Monday, June 6, 2016

...one gothy summer & why you should be reading _Frankenstein_...



 “My education was neglected,

yet I was passionately fond of reading.”
~ Mary Shelley

1816 was “the year without a summer” due to some severe climate abnormalities which caused global temperatures to decrease. In the eastern part of the United States, there was a persistent fog that never seemed to dissolve.   

In Virginia, one newspaper reported a complaint, "It is now the middle of July, and we have not yet had what could properly be called summer. Easterly winds have prevailed for nearly three months past... the sun during that time has generally been obscured and the sky overcast with clouds; the air has been damp and uncomfortable, and frequently so chilling as to render the fireside a desirable retreat” (Columbian Register, July 27, 1816). 

Internationally, there were food riots in France and in the UK. While some were looting warehouses, the Swiss government declared a national emergency because of famine.  This same very summer, 200 years ago, a group of talented story-tellers were creating legends that would continue to haunt us today.

During very stormy nights in June 1816, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and Doctor John Polidori gathered at the Villa Diodati near Lake Geneva, Switzerland. Stuck inside on holiday, they came up with the idea to have a contest to see who could write the scariest story. Thanks to the 1986 film Gothic many of us already know this story and its outcome (pauses to swoon over Julian Sands)… In many ways, the events surrounding the birth of Frankenstein have nearly equaled the novel itself.

But let’s recap… Lord Byron would write and later publish "The Burial: A Fragment" (1819) which would inspire Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819). Lord Byron also published the poem “Darkness” (July 1816) which many consider an apocalyptic tale. Mary Shelley went on to write Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus (1818). Percy Shelley wrote continuously through that time with “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty” (1817) or “Mont Blanc” (1817), neither of which are classically ghost stories but Shelley sought spiritual reality in ghosts and the dead in his youth, and he wasn’t one to follow traditions.  

My fella and I do not often read similar books. This summer I decided that I was going to read all of the works that were born out of those stormy nights. 

Aside: I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that I read Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819) for the first time last week. I practically knew the entire plot and all of the characters; yet, because it has been sold to me as “poorly written”, I considered it a waste of time. Sigh. What is wrong with me?!? I continue to make my way through The Vampire Archives: The Most Complete Volume of Vampire Tales Ever Published (2009) and delight over some of the more ridiculous tales so Polidori’s work as short as it is was not a waste at all.

When I started Frankenstein, my fella decided that he was going to read along with me to mark the 200th anniversary of that summer. I hope you’ll consider reading along too so that we can all mark Frankenstein Day (August 30th, in honor of the author’s birth) in our gothy calendars. 
https://www.etsy.com/listing/203765062/frankenstein-book-tote?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=Frankenstein%20book%20purse&ref=sr_gallery_15

And of course, I cannot end this post without sharing this cute tote bag by LoveLit that I found on Etsy. The book nerd in me LOVES this bag because the Creature (whom we typically, and incorrectly, call "Frankenstein") is reading Paradise Lost, which happens in the novel so it is perfectly cute and perfectly accurate. Gwee! 

15 comments:

  1. *Swoon* is so RIGHT!!! I remember the first time I read "Frankenstein!" I was assigned the book as a junior in high school and typical for me, I waited to the last minute to read it. It was a stormy Saturday morning ... the book was due on Monday ... and I cracked open the book, not to put it down until 3:00 am the next morning. I finished it in one go because I was instantly hooked. I can't say that "Dracula" hooked me in like that, but "Frankenstein!" Oh what a book! And what a perfect time to read it: a chilly, stormy autumn day/evening!

    And Byron's "The Burial" ... *SWOON* I love Byron. LOVE. LOVE. LOVE. August 30th you say? Hmmmm ....

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    1. Awww, I don't quite recall the first time I read Frankenstein. It was assigned in high school. I think that is what made me love Dracula so; I picked it up on my very own and it wasn't a required reading.

      I always loved that Frankenstein was written by a woman!

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  2. PS: There's a great explanation about the "Summer That Wasn't" in the June 2016 issue of "Early American Life, pp. 32-36. The article is called "When the Seasons Went Backward," by Tom Kelleher. His research states that two major occurrences caused winter in summer: the eruption on April 10, 1815 of Mount Tambora on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa and an as-of-yet-unidentified eruption volcanic eruption in 1809 that set off the cooling trend. It's a really great read. If you can't get your hands on it let me know. I'll bring the magazine down when I come visit next month.

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    1. Cool, I'll check this out when I'm at work tomorrow. That's the great thing about working at a university, you can get your hands on almost anything :D

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    2. Alrighty, I tried but it appears that there isn't much of an online presence and the actual copies are sold out :-/ So if you don't mind, please bring it :)

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  3. I 'barely' remember reading Frankenstein ... but I do remember enjoying it. Maybe now is a good time to take it down from the shelf and give it another go.

    I didn't know about the absence of summer in 1816. I know that it happened again later in the 19th Century after the eruption of Mt. Krakatoa.

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    1. Whohoo! Give it a go! I'm starting a little bookclub without realizing. Maybe I will have a Frankenstein Day party! :D

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  4. Have you heard the song by Rasputina about that summer? Should be on YouTube, "1816 The Year Without a Summer"

    I adore the movie Gothic! Probably very much due to the fact that I adore Julian Sands! But it's wonderfully melodramatic!

    I am not actually a fan of Polidori's The Vampyre. I did feel it was a bit anticlimatic, although I don't remember it all too well, now. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, on the other hand, was a true masterpiece!

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  5. Ha, nope I've never heard of that song but I'm listening to it now :)

    I was obsessed with A Room with a View and Gothic when I was young. I owned copies of both which back then was sort of a big deal because VHS tapes cost up to $50.

    I'm not sure I would call myself *a fan* of The Vampyre but I enjoyed it just fine. It fits with other works of that time.

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  6. I probably shouldn't say this here in the midst of "Frankenmania", but I tried to read "Frankenstein" a few years ago, and was so bored I couldn't finish it. And I REALLY wanted to like it, too! I think the reason may have been that the monster was so articulate that I felt like I was sitting in a drawing room in a chair having tea and listening to him talk about his life, when I would much rather have been "seeing" it all as it happened (in the third person).

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    1. I mean the creature was reading Paradise Lost and being self-taught so it does read a bit like being in a drawing room; and, there certainly is a voyeuristic aspect to the reader watching the actions unfold. You're not wrong there! But no worries. Sometimes these things simply boil down to personal taste. :)

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  7. I'm inspired! I'll re-read Frankenstein this summer as well, it has been a number of years. My oldest daughter, a sociology prof at Mississippi State, will find it funny that Frankenstein Day lands on her birthday! She's used to getting trivia & info like that from her spooky mom. ^_^

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    1. Ha! I love it! So many missed Frankenstein-themed birthday opportunities until now ;p

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  8. I love Mary Shelley's way of writing in 'Frankenstein' and I was going to start to read her other novel 'Mathilda'. ^_^ I've understood that it has not so many horror elements but it has some twisted qualities a goth would love. :D

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