podría haberse hecho de una forma más amena y sin meter tanta paja. Porque para mí, sinceramente la novela empieza a despegar a partir de su segunda parte, cuando la fatal plaga empieza hacer su aparición y sus estragos. Es ahí cuando la Shelley deja muy claro porque se la considera la madre de la ciencia ficción. Muchas de sus escenas apocalípticas te ponen los pelos de punta y resultan angustiosas de leer. La autora deja ahí claro lo buena que es escribiendo, al recrear una atmósfera de desgaste emocional y muerte que envuelven totalmente al lector, al demostrar al ser humano en sus horas más bajas con todo lujo de escabrosos detalles y con un gama cromática en la que los colores más dramáticos lucen llenos de todo tipo de matices.
He visto que en varias ediciones de la obra se usa como ilustración de portada uno de los cuadros más paradigmáticos del romanticismo, “El Caminante Sobre un Mar de Nubes” de Caspar David Friedrich. Es un cuadro que todos hemos visto en algún momento: un hombre de espaldas al espectador que se encuentra en lo alto de una cumbre, a cuyos pies se extiende un paisaje rocoso envuelto en nubes y nieblas. Una figura oscura que se recorta en en un escenario, solitario, gris y enorme. La imagen definitiva de la soledad, del hombre, sin más compañía que sí mismo. Esa escena también aparece al principio de la edición que yo he manejado de “El Último Hombre”, sacada por el sello RBA dentro de su colección “Maestros de lo Fantástico”. Y no creo que sea una asociación gratuita. “El Caminante Sobre un Mar de Nubes” tiene algo que nos habla del hombre contra el mundo y los elementos, que se mantiene imperrito frente a la soledad más absoluta. Justo a lo que se ve abocado fatalmente Lionel Verney, el último hombre sobre la tierra. Pero incluso en toda la desolación, que es la biografía del protagonista, y en todo el dolor que Mary Shelley usa como combustible para su creación, hay un rayo de esperanza. Las últimas páginas nos hablan de una nueva aventura que se extiende a los pies del personaje, que se niega a creer en todo el globo, no haya ninguna otra persona, viva de la necesidad imperiosa del ser humano, de relacionarse y de tener gente a la que querer. Esa es la esencia de la humanidad y de este libro, el tratar de salir de la tristeza, de encontrar otra vez la felicidad y la esperanza. Un anhelo que, ni la más eficiente de las angustias puede ocupar un rayo de sol que se escapa de las sombras toda esta composición. Y eso da un pequeño, pero melancólico, mensaje de esperanza de cara al futuro, tanto para la creación como para su madre. Quizás no haya sido lo que me esperaba, pero no se puede negar que su lectura tiene algo fascinante que atrapa lectores. Y pese a los desafiante, que puede ser a veces, hace imposible que se pueda dejar de leer hasta su final.
A finales del siglo XXI Inglaterra se ha convertido en una república parlamentaria, aboliéndose la monarquía. El hijo de un noble caído en desgracia, Lionel Verney, se ha criado como un pastor, convirtiéndose en un joven inculto, hosco, misántropo y delictivo. Todo cambiara cuando conozca al hijo del rey destronado, Adrian. Bajo su influencia, Lionel se convertirá en un hombre educado, sensible y sabio. Gracias a su amistad y al amor de la hermana de Adrian, la principesca Idris, Lionel encontrara la paz y la tranquilidad hogareñas. Sin embargo, su felicidad quedará irremediablemente destrozada cuando una terrible plaga se extiende por todo el mundo, acabando paulatinamente con toda la humanidad, implacable incluso con todos aquellos que son importantes para nuestro protagonista…
Publicada en 1826 y considerada como la primera novela de corte apocalíptico y el inicio del género distópico, “El Último Hombre” es un trabajo que no puede entenderse sin comprenderse el contexto personal en el que Mary Shelley estaba envuelta durante el tiempo de su composición y publicación. Estas circunstancias ayudan a entender muchas de las cosas que leemos en estas páginas y a contextualizar muchas de las desventuras de Lionel Verney.
Y es que en ese 1826 nos encontramos con el periodo probablemente más oscuro de la dificultosa vida de Mary Shelley. En 1822 había perdido a su esposo, el poeta Percy Bysshe Shelley, quien murió ahogado en el Golfo de La Spezia. Las finanzas nunca fueron el fuerte del poeta, quien dejó a su viuda en una situación económicamente precaria y con un hijo al cargo. Este niño, Percy Florence Shelley , fue el único que sobrevivió de los cuatro que la pareja tuvo, siendo las muertes de sus tres hermanos mayores una de las grandes desgracias de la vida de Mary. A todo esto se le sumaba la pérdida del círculo de amigos íntimos que rodeaba a la pareja en sus primeros años. Algunos de sus integrantes simplemente se marcharon para hacer sus vidas, como fue el caso de Claire, hermanastra de Mary y compañera del matrimonio en sus peregrinajes por Europa (y cuya relación con Percy ha hecho correr ríos de tinta a lo largo de los siglos). Y otros fallecieron, como fue el caso del polémico y famoso Lord Byron, víctima de la sepsis y la enfermedad mientras luchaba por la independencia de Grecia.
Para poder mantener a su hijo, Mary, que en ese entonces tenía veintinueve años, se vio obligada a aceptar la ayuda monetaria de su suegro, bajo la condición de no escribir ni publicar nada sobre su difunto marido. Para poder sortear esta censura patriarcal, nuestra autora se valió de varias triquiñuelas. Una de ellas fue dedicarse simplemente a editar todos los escritos que Percy Shelley había dejado escritos antes de morir. Y otra fue crear obras de ficción que contuvieran componentes y personajes biográficos, camuflar de irrealidad su realidad y sus recuerdos, usar la ciencia ficción para hablar de su situación. Algo que con dieciocho años ya hizo con “Frankenstein”. Y eso es “El Último Hombre”, el lamento de un cisne solitario y desgraciado en un mundo en el que todo apoyo y amistad le faltan. Así muchos de sus conocidos vuelven a resurgir a través de la tinta y el papel. No es muy difícil reconocer que Lord Byron es la influencia detrás del carismático y aguerrido personaje de Raymond, el noble ambicioso y apasionado que cuando el amor le aleja del trono, busca la gloria y la fama en la independencia griega. En el triángulo amoroso que este conforma con su esposa Perdita, hermana del protagonista, y la princesa griega Evadne, uno puede encontrar los resonantes ecos de un posible (los estudiosos no están de acuerdo de si esto se dió o no) menage a trois que Mary se vio obligada a personificar junto a Shelley y la antes mentada hermanastra Claire. Hay algo poderosa y conmovedoramente resonante y cercano en como la autora nos habla de como esta circunstancia pudo afectarle cuando es Perdita quien habla del tema. El culmen de la tragedia de Lionel, las escenas finales de la novela y la materialización de su soledad, tienen lugar en Italia un país queda a la vez el paraíso y el infierno para Mary, pues fue ahí donde fue más feliz, pero también donde vio morir a su esposo y a sus hijos. Y, por supuesto, el inteligente, sensible, capaz y bondadoso Adrian es un trasunto idealizado del añorado Percy Shelley, resucitado, como héroe romántico que se trasciende así mismo, cuando trata de ayudar a la humanidad en sus horas más bajas.
