Frankenstein, Volume Three, Chapter Seven

In which Victor vows vengeance, pursues to the perilous pole, is saved by the stranded sailors, and all are awfully angsty.



And that concludes Frankenstein! It took us a while, but we made it. I admit, this last bit especially is a bit of a slog (sorry it's so long, I really just couldn't make another all-Robert-Walton installment), with us returning to the framing story we don't really care about and everyone talking about how miserable they are. What really sort of gets me in this section (as you can probably tell from my interjection at one point) is how both Walton and the monster sort of lionize Victor, and bemoan his sad fall due to persecution from the creature. Yes, Victor had a tragic downfall, but it was of his own making. He's not the hero of this story. No one is, really, nor is anyone truly the villain (notice I never used the "iconic villain debut" tag in this book). And I'm not talking about "oh, his actions had terrible consequences that he couldn't possibly have foreseen," because he created a giant, sentient, intelligent creature and then just abandons it. How could something bad possibly come from that?

ANYWAY. This final cover comes from a 1934 edition published by Harrison Smith and Robert Haas, with cover and illustrations by Lynd Ward (1905-1985). Ward was a very influential artist, best known for his engraved wood illustrations, particularly in his series of "wordless novels" that strongly influenced the development of the graphic novel. He also illustrated hundreds of children's books, won the 1953 Caldecott Medal for his book The Biggest Bear, and of course illustrated a number of classics, such as Frankenstein here.

Man, look at that! I love the art deco / German expressionistic look of this. It's like Fritz Lang directed this book cover. Also, hee, monster butt. I really wish I could've used his illustrations in my posts, because they're just magnificent, really. Check out Victor and the monster on the glacier! The monster running among lightning trees! William's murder! Victor with his chemistry equipment! Hey, wait, that looks a lot... oh, Airmont Classics. You plagiarizing scamps. (UPDATE: I forgot to link to the main site, where you can see a whole bunch more of the illustrations from this edition! DISCLAIMER: The guy who compiled the site is an author on an apparent crusade to prove that not Mary but Percy Shelley wrote Frankenstein, a position I do not support.)

Just a couple of quick notes in this one, as most of the being miserable was fairly straightforward. At 6:36, Victor pursues the monster into Tartary and Russia, where Tartary was a large chunk of central and northern Asia that included Mongolia, Siberia, Turkestan, and Manchuria, among other regions. This is of course where the Tartars we met in "Sleepy Hollow" came from.

At 33:38, Walton's letter from September 12th recounts how the ice broke up on September 9th. Well, the text actually says "September 19th" there, which was presumably a typesetting error in the 1818 edition due to the printer assuming that it was supposed to be the date of the next letter and thus should have a later number. It was corrected in later printings, so I figured I'd just change it myself rather than leave it weird and confusing.

Last, 48:21 the monster talks about Felix driving him from his door "with contumely," which basically means "with insulting and humiliating treatment."

And that's a wrap! We're going to lighten things up a bit with our short story interlude, as well as our next book. Stay tuned!


If you would like to read along, the text can be found at Project Gutenberg. No reading ahead, though!

Frankenstein, Volume Three, Chapters Five and Six

In which Victor is self-centered to the point of missing the obvious, gets married, and the obvious happens.



And the monster has hit the fan! Well, he hit Elizabeth, actually, something which the monster's killing of others dear to him and and threats to take away all that he loves completely failed to tip Victor off to the monster's next move. Seriously, Victor, it's not all about you.

Anyway, now that the, uh, spoiler has occurred, I can share the more dramatic and violent of the covers. First up:

This French-language edition is from Le Scribe of Brussels in 1946, and depicts Elizabeth's murder in a manner highly inspired by the movie, with the castle and the neckbolts and what-not. Notice that this edition was written by Ann Mary Shelley, I guess. Apparently, the title page gets a little closer with May W. Shelley. Don't... don't know what's going on there, Belgium. Oh, and the cover artist is uncredited. So.

This one,by Lion Press in 1946 also with no artist credited, shows the immediate aftermath, with a sexy, lipsticked, cleavage-baring Elizabeth very prettily being dead without a mark on her. Meanwhile, the monster is not especially Karlovian, but does appear to be having a "my god, what have I done" moment that is not especially apparent in the book. Though, to be fair, neither is the cleavage.

