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The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein
Peter Ackroyd’s imagination dazzles in this brilliant novel written in the voice of Victor Frankenstein himself. Mary Shelley and Shelley are characters in the novel.
It was at Oxford that I first met Bysshe. We arrived at our college on the same day; confusing to a mere foreigner, it is called University College. I had seen him from my window and had been struck by his auburn locks.
The long-haired poet — “Mad Shelley” — and the serious-minded student from Switzerland spark each other’s interest in the new philosophy of science which is overturning long-cherished beliefs. Perhaps there is no God. In which case, where is the divine spark, the soul? Can it be found in the human brain? The heart? The eyes?
Victor Frankenstein begins his anatomy experiments in a barn near Oxford. The coroner’s office provides corpses — but they have often died of violence and drowning; they are damaged and putrifying. Victor moves his coils and jars and electrical fluids to a deserted pottery and from there, makes contact with the Doomesday Men — the resurrectionists.
Victor finds that perfect specimens are hard to come by . . . until that Thames-side dawn when, wrapped in his greatcoat, he hears the splashing of oars and sees in the half-light the approaching boat where, slung into the stern, is the corpse of a handsome young man, one hand trailing in the water. . . .
From the Hardcover edition.
It was at Oxford that I first met Bysshe. We arrived at our college on the same day; confusing to a mere foreigner, it is called University College. I had seen him from my window and had been struck by his auburn locks.
The long-haired poet — “Mad Shelley” — and the serious-minded student from Switzerland spark each other’s interest in the new philosophy of science which is overturning long-cherished beliefs. Perhaps there is no God. In which case, where is the divine spark, the soul? Can it be found in the human brain? The heart? The eyes?
Victor Frankenstein begins his anatomy experiments in a barn near Oxford. The coroner’s office provides corpses — but they have often died of violence and drowning; they are damaged and putrifying. Victor moves his coils and jars and electrical fluids to a deserted pottery and from there, makes contact with the Doomesday Men — the resurrectionists.
Victor finds that perfect specimens are hard to come by . . . until that Thames-side dawn when, wrapped in his greatcoat, he hears the splashing of oars and sees in the half-light the approaching boat where, slung into the stern, is the corpse of a handsome young man, one hand trailing in the water. . . .
From the Hardcover edition.
416 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
60 people are currently reading
1578 people want to read
About the author
Peter Ackroyd
184 books1,497 followersPeter Ackroyd CBE is an English novelist and biographer with a particular interest in the history and culture of London.
Peter Ackroyd's mother worked in the personnel department of an engineering firm, his father having left the family home when Ackroyd was a baby. He was reading newspapers by the age of 5 and, at 9, wrote a play about Guy Fawkes. Reputedly, he first realized he was gay at the age of 7.
Ackroyd was educated at St. Benedict's, Ealing and at Clare College, Cambridge, from which he graduated with a double first in English. In 1972, he was a Mellon Fellow at Yale University in the United States. The result of this fellowship was Ackroyd's Notes for a New Culture, written when he was only 22 and eventually published in 1976. The title, a playful echo of T. S. Eliot's Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948), was an early indication of Ackroyd's penchant for creatively exploring and reexamining the works of other London-based writers.
Ackroyd's literary career began with poetry, including such works as London Lickpenny (1973) and The Diversions of Purley (1987). He later moved into fiction and has become an acclaimed author, winning the 1998 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the biography Thomas More and being shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1987.
Ackroyd worked at The Spectator magazine between 1973 and 1977 and became joint managing editor in 1978. In 1982 he published The Great Fire of London, his first novel. This novel deals with one of Ackroyd's great heroes, Charles Dickens, and is a reworking of Little Dorrit. The novel set the stage for the long sequence of novels Ackroyd has produced since, all of which deal in some way with the complex interaction of time and space, and what Ackroyd calls "the spirit of place". It is also the first in a sequence of novels of London, through which he traces the changing, but curiously consistent nature of the city. Often this theme is explored through the city's artists, and especially its writers.
Ackroyd has always shown a great interest in the city of London, and one of his best known works, London: The Biography, is an extensive and thorough discussion of London through the ages.
His fascination with London literary and artistic figures is also displayed in the sequence of biographies he has produced of Ezra Pound (1980), T. S. Eliot (1984), Charles Dickens (1990), William Blake (1995), Thomas More (1998), Chaucer (2004), William Shakespeare (2005), and J. M. W. Turner. The city itself stands astride all these works, as it does in the fiction.
From 2003 to 2005, Ackroyd wrote a six-book non-fiction series (Voyages Through Time), intended for readers as young as eight. This was his first work for children. The critically acclaimed series is an extensive narrative of key periods in world history.
Early in his career, Ackroyd was nominated a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1984 and, as well as producing fiction, biography and other literary works, is also a regular radio and television broadcaster and book critic.
In the New Year's honours list of 2003, Ackroyd was awarded the CBE.
Peter Ackroyd's mother worked in the personnel department of an engineering firm, his father having left the family home when Ackroyd was a baby. He was reading newspapers by the age of 5 and, at 9, wrote a play about Guy Fawkes. Reputedly, he first realized he was gay at the age of 7.
Ackroyd was educated at St. Benedict's, Ealing and at Clare College, Cambridge, from which he graduated with a double first in English. In 1972, he was a Mellon Fellow at Yale University in the United States. The result of this fellowship was Ackroyd's Notes for a New Culture, written when he was only 22 and eventually published in 1976. The title, a playful echo of T. S. Eliot's Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948), was an early indication of Ackroyd's penchant for creatively exploring and reexamining the works of other London-based writers.
Ackroyd's literary career began with poetry, including such works as London Lickpenny (1973) and The Diversions of Purley (1987). He later moved into fiction and has become an acclaimed author, winning the 1998 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the biography Thomas More and being shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1987.
Ackroyd worked at The Spectator magazine between 1973 and 1977 and became joint managing editor in 1978. In 1982 he published The Great Fire of London, his first novel. This novel deals with one of Ackroyd's great heroes, Charles Dickens, and is a reworking of Little Dorrit. The novel set the stage for the long sequence of novels Ackroyd has produced since, all of which deal in some way with the complex interaction of time and space, and what Ackroyd calls "the spirit of place". It is also the first in a sequence of novels of London, through which he traces the changing, but curiously consistent nature of the city. Often this theme is explored through the city's artists, and especially its writers.
Ackroyd has always shown a great interest in the city of London, and one of his best known works, London: The Biography, is an extensive and thorough discussion of London through the ages.
His fascination with London literary and artistic figures is also displayed in the sequence of biographies he has produced of Ezra Pound (1980), T. S. Eliot (1984), Charles Dickens (1990), William Blake (1995), Thomas More (1998), Chaucer (2004), William Shakespeare (2005), and J. M. W. Turner. The city itself stands astride all these works, as it does in the fiction.
From 2003 to 2005, Ackroyd wrote a six-book non-fiction series (Voyages Through Time), intended for readers as young as eight. This was his first work for children. The critically acclaimed series is an extensive narrative of key periods in world history.
Early in his career, Ackroyd was nominated a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1984 and, as well as producing fiction, biography and other literary works, is also a regular radio and television broadcaster and book critic.
In the New Year's honours list of 2003, Ackroyd was awarded the CBE.
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November 14, 2025
¡Maldito sea mi creador! ¿Por qué me has hecho vivir? ¿Por qué en este mismo instante no extingo la llama de la existencia que, de un modo absurdo, me otorgaste?
Satán tuvo compañeros, diablos como él, que lo admiraban y alentaban. Yo, por mi parte, estoy solitario y odiado."
Peter Ackroyd es un autor inglés a quien yo descubrí a través de una breve pero certera biografía que escribió sobre Edgar Allan Poe, unos de mis escritores preferidos. Es conocido también por haber escrito la de Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, TS Eliot, Charlie Chaplin e Isaac Newton, entre otras. Estas biografías no son extensas pero dan un pantallazo bastante amplio de la persona en cuestión.