En la Inglaterra de ese entonces se creía que era el hombre quien gobernaba a la naturaleza, quien controlaba el universo que le rodeaba. Siendo dios quien controlaba los destinos de los hombres. Pero en esta novela, Mary Shelley nos habla como la naturaleza y el destino se convierten en los grandes enemigos de la humanidad, hasta acabar con ella después de destrozarla sin ningún tipo de miramientos. Resulta muy novedosa para ese momento esta perspectiva apocalíptica que la autora idea en este libro por esto, como habla de que, al final, el hombre no es capaz de controlar muchas de las cosas que le rodean. Hace más interesante como todos los escenarios de este libro representan de alguna forma toda la pena y el sufrimiento que Mary padecía mientras lo escribía. Hay que estar muy deprimido y triste para recrear algunas de las escenas que jalonan esta obra tan desoladora. Desde luego, aunque estemos hablando de un libro escrito en el siglo XVIII, pero ambientado en el XXI, no deja de ser un hijo de su tiempo y de la época en que fue creada. El lector no puede dejar de percatarse que a la autora no le interesa tanto recrear un hipotético futuro como usar esa ambientación para hablar de cuestiones que la preocupaban o interesaban tanto a nivel personal como a nivel social. Todos los tópicos y toda la ideología de la época están perfectamente perfilados dentro de la trama y de la forma de pensar y comportarse de los personajes. Es cierto que a lo largo del libro Mary Shelley coloca algunos elementos que tratan de adelantarse a un posible futuro, como es el uso de globos para transportarse de un sitio a otro por el aire, o la ya citada República inglesa. Pero aparte de eso, uno nunca deja de sentirse ubicado en la época en la que la obra fue escrita mientras la lee. Y sinceramente no creo que Mary quisiera ir mucho más allá. Para ella, la ambientación es solo una excusa con la que busca alejar de su propio contexto, todo lo que realmente quiere decir. Y para mi en eso radica la gran originalidad de “El Último Hombre” como libro, en como de su vida Mary Shelley saca el material para idear una de las obras pioneras de la ciencia ficción y sentar las bases del genero.
A todas las plagas y enfermedades que nos encontramos a lo largo y ancho de la obra se le une un fino tratado sobre la política de la Inglaterra del siglo XVIII, con una critica hacia la estratificación social y hacia ese terremoto que fue la Revolución Francesa y sus consecuencias, la cual, curiosamente, fue defendida y alabada por los padres de la propia Mary Shelley, Edward Goodwin y Mary Wollstonecraft. Todo esto es tratado desde el prisma del romanticismo en el que la propia Mary, sus familiares y amigos estuvieron inscritos. Sin embargo, es aquí donde podemos ver el desencanto de la autora, que critica duramente estos ideales, demuestra lo insuficientes y patéticos que pueden resultar cuando la dura y cruel realidad es la que se impone y gana la partida. La plaga representa como el propio romanticismo acaba siendo infectado por los intereses humanos y políticos. Un romanticismo que no puede ocultar lo lúgubre de la realidad cuando ésta llega. Y esto puede verse en la primera parte, en la que la independencia de Grecia y la lucha de los griegos, por dejar de ser parte del imperio otomano, son los grandes protagonistas. Este conflicto llamó mucho la atención de los Románticos, quienes abogaban por la identidad cultural de todos los pueblos y la libertad. Lord Byron no fue el único europeo que se trasladó a las islas para luchar contra el titán otomano, enamorados del valor de los habitantes de un país que alimentaba sus fantasías con su rica historia y cultura. Pero incluso este conflicto ;considerado como una empresa noble, justa y valiente, a semejanza de las gestas realizadas por los grandes héroes de la mitología clásica) es representado por Mary desde un prisma muy melancólico que demuestra su absoluto desencanto con el movimiento y sus ideales. La guerra, se haga por lo que se haga, es un sinsentido que siga vidas, que priva al mundo de grandes personajes, que destroza familias y trae mucho dolor. La niña ha crecido a golpe de desgracias, ya no encuentra consuelo en los ideales que una vez la movieron. De la misma manera en que el grupo que conforman sus protagonistas se ven obligados a despertar del mundo idílico que han creado a su alrededor cuando la plaga llama a sus puertas. Lo cual no significa que formalmente esta estética siga presente en la obra. Un par de muestras: Lionel Verney pasa de ser un delincuente a convertirse en un ilustrado gracias al poder de la educación y la benevolencia. Y en el prólogo dos personas visitan la cueva de la Sibila, desde la cual Eneas bajó a los infiernos según Virgilio. Al aventurarse dentro de ella es cuando encuentran una sala oculta durante siglos, dentro de la que hayan un manuscrito donde está escrita la propia historia que nos ocupa. Una historia dentro de la historia con todos los ingredientes románticos por antonomasia bien colocados.