Only one note this time around: at 16:42 we hear about Victor and Elizabeth purchasing their house in Cologny, which is a municipality of Geneva that is home to the World Economic Forum.

...I'm sorry, I thought that note would be more interesting. Anyway, one more installment!


If you would like to read along, the text can be found at Project Gutenberg. No reading ahead, though!

Frankenstein, Volume Three, Chapter Four

In which Victor discovers the identity of the murdered man, falls ill — again — for a couple of months, is found innocent, and is picked up by his dad.



So... is it just me, or are you all kind of rooting for bad things to happen to Victor now? Am I a bad person for feeling this, or is Victor just sort of insufferable? Maybe a little of Column A, a little of Column B? All right then.

Today's cover focuses on Victor, walking in the Alps, just as he first meets the monster whose shadow looms over his shoulder:

This 2007 edition is from Sterling Publishing's Unabridged Classics series, all of which have covers by Scott McKowen. McKowen works in a scratchboard style, which is nicely evocative of old-school woodcuts and such. He's best known for his work illustrating theatrical posters, many of which can be seen here along with much of his other work, and is also well-known in geek circles for illustrating the covers to Marvel Comics' 1602, by Neil Gaiman.

Notes after the jump!

Frankenstein, Volume Two, Chapters Eight and Nine

In which the creature rages against the heavens and vows revenge, murders just a little bit, then asks Victor for one tiny favor in order to leave everyone alone forever.



Here we go, we're picking up steam again! I mean, still plenty of angst and misery, but we're back to the murdery and mad sciencey place again. Yay!

Today's cover goes full-on Karloff:

This doesn't even really pretend to take its imagery from anything other than the movie. There's even a castle! This 1976 edition published by Pocket Books had this here cover done by Mara McAfee (1929-1984). McAfee started out as a minor-league actor in the 1950s before going on to a very well-respected career as an artist and illustrator who did do some literary illustrations like this, but was best known for satirical illustrations for publications like National Lampoon, which often featured her work on the cover. A small selection of her work (including a closer look at this cover) can be viewed here.

Thankfully brief notes after the jump!

Frankenstein, Volume One, Chapters Five and Six

In which Victor returns to health, letters arrive from loved ones, Elizabeth expounds at length on the history of a person whom Victor really already knows, tragedy strikes, and Victor figures it's probably his fault but eh, it'll probably end up working out this time, right? And in which the narrator assures you that he, too, will not stay dead.



Lookit that, we're back! This was actually recorded in part over a month ago, but only just completed last night (in case the sound between the two chapters sounds different or anything. Unfortunately, I appear to have, uh, misplaced my notes for Chapter 5, and my computer just ate my notes for Chapter 6, so I'm gonna have to go back through and listen to find out what notes are needed and where. I'll post 'em up here soon as I can!

In the meantime, here's today's cover, from a 1963 edition from Airmont Classics.Boy, this is a good one! I love that we've got Victor being all broody amongst his laboratory equipment that is also a graveyard, with the subtle grim specter of the creature's (Karloff-inspired) face looming in the background. This is also a great example of stock lab equipment in art. Want to show people your character is a "scientist"? Put some colored liquid into some flasks -- round-bottom and Erlenmeyer are especially popular, though I'm surprised there aren't any retorts there -- a smoking crucible over some kind of a burner, probably, and a mortar and pestle and boom! Science!


If you would like to read along, the text can be found at Project Gutenberg. No reading ahead, though!

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Chapters Twenty to Twenty-Four

In which a very delicate town is encountered, the Lion becomes a king through assassination, better use is made of the Winged Monkeys than last time, our heroes finally meet Glinda, and all is brought to a happy ending.



Once again, better late than never, eh? Eh? Eh. Sorry to keep you waiting, but here are the last set of illustrations for our story:

"The Snow Queen," Fourth to Seventh Stories

In which our heroine is assisted by crows, royalty, a most delightful robber girl, a friendly reindeer, and a couple of mysterious ladies to achieve a happy ending, though several deaths are dealt with rather casually.