También escribió novelas y esta fue la que captó mi atención de manera inmediata, dado que siempre consideré a Frankenstein, la inmortal novela de Mary Shelley una de mis favoritas.
Debo confesar que en un primer momento supuse que "El diario de Víctor Frankenstein" era una precuela del original, pero me equivoqué. Lo que Ackroyd pertrechó es una historia, digámosle, alternativa al libro de Shelley, por ende hay un camino de bifurcación entre ambas historias con una importante salvedad: para enganchar al lector, Ackroyd se vale de distintos recursos como los son escenas y situaciones copiadas casi exactamente de la historia original: la creación de la criatura, reclusión del monstruo en una granja donde viven un padre y su hija, similar al granero donde el monstruo original desarrolla su intelecto, el asesinato de víctimas inocentes que atormentan a Víctor, el pedido de la criatura de que Frankenstein cree una pareja hembra y algunos puntos similares más.
Esto es lo que hace que decaiga un poco el interés del lector. Si leyó el libro original le resultó repetitivo, y si no lo leyó, le quitará mucha sorpresa, es por ello por lo que sugiero siempre leer este libro después.
Lo que sí es muy original en el argumento de la novela es que Ackroyd introduce en la ficción a personajes reales relacionados con el mundo de Frankenstein.
De esta manera, Víctor Frankenstein pasará gran parte de su juventud con Percy Bysshe Shelley, quien fuera el esposo de Mary. Es más: toma la figura del famoso poeta romántico para darnos un detalle biográfico más que extenso, incluida su muerte. De hecho el autor incluye en la novela a la primera esposa de Shelley, Harriet y a su hija verdadera, Ianthe.
Pero además, también nos cruzaremos con la mismísima Mary Shelley, habrá referencias a su madre, Mary Wollstoncraft en donde se hará hincapié sobre su famoso libro “Vindicación de los derechos de la Mujer”, escrito en 1792.
Aparecerán otros personajes literarios de fuste como lo fueron Samuel Taylor Coleridge, en una escena donde Víctor y Bysshe van a presenciar una conferencia del famoso poeta, ya viejo, y sobre el final de la novela también ocurrirán una serie de enredos que involucran al más renombrado poeta romántico, me refiero a Lord Byron, una especie de rockstar del Romanticismo (que por si pocos saben, era rengo) y también a su médico, John Polidori, unos de los primeros en escribir sobre el vampirismo (su cuento “El vampiro”, junto con “Carmilla” de Sheridan Le Fanu es pionero en dicha saga).
Cabe destacar que uno de los capítulos más interesantes sucede cuando Ackroyd recrea el famoso encuentro que se transformó en un desafío literario organizado por Lord Byron en un castillo en donde propuso a Percy Shelley, Mary y John Polidori a escribir el cuento de terror más escalofriante. De ese encuentro surge el cuento que ya mencionara, “El vampiro” de Polidori. Luego, menor medida e interés nos encontramos con el cuento de Byron, titulado “El Entierro”, también de corte vampírico y con el cuento en “Los Asesinos” de Percy Shelley, tal vez, el de menor calidad de todos.
Por el lado de Mary Shelley, esta escribe un cuento que se llama “El sueño” y que será la chispa con la cual encienda la leyenda de la criatura de Frankenstein. El mismo suceso, un sueño que tiene Mary Shelley en la novela, es el que utiliza Ackroyd para plantear una de las escenas más importantes del libro.
Todos estos cuentos pueden leerse en un pequeño volumen llamado “Fantasmagoriana”. Son entretenidos y de buena calidad.
En resumidas cuentas, “El diario de Víctor Frankenstein” es una novela muy entretenida en el que lo más impactante de todo ocurre en la última página y eso es lo que la diferencia de la original: uno no se espera semejante desenlace.
Más allá de que para mi gusto no llega al nivel de perfección de la inmortal novela de Mary Shelley, sirve muchísimo para acrecentar el mito, la leyenda y la importancia de lo que significó para la literatura “Frankenstein, o el moderno Prometeo”.
Satán tuvo compañeros, diablos como él, que lo admiraban y alentaban. Yo, por mi parte, estoy solitario y odiado."
Peter Ackroyd es un autor inglés a quien yo descubrí a través de una breve pero certera biografía que escribió sobre Edgar Allan Poe, unos de mis escritores preferidos. Es conocido también por haber escrito la de Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, TS Eliot, Charlie Chaplin e Isaac Newton, entre otras. Estas biografías no son extensas pero dan un pantallazo bastante amplio de la persona en cuestión.
También escribió novelas y esta fue la que captó mi atención de manera inmediata, dado que siempre consideré a Frankenstein, la inmortal novela de Mary Shelley una de mis favoritas.
Debo confesar que en un primer momento supuse que "El diario de Víctor Frankenstein" era una precuela del original, pero me equivoqué. Lo que Ackroyd pertrechó es una historia, digámosle, alternativa al libro de Shelley, por ende hay un camino de bifurcación entre ambas historias con una importante salvedad: para enganchar al lector, Ackroyd se vale de distintos recursos como los son escenas y situaciones copiadas casi exactamente de la historia original: la creación de la criatura, reclusión del monstruo en una granja donde viven un padre y su hija, similar al granero donde el monstruo original desarrolla su intelecto, el asesinato de víctimas inocentes que atormentan a Víctor, el pedido de la criatura de que Frankenstein cree una pareja hembra y algunos puntos similares más.
Esto es lo que hace que decaiga un poco el interés del lector. Si leyó el libro original le resultó repetitivo, y si no lo leyó, le quitará mucha sorpresa, es por ello por lo que sugiero siempre leer este libro después.
Lo que sí es muy original en el argumento de la novela es que Ackroyd introduce en la ficción a personajes reales relacionados con el mundo de Frankenstein.
De esta manera, Víctor Frankenstein pasará gran parte de su juventud con Percy Bysshe Shelley, quien fuera el esposo de Mary. Es más: toma la figura del famoso poeta romántico para darnos un detalle biográfico más que extenso, incluida su muerte. De hecho el autor incluye en la novela a la primera esposa de Shelley, Harriet y a su hija verdadera, Ianthe.
Pero además, también nos cruzaremos con la mismísima Mary Shelley, habrá referencias a su madre, Mary Wollstoncraft en donde se hará hincapié sobre su famoso libro “Vindicación de los derechos de la Mujer”, escrito en 1792.
Aparecerán otros personajes literarios de fuste como lo fueron Samuel Taylor Coleridge, en una escena donde Víctor y Bysshe van a presenciar una conferencia del famoso poeta, ya viejo, y sobre el final de la novela también ocurrirán una serie de enredos que involucran al más renombrado poeta romántico, me refiero a Lord Byron, una especie de rockstar del Romanticismo (que por si pocos saben, era rengo) y también a su médico, John Polidori, unos de los primeros en escribir sobre el vampirismo (su cuento “El vampiro”, junto con “Carmilla” de Sheridan Le Fanu es pionero en dicha saga).
Cabe destacar que uno de los capítulos más interesantes sucede cuando Ackroyd recrea el famoso encuentro que se transformó en un desafío literario organizado por Lord Byron en un castillo en donde propuso a Percy Shelley, Mary y John Polidori a escribir el cuento de terror más escalofriante. De ese encuentro surge el cuento que ya mencionara, “El vampiro” de Polidori. Luego, menor medida e interés nos encontramos con el cuento de Byron, titulado “El Entierro”, también de corte vampírico y con el cuento en “Los Asesinos” de Percy Shelley, tal vez, el de menor calidad de todos.
Por el lado de Mary Shelley, esta escribe un cuento que se llama “El sueño” y que será la chispa con la cual encienda la leyenda de la criatura de Frankenstein. El mismo suceso, un sueño que tiene Mary Shelley en la novela, es el que utiliza Ackroyd para plantear una de las escenas más importantes del libro.
