Just Finished Reading Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

English author Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein ushered in an era of horror/science fiction writing that still continues today.  In it an ambitious young scientist relates to an English explorer, who has rescued him in the frigid far north, his tragic story of creating a brand new human being...then abandoning him in horror and leaving him to fend for himself, ostracized as a terrifying-looking monster by those encountering him.  Victor Frankenstein's creation isn't far off visually from his depiction in the movies, but unlike the film versions, the Frankenstein monster in Shelley's original account has two years to learn English quite well and has developed a sophisticated worldview, albeit one steeped in offense and desire for revenge.  The Mel Brooks comedy Young Frankenstein is a takeoff of the old Boris Karloff movie and not of the book, which spends little time in the laboratory...and there's no "Igor" here.  Shelley seems to have used this story to illustrate how people are unfairly categorized and stigmatized and not given an equal chance to pursue their own lives of happiness and prosperity, a more general social commentary than shown on the big screen.  Dr. Frankenstein creates his human as a science project but never acknowledges that humanity...he is the story's true villain as the "monster", never shown any level of love or acceptance in his brief life, cannily turns rejection into murderous vengeance against his creator.  A sad story, but one very well written and eye-opening...I wish they had made a movie truer to this excellent book, which I have to admit that I liked a lot more than Bram Stoker's Dracula, which I also recently read...