Centrándonos en lo meramente literario me toca ser sincera: la verdad es que, a pocas horas de haberlo terminado, no tengo muy claro si me ha gustado o no. Ha sido una lectura para nada amena o ligera, pero si muy tensa y difícil de hacer. Ha habido algunos momentos en los que, sinceramente, me ha subido bastante. Y alguna que otra vez aparcarla por el momento, que nunca abandonarlo. Ya os he dicho que era una lectura a la que tenía muchas ganas es que hacía tiempo, pero creo que ni circunstancias personales no han ayudado a que la disfrute como sinceramente creo que se merece. No tengo ahora mismo en la cabeza para obras demasiado complejas, y esta lo es pese a la sencillez aparente de su argumento. Una sencillez engañosa, porque una vez que te sumerges en ella, ve que la autora hace que todo sea bastante complejo. En “El Último Hombre” se tratan muchas cuestiones aunque no te des cuenta hasta que las tienes delante. Mary Shelley tiene una prosa muy bonita y poética, muy pulida y con un ritmo narrativo bastante plácido. Incide mucho en el mundo interior de sus personajes, en su psicología y, sobre todo, en su estado emocional. De ahí que uno sienta, mientras le que todo va a paso de tortuga, y que se sorprenda al echar la vista atrás al ver la cantidad de cosas que pasan en cien páginas. Todo eso se ve especialmente con su narrador , Lionel, quien escribe la historia de su vida y en recordar como se convirtió en el último hombre vivo sobre la tierra. La autora y el personaje se recrean al hablar de todas sus penurias, de todas las desgracias que azotan a Lionel y a sus familiares y amigos. Hay una atmósfera mórbida y masoquista en todo el texto, una especie de placer melancólico, en revolcarse de alguna manera en el sufrimiento psicológico y las desgracias que prácticamente en toda la obra.
Desde luego, no estamos ante una crónica amena, sino que es muy melancólica y dramática. De ahí que se me haya hecho, a nivel personal, muy pesada de leer. Aunque el título no me ha llevado en ningún momento a engaños, a veces me daba la impresión de que la autora ideaba personajes con el único fin de que tuvieran finales impactantes y tristes, si bien la mayoría de ellos sí que tienen su impacto dentro de la narración. Y lo mismo puede decirse de muchos de los hechos que se dan a lo largo de la historia. Además, para mí ha pesado mucho que al principio de la novela se metiera todo lo relacionado con Raymond, Perdita y la lucha por la independencia de Grecia. Siento que todo eso, no tenía ningún sentido, aparte de ser un canto al héroe perdido (Lord Byron) y ser usado a modo de introducción de los personajes y del contexto familiar histórico del protagonista y como recurso para presentarnos la plaga. Siento que esa introducción podría haberse hecho de una forma más amena y sin meter tanta paja. Porque para mí, sinceramente la novela empieza a despegar a partir de su segunda parte, cuando la fatal plaga empieza hacer su aparición y sus estragos. Es ahí cuando la Shelley deja muy claro porque se la considera la madre de la ciencia ficción. Muchas de sus escenas apocalípticas te ponen los pelos de punta y resultan angustiosas de leer. La autora deja ahí claro lo buena que es escribiendo, al recrear una atmósfera de desgaste emocional y muerte que envuelven totalmente al lector, al demostrar al ser humano en sus horas más bajas con todo lujo de escabrosos detalles y con un gama cromática en la que los colores más dramáticos lucen llenos de todo tipo de matices.
He visto que en varias ediciones de la obra se usa como ilustración de portada uno de los cuadros más paradigmáticos del romanticismo, “El Caminante Sobre un Mar de Nubes” de Caspar David Friedrich. Es un cuadro que todos hemos visto en algún momento: un hombre de espaldas al espectador que se encuentra en lo alto de una cumbre, a cuyos pies se extiende un paisaje rocoso envuelto en nubes y nieblas. Una figura oscura que se recorta en en un escenario, solitario, gris y enorme. La imagen definitiva de la soledad, del hombre, sin más compañía que sí mismo. Esa escena también aparece al principio de la edición que yo he manejado de “El Último Hombre”, sacada por el sello RBA dentro de su colección “Maestros de lo Fantástico”. Y no creo que sea una asociación gratuita. “El Caminante Sobre un Mar de Nubes” tiene algo que nos habla del hombre contra el mundo y los elementos, que se mantiene imperrito frente a la soledad más absoluta. Justo a lo que se ve abocado fatalmente Lionel Verney, el último hombre sobre la tierra. Pero incluso en toda la desolación, que es la biografía del protagonista, y en todo el dolor que Mary Shelley usa como combustible para su creación, hay un rayo de esperanza. Las últimas páginas nos hablan de una nueva aventura que se extiende a los pies del personaje, que se niega a creer en todo el globo, no haya ninguna otra persona, viva de la necesidad imperiosa del ser humano, de relacionarse y de tener gente a la que querer. Esa es la esencia de la humanidad y de este libro, el tratar de salir de la tristeza, de encontrar otra vez la felicidad y la esperanza. Un anhelo que, ni la más eficiente de las angustias puede ocupar un rayo de sol que se escapa de las sombras toda esta composición. Y eso da un pequeño, pero melancólico, mensaje de esperanza de cara al futuro, tanto para la creación como para su madre. Quizás no haya sido lo que me esperaba, pero no se puede negar que su lectura tiene algo fascinante que atrapa lectores. Y pese a los desafiante, que puede ser a veces, hace imposible que se pueda dejar de leer hasta su final.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 11, 2021
I had wanted to read this after learning about it in an introduction to another Shelley book that I read last year, a collection of short stories.
I kept myself from reading one GR friend's two star review of the book so that I would not see the spoilers. When I started reading, a member of one of my groups mentioned trying to read the same book and having to give up after 100 pages.
Well, I got myself through three chapters, skimming the last one. I do not know how close that is to 100 pages, but it is enough to know I cannot face any more.
I may be missing something fantastic that might turn up later, but I don't really care. I have seldom been so bored with a tale or uninterested in finding out what happened. The best part was the author's introduction where she pretends to have found the manuscript written on leaves inside a cave.
Perhaps she should have left it there.
DNF.
I kept myself from reading one GR friend's two star review of the book so that I would not see the spoilers. When I started reading, a member of one of my groups mentioned trying to read the same book and having to give up after 100 pages.
Well, I got myself through three chapters, skimming the last one. I do not know how close that is to 100 pages, but it is enough to know I cannot face any more.
I may be missing something fantastic that might turn up later, but I don't really care. I have seldom been so bored with a tale or uninterested in finding out what happened. The best part was the author's introduction where she pretends to have found the manuscript written on leaves inside a cave.
Perhaps she should have left it there.
DNF.
March 8, 2011
Oh Mary Shelley, really...is this the best you could do? Honestly, it should probably get a 1-star because I had to force myself to finish it. I continued with this torture because was hoping you would redeem yourself and make this book become at least remotely interesting in the end. But you didn't. You failed.
This is a novel of "the last man", who becomes the only survivor of a future plague. The story actually starts with an introduction by you, Mary Shelley, stating that you found a collection of "prophetic" writings in the cave of the Sybil in Naples in 1818, and the story that follows in based on these writings. So, I was with you to this point, Mary. I thought, "Interesting idea! I can go with this." But then your story starts.