Todos estos cuentos pueden leerse en un pequeño volumen llamado “Fantasmagoriana”. Son entretenidos y de buena calidad.
En resumidas cuentas, “El diario de Víctor Frankenstein” es una novela muy entretenida en el que lo más impactante de todo ocurre en la última página y eso es lo que la diferencia de la original: uno no se espera semejante desenlace.
Más allá de que para mi gusto no llega al nivel de perfección de la inmortal novela de Mary Shelley, sirve muchísimo para acrecentar el mito, la leyenda y la importancia de lo que significó para la literatura “Frankenstein, o el moderno Prometeo”.
June 20, 2010
Have you ever read a book and have just been entirely unsure as to why the author decided to take the time to write it? That’s pretty much how I feel about The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein by Peter Ackroyd. A slightly adjusted retelling of the Frankenstein story by Mary Shelley, the novel does little to improve or grow upon the original story. Essentially, Victor Frankenstein, a young scholar from Switzerland, enrolls in Oxford, where he meets the revolutionary poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Consumed with a drive to test the boundaries of life and the Divine, Frankenstein obtains a series of bodies through London’s resurrection men and creates the famous monster that we all know and love.
While Ackroyd makes use of the different setting to introduce Frankenstein to the likes of the Shelleys and Lord Byron, I still can’t see the point of this book. The original works in so many ways—why even bother to create what is essentially a remake? Granted, it takes a historian like Ackroyd to make London come alive as it does in this novel. The city has so many sides, so many mysteries, that it is a perfect character for any and all period novels. Still, it is a pale imitation of something that has already been perfect for years. I don’t like to say that any work of art is a waste of time, but do yourself a favor and pick up the original Frankenstein . You’ll never get those hours back if you waste them on this one.
While Ackroyd makes use of the different setting to introduce Frankenstein to the likes of the Shelleys and Lord Byron, I still can’t see the point of this book. The original works in so many ways—why even bother to create what is essentially a remake? Granted, it takes a historian like Ackroyd to make London come alive as it does in this novel. The city has so many sides, so many mysteries, that it is a perfect character for any and all period novels. Still, it is a pale imitation of something that has already been perfect for years. I don’t like to say that any work of art is a waste of time, but do yourself a favor and pick up the original Frankenstein . You’ll never get those hours back if you waste them on this one.
April 27, 2018
There is no joy without its attendant pain.
Despite the above citation, this was more fun than exemplary. Ackroyd flips the Frankenstein myth with panache. The good doctor hangs out with Shelley and Byron. Science crackles, but only under the penumbra of abject poverty. Mayhew reaches Freud and together pierce Gothic expectations. There’s less a Miltonic fall than a fissure.
Despite the above citation, this was more fun than exemplary. Ackroyd flips the Frankenstein myth with panache. The good doctor hangs out with Shelley and Byron. Science crackles, but only under the penumbra of abject poverty. Mayhew reaches Freud and together pierce Gothic expectations. There’s less a Miltonic fall than a fissure.
February 8, 2017
What if Frankenstein creates its own creature?
A surprisingly and great book by Peter Ackroyd with plenty of famous writers among the characters, like Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Daniel Westbrook, Harriet Westbrook, John Polidori, Fred Shoebury, George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron.
Hard to understand why this book has been underrated by some reviews.
A surprisingly and great book by Peter Ackroyd with plenty of famous writers among the characters, like Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Daniel Westbrook, Harriet Westbrook, John Polidori, Fred Shoebury, George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron.
Hard to understand why this book has been underrated by some reviews.
August 16, 2009
What would've happened if Dr. Frankenstein had actually lived and knew the Shelleys? That's the question that Peter Ackroyd answers in this book.
Frankenstein travels to study at Oxford where he meets Percy Shelley. The two hit it off and become friends. What then follows is a commingling of Shelley's life with the story of Frankenstein. It's a surprising good book, and does seem to play a little with the opinion by some that Mary Shelley did not write Frankenstein. (Some people believe it was Percy).
As per Ackroyd, the book is not 100% historically accurate. It's not meant to be. If you are looking for the Claire Claremont/Percy Shelley/Mary Shelley triangle here, you're not going to find it. Godwin's second wife does not make an appearance in this book. Claire's ghost phobia is instead attached to Mary. (As an aside, am I the only person who wonders what was on those diary pages that Mary tore out? Who wonders why Claire and Percy traveled alone together?) Additionally, the story of Harriet (Shelley's first wife) is different (Or is it?). The ghost story challenge, however, is still present.
Ackroyd, as always, does a good job of getting his characters right. Shelley feels like one wonder imagine Shelley to feel, as does Mary and Byron, and Polidori. Ackroyd does a wonderful job of getting into character. Frankenstein feels like Shelley's creation. Because of the change in times, Ackroyd's book is more terrifying or terrifying in a different way. He is able to provide detail that Mary Shelley could not. He also throws in questions of reality and madness.
This book is a worthy take and companion to Frankenstein.
Frankenstein travels to study at Oxford where he meets Percy Shelley. The two hit it off and become friends. What then follows is a commingling of Shelley's life with the story of Frankenstein. It's a surprising good book, and does seem to play a little with the opinion by some that Mary Shelley did not write Frankenstein. (Some people believe it was Percy).
As per Ackroyd, the book is not 100% historically accurate. It's not meant to be. If you are looking for the Claire Claremont/Percy Shelley/Mary Shelley triangle here, you're not going to find it. Godwin's second wife does not make an appearance in this book. Claire's ghost phobia is instead attached to Mary. (As an aside, am I the only person who wonders what was on those diary pages that Mary tore out? Who wonders why Claire and Percy traveled alone together?) Additionally, the story of Harriet (Shelley's first wife) is different (Or is it?). The ghost story challenge, however, is still present.
Ackroyd, as always, does a good job of getting his characters right. Shelley feels like one wonder imagine Shelley to feel, as does Mary and Byron, and Polidori. Ackroyd does a wonderful job of getting into character. Frankenstein feels like Shelley's creation. Because of the change in times, Ackroyd's book is more terrifying or terrifying in a different way. He is able to provide detail that Mary Shelley could not. He also throws in questions of reality and madness.
This book is a worthy take and companion to Frankenstein.
February 18, 2015
Ésta historia habría pasado tarde o temprano si a Mary no se le hubiera ocurrido antes.
November 17, 2017
Rewriting a Classic
[Review from 2011]
What Ackroyd is essentially writing about is the genesis of Frankenstein, and the intellectual climate which gave it birth. The book is presented as the first-person narration of Frankenstein himself, a cultured gentleman from the Mont Blanc region who comes to study at Oxford University and there meets Percy Bysshe Shelley. The two become close friends and Victor later meets many members of the atheist and agnostic circles in which Shelley occasionally moved, his two wives (Harriet Westwood and Mary Woolstonecraft Godwin), and literary personages such as Lord Byron and the shadowy John Polidori, who is credited as the author of the first vampire story. Frankenstein's studies are originally philosophical, into the origin, nature, and meaning of life, but they soon take a more practical turn as he explores whether the newly-discovered "electrical fluid" might be the source of all energy, and thus be harnessed in the conquest of death.
As Mary Shelley had done, Ackroyd brings Frankenstein and the monster together again for the creature to tell his story. This is a passage of extraordinary beauty, as the opening quotation should show, in which the creature goes through the process of human learning with astonishing rapidity. Like a second Caliban, he looks on life from a perspective largely free from conventions of social and religious morality, but he goes far beyond Caliban in his appreciation of abstract philosophy. The apparent disconnect between the purity of the creature's mind and the deformity of his body may surprise some readers, but it will become important later.
