A scintillating New York Times review of a reanimation of Shelley’s Dr. Frankenstein in a new novel by Peter Ackroyd. The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein seems well-timed, appearing alongside a flurry of interest in Romantic era science and its interactions and intersections with literature. This looks like a hip, innovative interpretation of the path of a man who dabbled into the deepest mysteries of life and got, well, burned.

Review concludes that “Ackroyd is hard pressed to spark an idea that isn’t already burning, fiercely, in Mary Shelley’s still-vital novel. This, perhaps, is the postmodern Prometheus: an attempt, aware of its own futility, to reanimate something that never died.” Yet Ackroyd, by the sound of it, doesn’t fail to inspire a bold perspective. One that again reminds how central the vitalism dilemma is in the original Modern Prometheus.

Shelley’s work, widely seen as the first sci-fi novel, sets a tone for the boldly transgressive nature (a kind of Ur-nature) of science in the romantic age. Maybe that’s why our stalwart Times reviewer also mentions another recent (and widely publicized) book on romanticism and science, Richard Holmes’ The Age of Wonder.

I’m curious to read this novel, but would also love to hear from anybody who has checked it out. In the meantime I’m tackling Holmes, continuing to explore romantic and vitalistic convergences in early 19th century science. And beyond…

“Many and multiform are the dim horrors of Earth, infesting her ways from the prime. They sleep beneath the unturned stone; they rise with the tree from its roots; they move beneath the sea and in subterranean places; they dwell in the inmost adyta; they emerge betimes from the shutten sepulcher of haughty bronze and the low grave that is sealed with clay. There be some that are long known to man, and others as yet unknown that abide the terrible latter days of their revealing. Those which are the most dreadful and the loathliest of all are haply still to be declared. But among those that have revealed themselves aforetime and have made manifest their veritable presence, there is one which may not openly be named for its exceeding foulness. It is that spawn which the hidden dweller in the vaults has begotten upon mortality.”

Clark Ashton Smith, “The Nameless Offspring” (1932).

Not wanting to break the chain, I sit
In a stone circle, atop a misty hill.
Clouds hang low, bringing hushed tones
To verdant landscapes.
Gone are sunny summer days,
Replaced by red and auburn glints
Dappled across grey horizons.
Like steely legions marching to Gehenna,
Streaming wisps arc above and perform,
An aerial danse macabre.
As light begins to dim, a last promise
The ebb of day, tantalizes the spirit.
Alas, damp heavy air signals another fate
As soft breezes start to stir,
Through lush native grasses.
A black squirrel, a bold invader
Like a crusading knight in Holy Lands,
Collects warmth for newfound hearth.
Perched on a rock, at the edge of evening,
A regal raptor watches.
Not wanting to break the chain, I sit
In a stone circle, atop a misty hill.