The main thing I have to say about your story is...BORING! Really, Mary, it is incredibly, horribly, boring. You get stuck in a vicious cycle of trying to write poetic, wordsy descriptions for every event, person, or scene, and it all just turns into mindless babble that goes nowhere. Absolutely nowhere. In fact, nothing really happens in this story until two-thirds of the way in!
Also, Mary, do you really have no creative ideas at all for what life might be like in the year 2100, the year this story is set? I know you lived in the 1800's, Mary, but really, could you not at least TRY to imagine a life 300 years in the future that did not involve only horseback riding, and sailing on boats? There is NO technology in this book. None. You failed here, Mary. You needed to use your imagination. Try to think of some advances that might take place in the future. Anything. You were not expected to get it right, you were just expected to try. But as you wrote it, these characters are living identically to how you lived in the 1800's. You get an F for creative thinking, Mary.
So, all in all, you basically failed. And I see on Wikipedia that you later spoke of The Last Man as being one of your favourite works. Really, Mary? You think this was great writing? I should give you a 1-star just for that opinion you have of yourself, but since I am trying to be fair, I will give you a 2-star, but will call it a D-. You really could have done so much better, and I am very disappointed in you on this one.
This is a novel of "the last man", who becomes the only survivor of a future plague. The story actually starts with an introduction by you, Mary Shelley, stating that you found a collection of "prophetic" writings in the cave of the Sybil in Naples in 1818, and the story that follows in based on these writings. So, I was with you to this point, Mary. I thought, "Interesting idea! I can go with this." But then your story starts.
The main thing I have to say about your story is...BORING! Really, Mary, it is incredibly, horribly, boring. You get stuck in a vicious cycle of trying to write poetic, wordsy descriptions for every event, person, or scene, and it all just turns into mindless babble that goes nowhere. Absolutely nowhere. In fact, nothing really happens in this story until two-thirds of the way in!
Also, Mary, do you really have no creative ideas at all for what life might be like in the year 2100, the year this story is set? I know you lived in the 1800's, Mary, but really, could you not at least TRY to imagine a life 300 years in the future that did not involve only horseback riding, and sailing on boats? There is NO technology in this book. None. You failed here, Mary. You needed to use your imagination. Try to think of some advances that might take place in the future. Anything. You were not expected to get it right, you were just expected to try. But as you wrote it, these characters are living identically to how you lived in the 1800's. You get an F for creative thinking, Mary.
So, all in all, you basically failed. And I see on Wikipedia that you later spoke of The Last Man as being one of your favourite works. Really, Mary? You think this was great writing? I should give you a 1-star just for that opinion you have of yourself, but since I am trying to be fair, I will give you a 2-star, but will call it a D-. You really could have done so much better, and I am very disappointed in you on this one.
February 29, 2008
Oh, The Last Man! One of the (many)books perpetually on my re-read list.
This later work from Shelly shows her talent as a mature innovative writer and secures a literary legacy outside of her husband's shadow. Written four years after Percy's death and some ten years after the publication of Frankenstein, Shelly weaves a fantastic version of the end of the world in the year 2100. Told from the perspective of the only survivor of a devastating plague that snuffs out humanity, the story subtly incorporates elements of proto-science fiction and horror. While still writing in the Romantic style, Shelly envisions dystopic 21st century life through the interesting lens of 19th century technology. Her narrator's world is also populated by figures clearly inspired by Shelly's own - the Byronic Raymond and Perdita, the stand-in for Shelly's stepsister Claire.
But aside from the novel being delightful and arguably obscure entertainment for the Romantic literature aficionado, it is the foundation of English Sci-Fi from H.G. Wells to Arthur C. Clarke, not to mention such works as The Stand by Stephen King and I am Legend by Richard Matheson. If you've liked any of the recent apocalyptic movies like 28 Days Later, Children of Men, and the Resident Evil trilogy, do yourself a favor and read this book.
This later work from Shelly shows her talent as a mature innovative writer and secures a literary legacy outside of her husband's shadow. Written four years after Percy's death and some ten years after the publication of Frankenstein, Shelly weaves a fantastic version of the end of the world in the year 2100. Told from the perspective of the only survivor of a devastating plague that snuffs out humanity, the story subtly incorporates elements of proto-science fiction and horror. While still writing in the Romantic style, Shelly envisions dystopic 21st century life through the interesting lens of 19th century technology. Her narrator's world is also populated by figures clearly inspired by Shelly's own - the Byronic Raymond and Perdita, the stand-in for Shelly's stepsister Claire.
But aside from the novel being delightful and arguably obscure entertainment for the Romantic literature aficionado, it is the foundation of English Sci-Fi from H.G. Wells to Arthur C. Clarke, not to mention such works as The Stand by Stephen King and I am Legend by Richard Matheson. If you've liked any of the recent apocalyptic movies like 28 Days Later, Children of Men, and the Resident Evil trilogy, do yourself a favor and read this book.
November 5, 2021
ppl seem to be disappointed that it’s not frankenstein but like… it’s not meant to be frankenstein that’s ok.
they were written in completely different circumstances in shelley’s life representing different emotions
the plot of the last man isn’t anywhere near as strong as frankenstein but it is so poignant, especially the many autobiographical elements
they were written in completely different circumstances in shelley’s life representing different emotions
the plot of the last man isn’t anywhere near as strong as frankenstein but it is so poignant, especially the many autobiographical elements
September 4, 2022
THE LAST MAN staggered my mind. It doesn't take the place of FRANKENSTEIN as my favorite of the writer's works, but ... Wow!
The book consists of an Introduction and three Volumes of ten chapters each. To be completely honest, while I was reading the Introduction, I had serious doubts as to whether or not I would continue with the book. It sets up a very convoluted premise as to how we are able to read a book now that will be written far into the future. However, I stayed the course, and am very pleased that I did so.
The events in the Volumes mainly occur very late in the 21st century. The problem with this is that the writer's imagination still has the characters living with the same values and lifestyles of the traditional Romantic period. I didn't expect solar-powered air cars, but I did expect more than horses and carriages (although there is a balloon trip). Considering that THE LAST MAN was published in 1826, I would have thought Shelley would have imagined something more novel for Readers of the day.
Of course, much like FRANKENSTEIN, the writer has more on her mind than only telling a whopping good story. She had very strong political views as a reformist, and she embraced feminism (which provides very strong and memorable female characters). I still recall reading a book describing her boycott of sugar because of the conditions workers in Jamaica were forced to endure to produce it.