Ackroyd differs from Shelley in that his Frankenstein only revives a recently-deceased corpse; there is no thought of new creation. His story is more concentrated in space and time, and less melodramatic. He also takes several liberties with history: most of the events concerning real-life people did indeed take place, but Ackroyd freely shifts them around by a year or so here and there, and suggests different circumstances for known events such as the drowning of Shelley's first wife. But those who are prepared to read the novel as something more than a simple retelling of Mary Shelley's original or a book of history will find a work of some depth that is entirely true to the essence of its period, besides being a rattling tale of Gothic adventure. And nowhere does Ackroyd depart more significantly from the original than in his astounding but carefully-prepared conclusion—but that would be telling!
======
As a former art-historian whose specialty was the Romantic period, I take a particular interest in Ackroyd's insights. In one scene, for example, Frankenstein and the Shelleys are sailing up the Rhine, looking at the "rugged mounts, and crags, and precipices, where castles had been erected among the rocks and torrents." Bysshe takes the anarchist point of view: "There is tyranny visible. Every stone is fashioned out of blood. It is built upon foundations of suffering." Mary, however, contradicts him: "The spirit of this place is more friendly than you suppose, Bysshe. It is more intimate with humankind. Do you not see? How much more harmonious than those mountain peaks and abysses you praise so highly! This landscape is touched by the human spirit." A perfect summation of this particular landscape and its many reflections in the Romantic imagination.* And, in the balance of Gothic wildness and the touch of the human spirit, a beautiful symbol of the essence of Ackroyd's book.
*Such as the Rhine paintings by Turner I have been studying lately [2017].
[Review from 2011]
I sat quite still and observed the heavens revolving above my head, and wondered if they were the origin of my being. Or had I come from the creeping waters of the river? Or from the mild earth that nurtured all the plants and flowers of the world? When at first light a wood pigeon came before me, I took part in its existence and pecked upon the ground; when a gull flew above my head I shared its soaring form; wen I watched an otter upon the bank, I could feel the sleekness of its limbs. In all creatures now I felt the force of one life, a life I shared, of which the principles were energy and joy.Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus in 1818, and it stands as a classic marker of the intersection between the Romantic and Industrial Ages. The most superficial aspect of her idea—a being created from human corpses by the use of electricity that turns out to be a monster—has been transformed by Hollywood into a cliché of the horror genre. Yet Mary Shelley's original work has profound moral and philosophical implications that shed a great deal of light on the thought of the time, and are relevant in many respects to debates in our own age, such as cloning and stem-cell research. Peter Ackroyd's retelling of the story might seem superfluous, except that for modern readers it manages to cut even closer to the heart of what made the original novel so important, not least in its pitch-perfect evocation of early 19th-century style and intellectual portrait of the age.
What Ackroyd is essentially writing about is the genesis of Frankenstein, and the intellectual climate which gave it birth. The book is presented as the first-person narration of Frankenstein himself, a cultured gentleman from the Mont Blanc region who comes to study at Oxford University and there meets Percy Bysshe Shelley. The two become close friends and Victor later meets many members of the atheist and agnostic circles in which Shelley occasionally moved, his two wives (Harriet Westwood and Mary Woolstonecraft Godwin), and literary personages such as Lord Byron and the shadowy John Polidori, who is credited as the author of the first vampire story. Frankenstein's studies are originally philosophical, into the origin, nature, and meaning of life, but they soon take a more practical turn as he explores whether the newly-discovered "electrical fluid" might be the source of all energy, and thus be harnessed in the conquest of death.
As Mary Shelley had done, Ackroyd brings Frankenstein and the monster together again for the creature to tell his story. This is a passage of extraordinary beauty, as the opening quotation should show, in which the creature goes through the process of human learning with astonishing rapidity. Like a second Caliban, he looks on life from a perspective largely free from conventions of social and religious morality, but he goes far beyond Caliban in his appreciation of abstract philosophy. The apparent disconnect between the purity of the creature's mind and the deformity of his body may surprise some readers, but it will become important later.
Ackroyd differs from Shelley in that his Frankenstein only revives a recently-deceased corpse; there is no thought of new creation. His story is more concentrated in space and time, and less melodramatic. He also takes several liberties with history: most of the events concerning real-life people did indeed take place, but Ackroyd freely shifts them around by a year or so here and there, and suggests different circumstances for known events such as the drowning of Shelley's first wife. But those who are prepared to read the novel as something more than a simple retelling of Mary Shelley's original or a book of history will find a work of some depth that is entirely true to the essence of its period, besides being a rattling tale of Gothic adventure. And nowhere does Ackroyd depart more significantly from the original than in his astounding but carefully-prepared conclusion—but that would be telling!
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As a former art-historian whose specialty was the Romantic period, I take a particular interest in Ackroyd's insights. In one scene, for example, Frankenstein and the Shelleys are sailing up the Rhine, looking at the "rugged mounts, and crags, and precipices, where castles had been erected among the rocks and torrents." Bysshe takes the anarchist point of view: "There is tyranny visible. Every stone is fashioned out of blood. It is built upon foundations of suffering." Mary, however, contradicts him: "The spirit of this place is more friendly than you suppose, Bysshe. It is more intimate with humankind. Do you not see? How much more harmonious than those mountain peaks and abysses you praise so highly! This landscape is touched by the human spirit." A perfect summation of this particular landscape and its many reflections in the Romantic imagination.* And, in the balance of Gothic wildness and the touch of the human spirit, a beautiful symbol of the essence of Ackroyd's book.
*Such as the Rhine paintings by Turner I have been studying lately [2017].
July 15, 2018
Algo lento, y con un principio bastante tedioso, el libro mejora bastante en su tercio final. Aun asi, lectura prescindible y olvidable, solo recomendada si no se tiene nada mejor a mano
November 1, 2022
The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein by Peter Ackroyd is a retelling of the Frankenstein monster story from an English perspective. This time the monster is created in a Limehouse warehouse abutting the Thames. What Ackroyd adds is a big surprise at the very end which veers sharply away from Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's original tale. (But I have no intention of divulging that surprise here.)
Instead of Central Europe, Ackroyd sets his scenes primarily in London, the Lake Country, and Switzerland. A particular treat is the scene with Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, and Mary Shelley, in which the three spin horrifying tales. In this novel, also present is Victor Frankenstein who has no horror story to tell because he is living a horror tale, particularly after the monster has killed Shelley's first wife and his maid.
Ackroyd has always been brilliant in showing the seamy side of life in Britain. His London slums are particularly seedy, and British justice executes Harriet Shelley's brother on flimsy circumstantial evidence.
Good Halloween reading, this is.
Instead of Central Europe, Ackroyd sets his scenes primarily in London, the Lake Country, and Switzerland. A particular treat is the scene with Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, and Mary Shelley, in which the three spin horrifying tales. In this novel, also present is Victor Frankenstein who has no horror story to tell because he is living a horror tale, particularly after the monster has killed Shelley's first wife and his maid.
Ackroyd has always been brilliant in showing the seamy side of life in Britain. His London slums are particularly seedy, and British justice executes Harriet Shelley's brother on flimsy circumstantial evidence.
Good Halloween reading, this is.
August 4, 2009
Now this is more like it.
Peter Ackroyd makes Victor Frankenstein a student at Cambridge, which enables Victor to make the acquaintance of Percy Bysshe Shelley and his various associates, including a certain Mary Godwin, and also lets Ackroyd find a way to shift the bulk of the action to his own home turf, London. There's an interestingly Dickensian overtone at times. Ackroyd's narrative is substantial, but poised, without waste and enriched with excellent secondary characters, real and fictional. The horrors, once they start unfolding, are truly creepy - few things I've read lately are as chilling as the resurrection scene here. The climax or crux of the story is unexpected and satisfying. Certainly one of Ackroyd's better efforts in recent times - I'd even say that he's back in form now, after the post-Milton In America slump.
