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Who doesn’t know the story of Frankenstein – the mad scientist who created a monster. It’s one of those tales that seems to be part of the air we breathe so that we know about it without knowing how or why. Even if you haven’t seen one of the movie adaptations (Netflix lists ten movies with Frankenstein in the title, from the original classic with Boris Karloff as the monster to the inspired parody Young Frankenstein with Gene Wilder), you can picture the eerie gothic castle, the demented obsessed scientist, the strange, oversized creature with bolts in his head, the creepy assistant. So, when you pick up the book, written in 1818 by twenty-one year old Mary Shelley, it is quite surprising to find that the story is not set in Transylvania or some such place, that there is no castle, no assistant and that it is more of a philosophical and moral fable than a horror story. There are plenty of dead bodies by the end, but the true horror is in the inescapable, personal doom brought on by the hubris of the scientist in daring to create life. In the nuclear age, with the awful power to destroy ourselves unleashed, the lesson is clear – the deed cannot be undone and the consequences cannot be escaped. In addition, there is a creeping horror about the monster himself who cannot be looked upon without loathing and who commits murder out of his anger and loneliness, but he is also a piteable creature who longs for love and acceptance. His angst and questioning of his creator is that of an existential anguish that also parallels the modern individualistic quest for personal meaning. While the prose is a bit overwrought and some of the coincidences and plot twists unlikely, the complexity of motive and personality in both Frankenstein and the monster are moving and convincing. The stories are layered, being framed rather oddly by a letter from an Arctic explorer to his sister, both characters who have little to do with the central plot but merely exist as a device by which the tale of the Doctor is told. This roundabout method of narration was not unusual at the time when many novels were epistolary, and is reminiscent of Coleridege’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” where the narrator tells a story that was told to him. If you have patience and endure the somewhat tedious set-up, the story itself is worth reading.