I, like many Readers, undoubtedly came to THE LAST MAN because of the world's experiences with the COVID pandemic. The book escalates real life plague conditions into a devastating scythe cutting through human life everywhere. When the plague was especially virulent, it would often return in approximately 6-year cycles for a while afterward. Humanity doesn't get such a break in Shelley's book.
The first Volume sets up the political conditions and culture of the period in addition to introducing the majority of characters the Reader will follow. There are rumors of disease in parts of the world, but the focus of the English is on the war between the Turks and the Greeks. Opportunities for Enlightenment abound, but the glories of War are too appealing.
In the second Volume, the plague emerges and quickly spreads. The characters are still involved in their "normalcy bias" and resolving the issues that are the most important to them. But, before the Volume ends, the plague becomes the primary event governing all of their (now limited) lives.
The final Volume is focused on survival attempts to keep humanity going. It is a harrowing tale.
I'm sure that some Readers, picking up THE LAST MAN for an apocalyptic story, will become frustrated by the delay in "getting there." Yet, for the patient Reader, Shelley crafts very vivid characters that we care about. It makes the losses so much more than a reduction in numbers.
Also, there is an astonishing section about a sailing vessel containing some of the most beloved characters being lost in a storm. Shelley describes their fears in nerve-racking detail. But, most shocking of all are the obvious agonies of the writer describing the coping of loss. This is extremely vivid ... and it immediately brought to my mind the fact that the writer was channeling her own heart-wrenching misery of being one of the "fortunate ones" left behind. The book was published just four years after she lost her husband when he drowned in a boating incident during storm conditions. She holds nothing back. I was both mesmerized and horrified.
Particularly potent are the events that are envisioned by the title. Loneliness and isolation have created an "epidemic" of depression among a surprisingly large number of people during the COVID pandemic. And like many of the characters in this book, people in rebellion against changing their lives because of "a disease" often have more than mental issues to worry about. Shelley was obviously very familiar with isolation and loneliness, and she transplants those thoughts and the attendant reactions into the title character.
I love dialogue exchanges in stories, and THE LAST MAN is notably lacking in many dialogue passages. But, it was very much worth the read. I have a feeling that I'll be haunted by Shelley's insights for years to come.
The book consists of an Introduction and three Volumes of ten chapters each. To be completely honest, while I was reading the Introduction, I had serious doubts as to whether or not I would continue with the book. It sets up a very convoluted premise as to how we are able to read a book now that will be written far into the future. However, I stayed the course, and am very pleased that I did so.
The events in the Volumes mainly occur very late in the 21st century. The problem with this is that the writer's imagination still has the characters living with the same values and lifestyles of the traditional Romantic period. I didn't expect solar-powered air cars, but I did expect more than horses and carriages (although there is a balloon trip). Considering that THE LAST MAN was published in 1826, I would have thought Shelley would have imagined something more novel for Readers of the day.
Of course, much like FRANKENSTEIN, the writer has more on her mind than only telling a whopping good story. She had very strong political views as a reformist, and she embraced feminism (which provides very strong and memorable female characters). I still recall reading a book describing her boycott of sugar because of the conditions workers in Jamaica were forced to endure to produce it.
I, like many Readers, undoubtedly came to THE LAST MAN because of the world's experiences with the COVID pandemic. The book escalates real life plague conditions into a devastating scythe cutting through human life everywhere. When the plague was especially virulent, it would often return in approximately 6-year cycles for a while afterward. Humanity doesn't get such a break in Shelley's book.
The first Volume sets up the political conditions and culture of the period in addition to introducing the majority of characters the Reader will follow. There are rumors of disease in parts of the world, but the focus of the English is on the war between the Turks and the Greeks. Opportunities for Enlightenment abound, but the glories of War are too appealing.
In the second Volume, the plague emerges and quickly spreads. The characters are still involved in their "normalcy bias" and resolving the issues that are the most important to them. But, before the Volume ends, the plague becomes the primary event governing all of their (now limited) lives.
The final Volume is focused on survival attempts to keep humanity going. It is a harrowing tale.
I'm sure that some Readers, picking up THE LAST MAN for an apocalyptic story, will become frustrated by the delay in "getting there." Yet, for the patient Reader, Shelley crafts very vivid characters that we care about. It makes the losses so much more than a reduction in numbers.
Also, there is an astonishing section about a sailing vessel containing some of the most beloved characters being lost in a storm. Shelley describes their fears in nerve-racking detail. But, most shocking of all are the obvious agonies of the writer describing the coping of loss. This is extremely vivid ... and it immediately brought to my mind the fact that the writer was channeling her own heart-wrenching misery of being one of the "fortunate ones" left behind. The book was published just four years after she lost her husband when he drowned in a boating incident during storm conditions. She holds nothing back. I was both mesmerized and horrified.
Particularly potent are the events that are envisioned by the title. Loneliness and isolation have created an "epidemic" of depression among a surprisingly large number of people during the COVID pandemic. And like many of the characters in this book, people in rebellion against changing their lives because of "a disease" often have more than mental issues to worry about. Shelley was obviously very familiar with isolation and loneliness, and she transplants those thoughts and the attendant reactions into the title character.
I love dialogue exchanges in stories, and THE LAST MAN is notably lacking in many dialogue passages. But, it was very much worth the read. I have a feeling that I'll be haunted by Shelley's insights for years to come.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 11, 2009
Review from Badelynge
It seems like I've been reading Mary Shelley's The Last Man all year. I'm not the fastest of readers but whenever I read poetry I read even slower. The Last Man isn't poetry but it is written using poetic prose, which keeps tricking me into thinking I'm reading an epic poem. The primary characters are based on Shelley's recently deceased husband poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron and herself (although personified by the eponymous male character). The woman can write some. The novel really shines when the story finally concludes on its note of tragic isolation. Unfortunately to get to this brilliant finale of loss you have to first present fully what is being lost. Shelley spends over half of the book setting this up and it is, admittedly quite a slog. And then the plague hits. This part of the book is unrelentingly morbid in what it depicts although Shelley's writing and exploration of themes and ideas during this section are delivered with great acuity. If I'd been aware how dark much of the book was going to be after such a long set up I would probably have given the book a miss. I'm glad I read it though because the writing is so good on certain levels but it is often rather daunting in its density.