Peter Ackroyd makes Victor Frankenstein a student at Cambridge, which enables Victor to make the acquaintance of Percy Bysshe Shelley and his various associates, including a certain Mary Godwin, and also lets Ackroyd find a way to shift the bulk of the action to his own home turf, London. There's an interestingly Dickensian overtone at times. Ackroyd's narrative is substantial, but poised, without waste and enriched with excellent secondary characters, real and fictional. The horrors, once they start unfolding, are truly creepy - few things I've read lately are as chilling as the resurrection scene here. The climax or crux of the story is unexpected and satisfying. Certainly one of Ackroyd's better efforts in recent times - I'd even say that he's back in form now, after the post-Milton In America slump.
November 27, 2024
a man thought he could do it better and failed
July 7, 2021
For people familiar with Shelley's biography, the freedom with which the English writer treats her is akin to the actions performed by Frankenstein over cadavers who had the misfortune to fall into his crazy hands. Not satisfied with the Shelleys alone, Ackroyd also pushes Lord Byron and the entire Villa Diodati into the narrative. He diligently recreates the atmosphere of the "breathing spirits and mists" of the Gothic novel, killing with his hands the creatures of women whom he defiantly does not love (not a single remotely attractive female image) and one servant boy, whom he clearly lusts after.
Well, what can I say? It was hard to be a gay man who didn't have the courage to come out in the nineties of the last century. But, for unprincipled compilers, there was plenty of space then. It is good that the type of postmodern novel, with the inclusion of real historical characters, the author's will is doomed to behave like idiots (at best) or villains (at worst) - it is good that this literary empty flower has disappeared by itself.
Я тебя породил...
Йель не сомневался, что он скрытый гей, который никогда не отважится на каминг-аут
"Мы умели верить" Ребекка Макккай
Молодой человек, швейцарец из обеспеченной семьи, сын владельца механических мастерских, воспитанный отцом в уважении к наукам, но к механике склонности не питающий, а увлеченный медициной, отправляется на учебу в Англию. Где знакомится, а после близко сходится с молодым блистательным поэтом Перси Биши Шелли. Виктор, простолюдин, хотя из обеспеченных, благоговеет перед аристократизмом своего друга, наследного баронета, и преклоняется перед его талантом.
Шелли, впрочем, жизнь ведет стесненную, с семьей он не в ладах. Не то, что окончательный разрыв, но непримиримые противоречия и в итоге вовсе не тот уровень достатка, на какой мог бы рассчитывать по праву рождения. Все они находятся под впечатлением новых идей, хотя Франкенштейна больше привлекают естественнонаучные, вроде месмеризма и опытов с электричеством, которые можно, нет - нужно поставить на службу прогресса человечества, а именно - заставить отступить самое смерть. Он, видите ли, убежден, что надлежащим образом приложенный электрический разряд достаточно большой силы может оживить мертвецов.
Молодого же поэта, более привлекают идеи женской эмансипации и нового типа человека, рожденного и воспитанного свободной образованной матерью. Для воплощения своих идей он даже берет шефство над юной сестрой одного из своих приятелей, вследствие обнищания семьи вынужденной искать работы. Нет, - говорит Шелли, я стану образовывать Гарриэт, а вашему жестокосердному отцу буду выплачивать отступного в размере ее предполагаемого недельного жалования плюс гинея сверху.
Стоит ли говорить, что уроки закончатся побегом молодых людей и венчанием в Гретна Грин (ах, Биши такой душка). Меж тем Виктор, который не впечатлен матримониальными порывами любезного друга, но помешать им никак не может, с головой уходит в работу. Благо, с деньгами проблем нет, скоропостижная смерть сестры и отца сделала его наследником значительного состояния. В оборудованном на берегу сарае, молодой натуралист кромсает и сшивает трупы, пропуская через них гальванические разряды. До поры с нулевым результатом, пока однажды мертвец в самом деле не оживает.
Вы уже поняли, что за основу своего романа Питер Акройд взял сочинение Мэри Шелли. В худших компиляторских традициях постмодернизма свалив в одну кучу героя и его создательницу, ее красавчика супруга - постойте-постойте, вы разве не называли девушку Гарриэт? Все так, но Гарриэт утонет, а на смену ей, к вящей досаде героя, практически мгновенно явится куда более интересная и образованная Мэри, дочь знаменитого философа Годвина, к тому же.
Для людей, знакомых с биографией Шелли, вольность, с какой английский писатель, обращается с ней, сродни действиям, производимым Франкенштейном над кадаврами, имевшими несчастье попасть в его очумелые ручки. Не удовлетворившись одними супругами Шелли, Акройд запихивает в повествование еще и лорда Байрона, и собственно всю виллу Диодати. Старательно воссоздает атмосферу "дыша духами и туманами" готического романа, убивая руками существа женщин, которых демонстративно не любит (ни одного отдаленно привлекательного женского образа) и одного мальчика-слугу, которого столь же явно вожделеет.
Ну что сказать? Трудно было быть геем, не имеющим смелости для каминг-аута в девяностые прошлого века. Но, для беспринципных компиляторов тогда было раздолье. Хорошо, что тип постмодернистского романа, со включением реальных исторических персонажей, авторскою волей обреченных вести себя как идиоты (в лучшем случае) или злодеи (в худшем) - хорошо, что этот литературный пустоцвет сам собой отпал.
Некоторым оправданием такого рода сочинений может служить их (довольно сомнительная) просветительская роль. Некоторым оправданием вивисекторству господина Акройда - его одержимость идеей возможности породить жизнь без участия женщины - я теперь не только о несчастном мертвеце "Журнала Виктора Франкенштейна", но и о гомункулусе из раннего романа "Дом доктора Ди". Все-таки созидание, даже такого извращенного толка, лучше разрушения в чистом виде.
Well, what can I say? It was hard to be a gay man who didn't have the courage to come out in the nineties of the last century. But, for unprincipled compilers, there was plenty of space then. It is good that the type of postmodern novel, with the inclusion of real historical characters, the author's will is doomed to behave like idiots (at best) or villains (at worst) - it is good that this literary empty flower has disappeared by itself.
Я тебя породил...
Йель не сомневался, что он скрытый гей, который никогда не отважится на каминг-аут
"Мы умели верить" Ребекка Макккай
Молодой человек, швейцарец из обеспеченной семьи, сын владельца механических мастерских, воспитанный отцом в уважении к наукам, но к механике склонности не питающий, а увлеченный медициной, отправляется на учебу в Англию. Где знакомится, а после близко сходится с молодым блистательным поэтом Перси Биши Шелли. Виктор, простолюдин, хотя из обеспеченных, благоговеет перед аристократизмом своего друга, наследного баронета, и преклоняется перед его талантом.
Шелли, впрочем, жизнь ведет стесненную, с семьей он не в ладах. Не то, что окончательный разрыв, но непримиримые противоречия и в итоге вовсе не тот уровень достатка, на какой мог бы рассчитывать по праву рождения. Все они находятся под впечатлением новых идей, хотя Франкенштейна больше привлекают естественнонаучные, вроде месмеризма и опытов с электричеством, которые можно, нет - нужно поставить на службу прогресса человечества, а именно - заставить отступить самое смерть. Он, видите ли, убежден, что надлежащим образом приложенный электрический разряд достаточно большой силы может оживить мертвецов.
Молодого же поэта, более привлекают идеи женской эмансипации и нового типа человека, рожденного и воспитанного свободной образованной матерью. Для воплощения своих идей он даже берет шефство над юной сестрой одного из своих приятелей, вследствие обнищания семьи вынужденной искать работы. Нет, - говорит Шелли, я стану образовывать Гарриэт, а вашему жестокосердному отцу буду выплачивать отступного в размере ее предполагаемого недельного жалования плюс гинея сверху.
Стоит ли говорить, что уроки закончатся побегом молодых людей и венчанием в Гретна Грин (ах, Биши такой душка). Меж тем Виктор, который не впечатлен матримониальными порывами любезного друга, но помешать им никак не может, с головой уходит в работу. Благо, с деньгами проблем нет, скоропостижная смерть сестры и отца сделала его наследником значительного состояния. В оборудованном на берегу сарае, молодой натуралист кромсает и сшивает трупы, пропуская через них гальванические разряды. До поры с нулевым результатом, пока однажды мертвец в самом деле не оживает.
