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cyborgforty's reviews
207 reviews
The Last Man by Mary Shelley
4.0
Technology aside, Mary Shelley got a lot of things right. That plague would befall the twenty-first century and the climate will show us her wrath, yet in the midst of it all we will still be clinging to our domesticity, we will still insist on conquest and war, we will indulge in science yet fail to apply it for the betterment of society, we will splinter into factions of religion, we will still be putting on productions of Shakespeare as the world comes to an end.
But the progression of technology was slower in Shelley's era and she could never have seen the electronic world that we inhabit today: this book is an idealistic, best-case-scenario vision of humanity that---sure, yes, fragments here or there, but for the most part---clings to community and society to endure plague, that still has appreciation for the beauty of nature and non-human beings. In some ways her world is more radical than ours---can we really do away with the English monarchy by the end of this century? For a world ravaged by plague of Eastern origin (hmmmm....), there is little xenophobia between the (mostly European) countries that Lionel & co. traverse; the English welcome immigrants (refugees!) fleeing the plague from all parts of Europe, and while the narrator does lament the fall of India, China, and the East to plague, I suspect they may not have been so hospitable to refugees from these regions.
The first half of this book was painfully slow. Mary Shelley loves to write in chronological order, and in the case of Frankenstein and Mathilda who did not live past their twenties, she doesn't have to do too much explaining in the first few chapters, but the bulk of this story happens after Lionel has married and started a family so... yeah. Something something about the influence of nostalgia in Mary Shelley's narrators, who write from their deathbeds or from the solitary desk of The Last Man On Earth. Chapter I of Volume II is really where it became a page-turner for me.
Last note: Mary Shelley's depictions of nature and astronomical phenomena are gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous.
But the progression of technology was slower in Shelley's era and she could never have seen the electronic world that we inhabit today: this book is an idealistic, best-case-scenario vision of humanity that---sure, yes, fragments here or there, but for the most part---clings to community and society to endure plague, that still has appreciation for the beauty of nature and non-human beings. In some ways her world is more radical than ours---can we really do away with the English monarchy by the end of this century? For a world ravaged by plague of Eastern origin (hmmmm....), there is little xenophobia between the (mostly European) countries that Lionel & co. traverse; the English welcome immigrants (refugees!) fleeing the plague from all parts of Europe, and while the narrator does lament the fall of India, China, and the East to plague, I suspect they may not have been so hospitable to refugees from these regions.
The first half of this book was painfully slow. Mary Shelley loves to write in chronological order, and in the case of Frankenstein and Mathilda who did not live past their twenties, she doesn't have to do too much explaining in the first few chapters, but the bulk of this story happens after Lionel has married and started a family so... yeah. Something something about the influence of nostalgia in Mary Shelley's narrators, who write from their deathbeds or from the solitary desk of The Last Man On Earth. Chapter I of Volume II is really where it became a page-turner for me.
Last note: Mary Shelley's depictions of nature and astronomical phenomena are gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous.
Monster by Neal Bell
4.0
i read this because tumblr said that victor and henry kiss... there is something about how the original novel doesn't explicitly write out all the weird subtext/implications about the characters' distorted ideas of their sexuality & desires thanks to arranged marriage & blurred boundaries between platonic, romantic, and familial love & in a way this play just. writes out the subtext and makes it WEIRD. it's as if queer readings of "frankenstein" in academia (i.e. the creature representing homoerotic desire & victor's "giving birth" of him as a "mother") had a baby with tumblr's "why did victor give the creature a functional penis" posts in the form of a 91-page play. though honestly? someone on tumblr made a post that made it out to be a lot more sexually explicit than it was so i went in expecting to be traumatized but i've read academic papers on "frankenstein" that are weirder.
all that being said it's actually decently accurate to the original in terms of overall plot points. there are a few funny "iykyk" references to lines in the original (i.e. the "get out of my sight" *covers eyes with hands* "now i am" moment.) i'd be curious to see this in production.
also, HOOO boy, there are no content warnings added yet... someone needs to do the work
all that being said it's actually decently accurate to the original in terms of overall plot points. there are a few funny "iykyk" references to lines in the original (i.e. the "get out of my sight" *covers eyes with hands* "now i am" moment.) i'd be curious to see this in production.
also, HOOO boy, there are no content warnings added yet... someone needs to do the work
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Death, Incest, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Blood, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Sexual harassment
Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
5.0
i love the simplicity of ted chiang's writing: no purple prose, no complicated jargon. while reading this collection, i contributed several thousand words to my own short story that i've been in a rut on. i aspire to write science fiction like this. i also found out while reading this that he only writes a story every couple of years; his entire literary output can be compiled in a couple of tomes, yet each story is so cleanly written and conceptually striking.
Frankenstein: Signet Classics by Mary Shelley, Douglas Clegg
5.0
updating my review of this because when i was in 9th grade and did not know there were two versions i put my review on the 1818 version even tho it was the 1831 version we read in class. i think this is book is the biggest influence on my writing ever - it was an influence before i even read it - i owe mary shelley my genre & my livelihood. also reading this after university is hilarious... falling into months-long depression after completion of "capstone" project and then completely shirking STEM, studying the humanities, wanting nothing to do with former field of study, & breaking down upon sight of a chemical instrument? just like me fr
The Exhibition of Persephone Q by Jessi Jezewska Stevens
4.0
i am kind of obsessed with frankenstein & i feel like in some ways this feels like a frankenstein retelling, perspectives within perspectives, letters & emails & internet, a protagonist about to bear child yet telling no one. instead of the pov shifts like in frankenstein, you have percy narrating the entire novel, but the slip in chronology during part 2 when she's telling her backstory to her fiance feels like the creature's tale. i think this novel scratched my personal interests (art institutions & art history, urban life, post-graduation, startup culture, greek mythology) in all the right ways; the prose was beautifully written, the characters were haunting, and honestly i'm in love with misha (men written by women amiriteeee).
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
3.0
i just came from mary shelley reading this & was so unengaged by the lack of romanticism for the first 100 pages or so but enter john and my problems are solved
Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany
3.0
sci-fi kuntslerroman (a word that i learned at some point while reading the book). there were parts that i liked a lot (the conversations about art & a lot of the prose). there were also parts that i really did not like (the sex). reading this book on two 14 hour to/from flights was a good move because otherwise i probably would not have stuck with it for all 800 pages, but i am glad i read it.