It seems like I've been reading Mary Shelley's The Last Man all year. I'm not the fastest of readers but whenever I read poetry I read even slower. The Last Man isn't poetry but it is written using poetic prose, which keeps tricking me into thinking I'm reading an epic poem. The primary characters are based on Shelley's recently deceased husband poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron and herself (although personified by the eponymous male character). The woman can write some. The novel really shines when the story finally concludes on its note of tragic isolation. Unfortunately to get to this brilliant finale of loss you have to first present fully what is being lost. Shelley spends over half of the book setting this up and it is, admittedly quite a slog. And then the plague hits. This part of the book is unrelentingly morbid in what it depicts although Shelley's writing and exploration of themes and ideas during this section are delivered with great acuity. If I'd been aware how dark much of the book was going to be after such a long set up I would probably have given the book a miss. I'm glad I read it though because the writing is so good on certain levels but it is often rather daunting in its density.
July 14, 2023
Dull, bland, and infuriatingly mediocre but the worst part is that it is way too long
This is a nearly 600-page book where the first 250 pages were character set up, filled with mostly vapid and unlikable characters with very little depth to them.
Finally, the plague is upon us, and our narrator, instead of describing the fall of mankind, spends the majority of his time waxing philosophically.
2.5/5
This is a nearly 600-page book where the first 250 pages were character set up, filled with mostly vapid and unlikable characters with very little depth to them.
Finally, the plague is upon us, and our narrator, instead of describing the fall of mankind, spends the majority of his time waxing philosophically.
2.5/5
April 3, 2017
I thought this was a fairly difficult read and not one everyone would enjoy, but I really liked it. Basically, if you like early 19th century British novels AND post-apocalyptic fiction, you should check this out.
July 24, 2023
Ерудицията и езикът на Мери Шели заслужават възхищение. Замисълът на творбата безспорно е мащабен и за времето си твърде вероятно е била „уау!“; страниците са изпълнени с философски прозрения, с пространни разсъждения върху политически, социални, религиозни теми; срещат се десетки цитати и препратки към произведения на други писатели и поети – от античността до нейното съвремие; подробните описания на различни европейски градове и географски точки пък подсказват, че авторката доволно е попътувала насам-натам. Също така лесно ще заподозрем, че създаването на този роман е нейният начин да отдаде почит към паметта на близките хора и опит да се пребори с тъгата от загубата им (книгата вижда бял свят през 1826, респективно 4 и 2 години след кончините на Пърси Биш Шели и Джордж Байрон, чиито черти без особено напъване можем да разпознаем в двама от главните персонажи).
Дотук звучи добре, ама… ама, привикналият на динамични четива съвременен човек трудно ще понесе тия 344 страници. Да не кажа, че доста често ще му се прииска да си прегризе бедрената артерия от отегчение. Защото макар да имаше моментни проблясъци и леки раздвижвания в темпото, сюжетът изначално се точеше адски мудно, а някои от потенциално интересните сцени (на два пъти аха да стане битка, но не би), бяха тотално прецакани, чрез нелогични писателски решения.
Та положението накратко беше:
От скука седем дни почти убит
я четох, щот съм тъп и упорит :)
И не на последно място, да обърна внимание на корицата на българското издание. При все че действието се развива в 21 век и има няколко глави, ситуирани в Париж, въпросната ми се струва крайно нелепа. К’ва, по ягодите, е тая килната Айфелова кула, дето няма ама нищо общо със съдържанието?!
Дотук звучи добре, ама… ама, привикналият на динамични четива съвременен човек трудно ще понесе тия 344 страници. Да не кажа, че доста често ще му се прииска да си прегризе бедрената артерия от отегчение. Защото макар да имаше моментни проблясъци и леки раздвижвания в темпото, сюжетът изначално се точеше адски мудно, а някои от потенциално интересните сцени (на два пъти аха да стане битка, но не би), бяха тотално прецакани, чрез нелогични писателски решения.
Та положението накратко беше:
От скука седем дни почти убит
я четох, щот съм тъп и упорит :)
И не на последно място, да обърна внимание на корицата на българското издание. При все че действието се развива в 21 век и има няколко глави, ситуирани в Париж, въпросната ми се струва крайно нелепа. К’ва, по ягодите, е тая килната Айфелова кула, дето няма ама нищо общо със съдържанието?!
April 22, 2020
This is one of the earliest examples of apoc/post-apoc SF from the author of . I read is as a part of monthly reading for April 2020 at The Evolution of Science Fiction group.
This long novel is a mix of a Victorian/romantic novel, disguised autobiography and proto-SF. The author assumedly finds the manuscript in the Sibyl's cave near Naples and translates it into English. The book has three volumes, each roughly a third of the story.
The first volume presents our narrator and protagonist, Lionel Verney. His father was a close friend of the king of England, but had a vice of gambling, so to honor his debts he runs to the country, where he begets two children, Lionel and his sister Perdita and dies. Soon their mother perishes as well and orphans have to enter the big world. Initially, Lionel is enraged by supposed treason of the king, who hasn’t helped his father and even attempts to have revenge on King’s son Adrian. Adrian is actually a merciful and wise boy, who turns the enmity to fierce friendship. Meanwhile on a political stage the king abdicated, his wife, Countess of Windsor and Austrian (here I see a clear dislike to “those un-British foreigners who come by marriage to our throne”) wants her son or daughter to have the throne back, and schemes with an ambitious Lord Raymond, hero of Greek war against the Ottomans. While Raymond is extremely ambitious, his love to the protagonist’s sister overcomes his desire to become a king. Raymond marries Perdita, Lionel marries king’s daughter Idris and this knits their fortunes in a single Gordian knot.
While Raymond abandoned his dreams of the crown, he becomes first Lord Protector, and later, after a (described with a lot of innuendo) infidelity with his early lover, Greek princess Evadne, Raymond drops all to go to Greece to become a modern day Alexander of Macedonia.
The second volume describes the Greek campaign and while Raymond is victorious, he losses Evadne and dies. His wife, Perdita is unable to live with that grief and kills herself. And the same time there are the rumors of the great plague. Here we finally get the year of the story, which is 2092 A.D. The plague spreads across Europe and the Americas, there are reports of a black sun, meteorites and great storms. At first England is thought to be safe, but soon the plague reaches even there.
The final volume describes the slowly dwindling group of people trying to survive the plague. Here we get usual tropes of post-apoc: crazy death cults and cruel raiders.
It is important to note that the story was written prior to the theory of microorganisms, so it is a bad wind and miasma that transfer the illness, and fresh winter air stops it.
The book is important predecessor f the genre but is rather slow for majority of modern readers. So, it is more interesting as a historic document for the aficionados of the genre than the general public.