Вы уже поняли, что за основу своего романа Питер Акройд взял сочинение Мэри Шелли. В худших компиляторских традициях постмодернизма свалив в одну кучу героя и его создательницу, ее красавчика супруга - постойте-постойте, вы разве не называли девушку Гарриэт? Все так, но Гарриэт утонет, а на смену ей, к вящей досаде героя, практически мгновенно явится куда более интересная и образованная Мэри, дочь знаменитого философа Годвина, к тому же.
Для людей, знакомых с биографией Шелли, вольность, с какой английский писатель, обращается с ней, сродни действиям, производимым Франкенштейном над кадаврами, имевшими несчастье попасть в его очумелые ручки. Не удовлетворившись одними супругами Шелли, Акройд запихивает в повествование еще и лорда Байрона, и собственно всю виллу Диодати. Старательно воссоздает атмосферу "дыша духами и туманами" готического романа, убивая руками существа женщин, которых демонстративно не любит (ни одного отдаленно привлекательного женского образа) и одного мальчика-слугу, которого столь же явно вожделеет.
Ну что сказать? Трудно было быть геем, не имеющим смелости для каминг-аута в девяностые прошлого века. Но, для беспринципных компиляторов тогда было раздолье. Хорошо, что тип постмодернистского романа, со включением реальных исторических персонажей, авторскою волей обреченных вести себя как идиоты (в лучшем случае) или злодеи (в худшем) - хорошо, что этот литературный пустоцвет сам собой отпал.
Некоторым оправданием такого рода сочинений может служить их (довольно сомнительная) просветительская роль. Некоторым оправданием вивисекторству господина Акройда - его одержимость идеей возможности породить жизнь без участия женщины - я теперь не только о несчастном мертвеце "Журнала Виктора Франкенштейна", но и о гомункулусе из раннего романа "Дом доктора Ди". Все-таки созидание, даже такого извращенного толка, лучше разрушения в чистом виде.
September 27, 2022
2.5 stars. I liked the writing style, but I didn't find anything super original about this book.
December 6, 2009
How do you feel about things that go bump in the night? Me, not so good. I am a coward. I am Chief Coward from Cowardville. I avoid scary movies and scary books and scary people too. So...as much I was looking forward to reading Peter Ackroyd's new book The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein the F-word frightened me off a bit. But then the lure was too strong and I caved.
In this retelling of Frankenstein on that famous ghost story filled night when Mr and Mrs Shelley were staying with Byron and Mary thought up her monster, the monster was already there. Ackroyd places Victor Frankenstein among the guests. Frankenstein and Shelley are old friends having gone Oxford together. For all the visits the novel gets from the great men of the age, it's Victor's God playing life that is center stage.
Frankenstein's obsession to create a new man, a perfect man does and doesn't happen. He is of course able to give life to his corpse but it is a Monster he has created. Frankenstein isn't the only one in this new family who is disappointed. The Monster blames his creator for his unhappiness and cruelly destructive behavior. Not much new there. What Ackroyd does make new or at least brings back to the forefront is the tragedy of Mary Shelley's story.
While Casebook didn't have the appeal for me that other Ackroyd novels have like Chatterton and Dan Lemo and the Limehouse Golem or his amazing biographies of Charles Dickens and Thomas More, it is a very interesting book. It has Ackroyd's trade mark attention to research and literary references. Peter Ackroyd does make you smarter, but this time a little less fulfilled as well.
In this retelling of Frankenstein on that famous ghost story filled night when Mr and Mrs Shelley were staying with Byron and Mary thought up her monster, the monster was already there. Ackroyd places Victor Frankenstein among the guests. Frankenstein and Shelley are old friends having gone Oxford together. For all the visits the novel gets from the great men of the age, it's Victor's God playing life that is center stage.
Frankenstein's obsession to create a new man, a perfect man does and doesn't happen. He is of course able to give life to his corpse but it is a Monster he has created. Frankenstein isn't the only one in this new family who is disappointed. The Monster blames his creator for his unhappiness and cruelly destructive behavior. Not much new there. What Ackroyd does make new or at least brings back to the forefront is the tragedy of Mary Shelley's story.
While Casebook didn't have the appeal for me that other Ackroyd novels have like Chatterton and Dan Lemo and the Limehouse Golem or his amazing biographies of Charles Dickens and Thomas More, it is a very interesting book. It has Ackroyd's trade mark attention to research and literary references. Peter Ackroyd does make you smarter, but this time a little less fulfilled as well.
May 20, 2011
Initially, I found it difficult to get into a "reading rhythm" with this book, but once I did, I found in completely engaging. This is a retelling of Shelley's horror classic, and the author has made liberal use of real-life figures, such as Lord Byron, Polidori, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and, of course, Mary Shelley herself.
Phenomenally descriptive, many passages read like poetry; this author is a master at setting scene, and one is able to visualize, and almost smell, the dark, filthy streets of London where much of the action takes place. He vividly describes the reanimated creature and infuses him with an intelligence and vulnerability that make the reader sympathetic to his plight, in spite of his destructive actions, and render him likeable.
Frankenstein himself is a man obsessed with the discovery of a controllable electrical power that will enable him to create life, and, subsequently, to destroy it. Awareness of this might have given some foreshadowing of the ending; thus, I was not completely surprised, but rather experienced an "Of course, that's where it had to go" feeling, and a sense of delight at its perfect crafting.
Needless to say, this novel bears virtually no resemblance to the 1931 film. I haven't read Shelley's original, but plan to. I am also anxious to read more of this highly acclaimed and awarded author's work.
Phenomenally descriptive, many passages read like poetry; this author is a master at setting scene, and one is able to visualize, and almost smell, the dark, filthy streets of London where much of the action takes place. He vividly describes the reanimated creature and infuses him with an intelligence and vulnerability that make the reader sympathetic to his plight, in spite of his destructive actions, and render him likeable.
Frankenstein himself is a man obsessed with the discovery of a controllable electrical power that will enable him to create life, and, subsequently, to destroy it. Awareness of this might have given some foreshadowing of the ending; thus, I was not completely surprised, but rather experienced an "Of course, that's where it had to go" feeling, and a sense of delight at its perfect crafting.
Needless to say, this novel bears virtually no resemblance to the 1931 film. I haven't read Shelley's original, but plan to. I am also anxious to read more of this highly acclaimed and awarded author's work.
January 31, 2012
I love retellings of the "haunted summer" of 1816, wherein Byron, Shelley, and Mary Shelley read ghost stories to each other and came up with the bet to produce the scariest ghost story of them all -- supposedly leading to Mary Shelley's dreams wherein she came up with the idea for the novel "Frankenstein...." In Peter Ackroyd's version, Dr. Frankenstein is a real person in attendance at this haunted gathering. His friendship with Percy Shelley has a great deal to do with his beingthere, and the creation of his animated man is a true event. I loved the atmosphere of the book. With this subject matter, you can't lose as long as everyone is treated with respect. I didn't so much like the portrayal of the Shelleys, who seemed to be more uninventive than I've always imagined them. -- but in all honesty, that's not a big deal here. Ackroyd admires the Romantics, that is plain to see. And the playing out of the "Frankenstien" story underneath their eyes is great fun.
April 1, 2024
For the majority of this novel i thought “i should have just read Frankenstein again instead” but THEN it actually started to become its own story. Reads very smoothly, the interactions between characters are lovely. (Probably also my Byron-Shelley bias). Was NOT ready for the end whatsoever
4.5 stars
4.5 stars
November 21, 2025
W opisie książki widnieje informacja, że akcja dzieje się we wsi Headington pod Oxfordem. Obecnie jest on dużą dzielnicą Oxfordu i właśnie tutaj mieszkam. Więc lepszej rekomendacji do kupna nie trzeba. I niestety, pod tym względem jestem rozczarowana. Autor wspomniał o Headington może ze trzy razy i przedstawił to miejsce jako odludne, a przecież na początku XIX wieku istniał tutaj duży majątek i wieś liczyła ponad 700 mieszkańców. Nieładny chwyt, panie Ackroyd.