This long novel is a mix of a Victorian/romantic novel, disguised autobiography and proto-SF. The author assumedly finds the manuscript in the Sibyl's cave near Naples and translates it into English. The book has three volumes, each roughly a third of the story.
The first volume presents our narrator and protagonist, Lionel Verney. His father was a close friend of the king of England, but had a vice of gambling, so to honor his debts he runs to the country, where he begets two children, Lionel and his sister Perdita and dies. Soon their mother perishes as well and orphans have to enter the big world. Initially, Lionel is enraged by supposed treason of the king, who hasn’t helped his father and even attempts to have revenge on King’s son Adrian. Adrian is actually a merciful and wise boy, who turns the enmity to fierce friendship. Meanwhile on a political stage the king abdicated, his wife, Countess of Windsor and Austrian (here I see a clear dislike to “those un-British foreigners who come by marriage to our throne”) wants her son or daughter to have the throne back, and schemes with an ambitious Lord Raymond, hero of Greek war against the Ottomans. While Raymond is extremely ambitious, his love to the protagonist’s sister overcomes his desire to become a king. Raymond marries Perdita, Lionel marries king’s daughter Idris and this knits their fortunes in a single Gordian knot.
While Raymond abandoned his dreams of the crown, he becomes first Lord Protector, and later, after a (described with a lot of innuendo) infidelity with his early lover, Greek princess Evadne, Raymond drops all to go to Greece to become a modern day Alexander of Macedonia.
The second volume describes the Greek campaign and while Raymond is victorious, he losses Evadne and dies. His wife, Perdita is unable to live with that grief and kills herself. And the same time there are the rumors of the great plague. Here we finally get the year of the story, which is 2092 A.D. The plague spreads across Europe and the Americas, there are reports of a black sun, meteorites and great storms. At first England is thought to be safe, but soon the plague reaches even there.
The final volume describes the slowly dwindling group of people trying to survive the plague. Here we get usual tropes of post-apoc: crazy death cults and cruel raiders.
It is important to note that the story was written prior to the theory of microorganisms, so it is a bad wind and miasma that transfer the illness, and fresh winter air stops it.
The book is important predecessor f the genre but is rather slow for majority of modern readers. So, it is more interesting as a historic document for the aficionados of the genre than the general public.
April 20, 2021
"Pestilence had become a part of our future, our existence; it was to be guarded against, like the flooding of rivers, the encroachments of ocean, or the inclemency of the sky."
Well that was a LOT... i mean the first 150-200 pages could have been cut without much loss and even when it gets to the main event so to speak, there are several sidestories which while they add a little tend to slow things down even more.
Having said that, the overall feeling of length did actualy contribute to the slow beat down of the characters in an effective way.
The style is a bit lyrical and stagey, for want of a better term a lot of stage-like speeches declaiming against the heavens sort of thing.
I vacillated as to whether to give this 3 or 4 stars but overall its worth the 4. It has some very surprising elements for its age.
Its quite an unreligious work which is pretty strange for the era and have a lot of interesting things to say about monarchy, manliness, war, relationships etc. Someone even has an affair, which is a weird subjuect to discuss for the time.
In its darker places it comes close to the Walking Dead in terms or showing the failure of human nature in a crisis, and while it always pulls back from these brinks; Shelley having a little more faith in man (or at least English Man) than a modern writer; her opinion of Nature's nature is darker.
Overall, this might actualy be a more depressing story than the Walking Dead... yeah you heard that right! :P .
This is definitely only for the patient reader who can also withstand the early 19th century vocab, but well worth it if you can make it through.
P.S: There is a LibriVox recording, its done by many different readers so a little hit and miss in terms of quality but i did find it healpful to get through an extra chapter here and there.
There are also a couple of similar books i've run into, M.P.Shiels The Purple Cloud and The Last Man by Alfred Noyes. This makes a very interesting comparison with those, especially with The Purple Cloud :lol .
Well that was a LOT... i mean the first 150-200 pages could have been cut without much loss and even when it gets to the main event so to speak, there are several sidestories which while they add a little tend to slow things down even more.
Having said that, the overall feeling of length did actualy contribute to the slow beat down of the characters in an effective way.
The style is a bit lyrical and stagey, for want of a better term a lot of stage-like speeches declaiming against the heavens sort of thing.
I vacillated as to whether to give this 3 or 4 stars but overall its worth the 4. It has some very surprising elements for its age.
Its quite an unreligious work which is pretty strange for the era and have a lot of interesting things to say about monarchy, manliness, war, relationships etc. Someone even has an affair, which is a weird subjuect to discuss for the time.
In its darker places it comes close to the Walking Dead in terms or showing the failure of human nature in a crisis, and while it always pulls back from these brinks; Shelley having a little more faith in man (or at least English Man) than a modern writer; her opinion of Nature's nature is darker.
Overall, this might actualy be a more depressing story than the Walking Dead... yeah you heard that right! :P .
This is definitely only for the patient reader who can also withstand the early 19th century vocab, but well worth it if you can make it through.
P.S: There is a LibriVox recording, its done by many different readers so a little hit and miss in terms of quality but i did find it healpful to get through an extra chapter here and there.
There are also a couple of similar books i've run into, M.P.Shiels The Purple Cloud and The Last Man by Alfred Noyes. This makes a very interesting comparison with those, especially with The Purple Cloud :lol .
November 28, 2013
Really, what happened to Mary Shelley, the amazing Sheley of frankenstein? Honestly, this book was dull as paint.
What is even more horrifying, perhaps, is the immense social conservatism and lack of inventiveness we are seeing in this bok. It's science-fiction, for heaven's sake! Shelley dealt so beautifully with the struggle of science and the scientist versus the places where one should not tamper, and the limitations of science it seems almost a godsend for a book about a plague that (spoiler, no not really) kills all of mankind. But we see neither science nor science's limitations; we just see a plague happen, people die without attempting (and failing, fine, but at least attempting) to figure it out. Perhaps science even caused this? Why not? Give us something to chew on, here.
The 21st (or is it 22nd? Does it even matter?) century looks suspiciously like the 19th. Even socially, for some reason the establishment of a republic and the dissolution of the British monarchy (oops) did not bring about the dissolution of the aristocracy - perhaps Shelley knew her Brits better than I, but it does seem like she is afraid to take a bold step. More importantly, the narrator is the "son of a gentleman" thus endowed with inherent good qualities, and the main hero of the book is, how not, none other than the last remnant of the British royal family; because, you know, a leader who came out of some factory worker's lineage or a doctor's family is utterly unthinkable. Royal blood will tell.
The book begins with a whoosh, but ends, even with the complete destruction of mankind, with a fizz. its plot is bloated by half a book not even directly relevant to the main story, descriptions through the nose, and long recitals of the virtues of the protagonists, their family, their friends, and their country. Finally, it's chock-full packed with sometimes downright insipid melodrama, which does the otherwise slow and dull plot no real favours whatsoever.
Sad that all this talent and potential came to this, and no more.
What is even more horrifying, perhaps, is the immense social conservatism and lack of inventiveness we are seeing in this bok. It's science-fiction, for heaven's sake! Shelley dealt so beautifully with the struggle of science and the scientist versus the places where one should not tamper, and the limitations of science it seems almost a godsend for a book about a plague that (spoiler, no not really) kills all of mankind. But we see neither science nor science's limitations; we just see a plague happen, people die without attempting (and failing, fine, but at least attempting) to figure it out. Perhaps science even caused this? Why not? Give us something to chew on, here.
The 21st (or is it 22nd? Does it even matter?) century looks suspiciously like the 19th. Even socially, for some reason the establishment of a republic and the dissolution of the British monarchy (oops) did not bring about the dissolution of the aristocracy - perhaps Shelley knew her Brits better than I, but it does seem like she is afraid to take a bold step. More importantly, the narrator is the "son of a gentleman" thus endowed with inherent good qualities, and the main hero of the book is, how not, none other than the last remnant of the British royal family; because, you know, a leader who came out of some factory worker's lineage or a doctor's family is utterly unthinkable. Royal blood will tell.
The book begins with a whoosh, but ends, even with the complete destruction of mankind, with a fizz. its plot is bloated by half a book not even directly relevant to the main story, descriptions through the nose, and long recitals of the virtues of the protagonists, their family, their friends, and their country. Finally, it's chock-full packed with sometimes downright insipid melodrama, which does the otherwise slow and dull plot no real favours whatsoever.
Sad that all this talent and potential came to this, and no more.
October 22, 2024
hell yeah.
“years passed on; and years only added fresh love of freedom, and contempt for all that was not as wild and rude as myself." (19)
“years passed on; and years only added fresh love of freedom, and contempt for all that was not as wild and rude as myself." (19)
November 15, 2023
A victim of its time perhaps, though I have read far more engaging fiction from the early 19th century, what is a promising concept is drowned in repetitive prose and description, a plodding plot on a scene that was a big too epic. Knowing the author's difficult life, one can't help but sympathise, but reading The Last Man was so tedious I found myself skipping forwards in the hopes of witnessing his eventually demise. Well, I won't spoil the ending for you...
May 17, 2014
It took me some while to get into ‘The Last Man’, both because of its slow start and my present preoccupation with moving house. The style throughout is extremely florid and capital-R Romantic, as you would expect from Mary Shelley. To set the scene prior to the apocalypse, however, the narrator describes in minute detail how noble, beautiful, and wonderful his friends, wife, and children are. This dominates the first 70 or so pages. There follows a war between the Greeks and Turks, concurrent with some emotional melodrama, which advances us to around page 175. Thereafter the novel really gets into its stride, because from then on the main character is Death. Mary Shelley devotes reams of voluptuous, epic description to a plague that over years wipes out the human race. She summons gorgeous metaphors and heights of emotion to convey the horror of events. Moreover, she anticipates the current fascination with post-apocalyptic ruins by repeatedly describing cities denuded of human life; London’s streets are often said to be covered in long grass, for instance.
I quite liked this book just as a novel, but it is really most interesting as a very early example of the post-apocalyptic genre that now has such great popularity. I also found it curious to contemplate Shelley’s ideas of how the UK would be in the 2080s. She thought that there would still be a quasi-feudal aristocracy, but that England would be a republic with a ‘Protector’ (title presumably borrowed from Cromwell). Somewhat sadly considering that Mary Wollstonecraft was her mother, the female characters in this book don’t get much involved in politics and are generally to be found fainting and looking after their children. Perdita and Evadne have more complex lives than just caring for others, but both are very unhappy.
Ultimately, though, the strength of the book lies not with the characters, who are largely props to contextualise the overwhelming disaster of the plague. When Shelley was writing, there was no expectation that a new plague would be cured by scientists working feverishly; in her vision of the 2080s no-one even knows how it spreads. As a meditation on death, at the individual, group, and species level, ‘The Last Man’ is powerful and in places frightening. The inevitability of humanity’s end reminded me of the much later novel On the Beach by Nevil Shute. Many passages in it demand to be declaimed and the dialogue feels akin to that of a play. For example:
If you enjoy language of that nature, you will like this novel. I am not surprised to learn that it was the first that she wrote after Percy Shelley’s death. And as ever, I advise you to read the introduction last. One notable comment in it is that the novel was badly reviewed when first published. It was rather before its time.
I quite liked this book just as a novel, but it is really most interesting as a very early example of the post-apocalyptic genre that now has such great popularity. I also found it curious to contemplate Shelley’s ideas of how the UK would be in the 2080s. She thought that there would still be a quasi-feudal aristocracy, but that England would be a republic with a ‘Protector’ (title presumably borrowed from Cromwell). Somewhat sadly considering that Mary Wollstonecraft was her mother, the female characters in this book don’t get much involved in politics and are generally to be found fainting and looking after their children. Perdita and Evadne have more complex lives than just caring for others, but both are very unhappy.
Ultimately, though, the strength of the book lies not with the characters, who are largely props to contextualise the overwhelming disaster of the plague. When Shelley was writing, there was no expectation that a new plague would be cured by scientists working feverishly; in her vision of the 2080s no-one even knows how it spreads. As a meditation on death, at the individual, group, and species level, ‘The Last Man’ is powerful and in places frightening. The inevitability of humanity’s end reminded me of the much later novel On the Beach by Nevil Shute. Many passages in it demand to be declaimed and the dialogue feels akin to that of a play. For example:
“Hear, O ye inhabitants of the earth,” he cried, “hear thou, all seeing, but most pitiless Heaven! Hear thou too, O tempest-tossed heart, which breathes out these words, yet faints beneath their meaning! Death is among us! The earth is beautiful and flower-bedecked, but she is our grave! The cloud of heaven weep for us - the pageantry of the stars is but our funeral torchlight.”
If you enjoy language of that nature, you will like this novel. I am not surprised to learn that it was the first that she wrote after Percy Shelley’s death. And as ever, I advise you to read the introduction last. One notable comment in it is that the novel was badly reviewed when first published. It was rather before its time.
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