W każdym innym szczególe jestem naprawdę pod wrażeniem. Powieść stanowi pewną alternatywę dla historii doktora Frankensteina, spisanej przez Mary Shelley. Tutaj te dwie postaci, czyli Mary i Victor spotykają się w Londynie, a potem, wraz z innymi, spędzają jakiś czas w Genewie. Mąż Mary jest dobrym przyjacielem Victora. Ciekawy zabieg, kiedy jeden autor postanawia zmienić życiorys innego i przypisać mu znajomość z jego własnym bohaterem...
Victor jest bogatym Szwajcarem. Przyjeżdża do Oxfordu na studia, ale rozczarowany poziomem wiedzy zdobytej w college'u i ciasnymi umysłami wykładowców, postanawia rzucić studia i rozpocząć doświadczenia z fluidem elektrycznym, najpierw w Headington, a następnie w Londynie. Chce odnaleźć istotę bożą, Ducha lub też źródło życia. On chce być kreatorem. Pewnej nocy tworzy potwora, który wcale nie jest mu za to wdzięczny i zaczyna go niszczyć i prześladować. Jednak czytelnik, który spodziewa się zakończenia podobnego do tego z powieści Shelley, mocno się zawiedzie, choć raczej w pozytywnym sensie. Peter Ackroyd dokonał bowiem niesamowitego twistu i to na dwóch ostatnich stronach. Mistrzostwo!
W każdym innym szczególe jestem naprawdę pod wrażeniem. Powieść stanowi pewną alternatywę dla historii doktora Frankensteina, spisanej przez Mary Shelley. Tutaj te dwie postaci, czyli Mary i Victor spotykają się w Londynie, a potem, wraz z innymi, spędzają jakiś czas w Genewie. Mąż Mary jest dobrym przyjacielem Victora. Ciekawy zabieg, kiedy jeden autor postanawia zmienić życiorys innego i przypisać mu znajomość z jego własnym bohaterem...
Victor jest bogatym Szwajcarem. Przyjeżdża do Oxfordu na studia, ale rozczarowany poziomem wiedzy zdobytej w college'u i ciasnymi umysłami wykładowców, postanawia rzucić studia i rozpocząć doświadczenia z fluidem elektrycznym, najpierw w Headington, a następnie w Londynie. Chce odnaleźć istotę bożą, Ducha lub też źródło życia. On chce być kreatorem. Pewnej nocy tworzy potwora, który wcale nie jest mu za to wdzięczny i zaczyna go niszczyć i prześladować. Jednak czytelnik, który spodziewa się zakończenia podobnego do tego z powieści Shelley, mocno się zawiedzie, choć raczej w pozytywnym sensie. Peter Ackroyd dokonał bowiem niesamowitego twistu i to na dwóch ostatnich stronach. Mistrzostwo!
July 15, 2017
I was hoping for more than "the exact same Frankenstein story, except Percy Shelley shows up sometimes."
December 19, 2021
I’ve marked ‘Spoilers’ because there are some in this review, but I won’t be recommending it to anyone anyway.
I want to be able to say something about this book other than the fact that it was weird, but it was just that. Weird and kind of repulsive.
I’m not really sure what purpose it serves to the original Frankenstein story, or how it complements any adaptations or pastiche that has followed. It had the potential to be quite clever: Victor Frankenstein is friends with Percy and Mary Shelley, who are characters in their own right and whose own personal lives are documented with some accuracy and embellishment. But when John Keats (or, Jack Keat, as his character is called) became ‘the creature’, I’d had enough but my own compulsion to finish the book made me continue.
The chapter format didn’t live up to the title of the book; a ‘Casebook’ would suggest that you’re getting diary entries but this just read like a memoir, in which the protagonist is unsure about whether his actions are morally dubious but carries on anyway without so much as a sentence of consideration.
And then this book committed one of the greatest sins of all: it was all a dream… or was it just an illusion? I didn’t care at this point, I was just glad it was over.
I want to be able to say something about this book other than the fact that it was weird, but it was just that. Weird and kind of repulsive.
I’m not really sure what purpose it serves to the original Frankenstein story, or how it complements any adaptations or pastiche that has followed. It had the potential to be quite clever: Victor Frankenstein is friends with Percy and Mary Shelley, who are characters in their own right and whose own personal lives are documented with some accuracy and embellishment. But when John Keats (or, Jack Keat, as his character is called) became ‘the creature’, I’d had enough but my own compulsion to finish the book made me continue.
The chapter format didn’t live up to the title of the book; a ‘Casebook’ would suggest that you’re getting diary entries but this just read like a memoir, in which the protagonist is unsure about whether his actions are morally dubious but carries on anyway without so much as a sentence of consideration.
And then this book committed one of the greatest sins of all: it was all a dream… or was it just an illusion? I didn’t care at this point, I was just glad it was over.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 29, 2019
If you like boring writing, irrelevant details, cheap trick endings, and a lackluster retelling that manages to strip away everything that made the original good, the things this book is for you!!
January 26, 2025
An interesting re write of the classic
What if Frankenstein simply imagined the monster?
What if Frankenstein simply imagined the monster?
October 23, 2018
The ending redeemed it. In fact, that’s what I kept thinking the last time I read Mary Shelley’s book.
February 20, 2020
I enjoyed this initially: Mr Ackroyd writes very evocative prose. Unfortunately, this was at the expense of the plot which moved very slowly. I don't think that is a good strategy when you are rewriting a very well known classic. I got bored with the minutiae of Victor Frankenstein's life and studies. If that wasn't enough Mr Ackroyd is a lot fonder of foretelling than I am, which got irritating very quickly. I decided to move onto something that suited me better than this.
Read
February 5, 2021Two things about this book. One, Mary Shelley's original telling of the Frankenstein story is better. So if your main interest is learning how a 19th century amateur scientist re-animates dead human flesh, and what that might mean for society and religion, for the creature and the created, then you won't want to miss the classic.
But the second thing about this book is that there is a surprise at the end, which makes it difficult to review without giving it away. As in Atonement, when you get to the end, you find out that the book you have been reading is different than the book you thought you were reading. Ackroyd appears to be simply retelling Mary Shelley's story, with the setting transported to London, and with Victor Frankenstein being a historical, not an imagined character, the contemporary of poets Shelley and Byron. But he's not. He's really telling a different story.
Being a student of English literature, I enjoyed all the details about the lives of the poets, and also the atmosphere of damp, stinking London. I thought the payoff at the end was worth the several hundred pages of details and atmosphere, but I think Ackroyd would have pleased more people with a short story or novella.
Frankenstein re-animates the body of a dead man, but "the creature" looks ugly, causing everyone who sees him to recoil in terror. The creature goes off on his own, but he lurks around the edges of Victor's life, rustling the tree branches, peering in windows, sometimes showing up to rant or plead, and leaving a trail of dead bodies.
What will happen? Will Victor be able to kill the monster? Clues to notice: the monster says that the two of them, creator and created, are bound together forever; the monster seems to be able to read Victor's thoughts, knowing where he will go next, and what he will do. And that is probably all I can say.
But the second thing about this book is that there is a surprise at the end, which makes it difficult to review without giving it away. As in Atonement, when you get to the end, you find out that the book you have been reading is different than the book you thought you were reading. Ackroyd appears to be simply retelling Mary Shelley's story, with the setting transported to London, and with Victor Frankenstein being a historical, not an imagined character, the contemporary of poets Shelley and Byron. But he's not. He's really telling a different story.
Being a student of English literature, I enjoyed all the details about the lives of the poets, and also the atmosphere of damp, stinking London. I thought the payoff at the end was worth the several hundred pages of details and atmosphere, but I think Ackroyd would have pleased more people with a short story or novella.
Frankenstein re-animates the body of a dead man, but "the creature" looks ugly, causing everyone who sees him to recoil in terror. The creature goes off on his own, but he lurks around the edges of Victor's life, rustling the tree branches, peering in windows, sometimes showing up to rant or plead, and leaving a trail of dead bodies.
What will happen? Will Victor be able to kill the monster? Clues to notice: the monster says that the two of them, creator and created, are bound together forever; the monster seems to be able to read Victor's thoughts, knowing where he will go next, and what he will do. And that is probably all I can say.
January 22, 2010
This is Peter Ackroyd's retelling of Shelley's classic in his own postmodern sort of way. Actually, in this novel, Victor Frankenstein is a real person. Included among his best friends is Percy Bysshe Shelley, and through him, Victor meets up with other Romantic-era superstars: Lord Byron, Byron's personal physician Dr. Polidori (writer of a small novella you may have heard of: The Vampyre), and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, the author of Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus) herself.
Ackroyd has written this novel in the same period voice as that of Shelley, and like Shelley, his Frankenstein succeeds in the reanimation of a corpse who is conscious that he is dead and angry at his reanimator for not leaving him to his peaceful rest. Like Shelley's work, Frankstein's creation doggedly trails him. Yet, much is obviously going to be a bit different in Ackroyd's version, and these differences lead up to an ending that truthfully I didn't see coming, although it made total sense.
Ackroyd's attempt at re-envisioning Shelley's classic interweaves his excellent descriptions of historical London with modern psychological insight into human nature to produce a rather chilling and haunting work. The same themes of Shelley's book apply here -- if you haven't read her novel, I'd start with that one and then try this one -- so in that particular sense, Ackroyd's book doesn't really come up with something new, but his writing is excellent and will be well worth the time put into it. I can highly recommend this one, especially to people who've already read Mary Shelley's work, or to people who want an engaging and intelligent read.
Ackroyd has written this novel in the same period voice as that of Shelley, and like Shelley, his Frankenstein succeeds in the reanimation of a corpse who is conscious that he is dead and angry at his reanimator for not leaving him to his peaceful rest. Like Shelley's work, Frankstein's creation doggedly trails him. Yet, much is obviously going to be a bit different in Ackroyd's version, and these differences lead up to an ending that truthfully I didn't see coming, although it made total sense.
Ackroyd's attempt at re-envisioning Shelley's classic interweaves his excellent descriptions of historical London with modern psychological insight into human nature to produce a rather chilling and haunting work. The same themes of Shelley's book apply here -- if you haven't read her novel, I'd start with that one and then try this one -- so in that particular sense, Ackroyd's book doesn't really come up with something new, but his writing is excellent and will be well worth the time put into it. I can highly recommend this one, especially to people who've already read Mary Shelley's work, or to people who want an engaging and intelligent read.
December 6, 2009
In some ways I feel that in trying to breathe a new life into the story of Frankenstein, Peter Ackroyd has mostly succeeded only in making his own awkward monster. The beginning of the book is slow, and I was not really drawn in until the creature of the story emerges, mainly because the creature is the only character that I found fully drawn and riveting. It is the only source of real drama; everything else comes off as superfluous. Partly I think this results from Ackroyd's choice to tell the story as a first person narrative with an untrustworthy narrator who in turns obsessed with his work and carrying a major secret. Thus, it is in character for him not to deeply articulate his feelings and be withholding in his relationships with others. Yet, this Victor Frankenstein is no Don Draper, and the supporting cast of literary figures and others do not come off as compelling. I consider this a serious problem since part of the challenge of re-telling a well known tale is finding novel perspectives and twists. That's why, if we were to compare this to recent televised historical fiction, this book is more on par in terms of quality with the Tudors than with Rome. The book jacket has quotes comparing this novel to another classic horror, but as it is told, the book comes off more as a combo of Frankenstein and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. And like the latter book, there is mix of hindsight and foreshadowing early on, but I found it rather one-note and not artfully implemented. That said, the book is a lucid read, and the middle ended up capturing my interest.
January 8, 2010
The multi-talented Peter Ackroyd, distinguished British biographer, critic, cultural historian, and novelist, offers one of his most inventive works since The Trial of Eliabeth Cree (1995). As his recent historical novels reveal, his interests are broad--the Lambs, Heinrich Schliemann, John Milton among many others--and he has an expansive imagination, prolific pen, and a wide-ranging knowledge. In this work, he demonstrates his various skills by retelling the Frankenstein tale complete with the actual notables of the Romantic movement and the insertion of Victor Frankenstein as a historical member of this elite coterie. It is a neat trick that allows Ackroyd to reinvent the story, demonstate his expertise in all things London, reveal the character of the period, and offer a surprise ending to boot. Despite his extraordinary literary skill, this entertaining story is slightly off mark. Unlike the experiments of Victor Frankenstein that bring to life the "monster," Ackroyd is simply not electrifying enough in his narrative, which at times is derivative of his earlier works. Moreover, his characterizations are often too Dickensian (even for the biographer of that novelist). Nonetheless, there is much to enjoy in this unfamiiar rendering of a tale retold.
November 5, 2009
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It reminded me of a conversation with a friend not so long ago, that it takes a series of small steps or yeses to reach an outcome, and as this story unfolds, we see Victor Frankenstein making just that...one step towards the outcome at a time.
Questions are raised.....is this a creation or the creator that wreaks havoc? what is the nature of human consciousness? What is the power of a relationship...in this case that between Percy Bysshe Shelley and Victor?
We also get glimpses of the steps that have created the medicine we know today...the stealing of bodies to do research, the threat that went along with being caught.... and yet there were those who took this risk all along, and has enhanced understandnig of the human body. However, it also bring us back to what characterizes humanness.
Not light reading, but not cumbersome either. I would look for this authors works in the future, as well!
Questions are raised.....is this a creation or the creator that wreaks havoc? what is the nature of human consciousness? What is the power of a relationship...in this case that between Percy Bysshe Shelley and Victor?
We also get glimpses of the steps that have created the medicine we know today...the stealing of bodies to do research, the threat that went along with being caught.... and yet there were those who took this risk all along, and has enhanced understandnig of the human body. However, it also bring us back to what characterizes humanness.
Not light reading, but not cumbersome either. I would look for this authors works in the future, as well!
November 4, 2021
Is it possible to rate a book below 1 star? Because if so I would.
The only way I can describe the madness that is this novel is Frankenstein fan-fiction written by a man that eliminates every meaningful point Mary Shelley made in her original story.
So this book paints the concept of Victor Frankenstein as a real human being who is friends with Percy Bysshe Shelley, and therefor meets Mary Shelley herself. While the writing itself isn’t bad, the plotline is ruinous. It’s slow to read, the characters are poorly developed, and at times the masculinity is so toxic I felt physically ill reading. This book takes every important nuance mary Shelley included in her novel and throws it out the window through an unnecessary perspective and poor storytelling.
Also many of the historical timeline facts were wrong. Like, totally wrong. I felt like I spent this whole novel having my favorite book be man-sprained to me.
The only way I can describe the madness that is this novel is Frankenstein fan-fiction written by a man that eliminates every meaningful point Mary Shelley made in her original story.
So this book paints the concept of Victor Frankenstein as a real human being who is friends with Percy Bysshe Shelley, and therefor meets Mary Shelley herself. While the writing itself isn’t bad, the plotline is ruinous. It’s slow to read, the characters are poorly developed, and at times the masculinity is so toxic I felt physically ill reading. This book takes every important nuance mary Shelley included in her novel and throws it out the window through an unnecessary perspective and poor storytelling.
Also many of the historical timeline facts were wrong. Like, totally wrong. I felt like I spent this whole novel having my favorite book be man-sprained to me.
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