Couple of things I had to look up: the poor murdered "postilions" are drivers of horse-drawn carriages; the "lath" enclosing the robber girl's wood pigeons is just strips of wood, like that making latticework; the Snow Queen's castle is on Spitsbergen, a very-far-north island belonging to Norway, and to get there they must travel to Lapland, which is a cultural region defined as where the indigenous Sami people live (the Sami were formerly known, and are referred to in this story, as the Lapp people, which is now frowned upon), and ultimately end up in the Finnmark, a very northerly county in Norway. There, they meet the Finn woman, who naturally enough is a member of the ethnic group associated with Finland.

And then of course we have the rest of the Edmund Dulac illustrations from 1911:

2:20 - "She has read all the newspapers in the world, and forgotten them again, so clever is she."

 One of the things I love about this story is how Gerda gets mixed up in what seem to be someone else's fairy tale entirely, like this one about the clever princess looking for a husband who can prove his worth to her, and Gerda's all "Mmhmm, mmhmm, can we get back to my tragic search now?"

12:29 - "'It is gold, it is gold!' they cried."

Also, I just absolutely adore the little robber girl, like how she takes pity on Gerda and thus earnestly promises that she won't let anyone else kill her, but will do it herself, and how she tries to make Gerda kiss one of the pigeons, and how she casually mentions that the friendly, helpful crow is now dead. She's my favorite.

23:51 - "The reindeer did not dare to stop. It ran on till it came to the bush with the red berries. There
it put Gerda down, and kissed her on the mouth, while big shining tears trickled down its face."

I'm a little puzzled about the fact that the text specifically says that the reindeer — twice — kiss Gerda on the mouth, but hey, who am I to judge.

26:50 - "The Snow Queen sat in the very middle of it when she sat at home."

Funny thing, we actually don't see very much of the Snow Queen. Gerda doesn't even meet her. She sure is purty, though. Actually, all of the villains in this story — the hobgoblin, the Snow Queen, the robbers — all get away completely scot-free. And, of course, millions of other shards of that mirror still exist in the world. Ah well.

And that's it for another short story interlude, and Andersen has now taken his place on The Bookshelf. Tomorrow we'll start up a new book, and then we'll resume our regular schedule. Thanks for listening!


If you would like to read along, the text can be found at Project Gutenberg. No reading ahead, though!

Treasure Island, Chapters Twenty-Four to Twenty-Six

In which Jim's dang fool plan mysteriously works, allowing him to commandeer the vessel, which he decides to run aground (no no, on purpose) with the assistance of the injured pirate Israel Hands, who is surprisingly not to be trusted.



Geez, the only thing in these chapters 1908 decided to note was "yawing," but these chapters especially have a whole bunch of nautical terms that are not necessarily well-known by all, so here's a handy glossary to help you out. I probably should've supplied this earlier in the story. The only thing I have to add is that the Execution Dock Mr. Hands refers to is, not surprisingly, a dock in London where executions were held by the British Admiralty Court for crimes at sea, like pirating, smuggling, and mutiny.

But, more importantly, we get to see this illustration of Jim up in the rigging, aiming both pistols right at Israel Hands's face, while Hands prepares to throw his dagger into Jim's shoulder:

32:58 - "'One more step, Mr. Hands,' said I, "and I'll blow your brains out!"

Action! Excitement! The obligatory attempt to sanctimoniously show the villain the error of his ways by threat of Hell!


If you would like to read along, the text can be found at Project Gutenberg. No reading ahead, though!

Treasure Island, Chapters Twelve to Fourteen

In which Jim alerts the captain et al. to Long John's treachery, the men begin to be openly disgruntled, a cunning plan is hatched, and Jim sets foot upon Treasure Island to discover that there are still honest hands. Or, y'know, were.



Not many notes from our friends in 1908, and none at all from Chapter Fourteen. I don't actually have anything to add either, this all being more or less self-explanatory, I suppose. We're getting good into the killin' now!

Speaking of killin', here is the captain, the squire, the doctor, and Jim distributing loaded pistols to the men they're sure are honest, of whom there are unfortunately only three:

14:58 - "Loaded pistols were served out to all the sure men."

And, much like poor drunk Mr. Arrow, farewell to Alan and Tom, the latter of whom at the very least managed to die onstage, unlike the other two.

Also, I'm glad that we're gonna be getting more scenes with Long John than with the Three Stodges up there, because MAN are they boring.


If you would like to read along, the text can be found at Project Gutenberg. No reading ahead, though!

"The Black Cat," by Edgar Allan Poe

In which there is a descent into Murderous Madness, facilitated by the eponymous Black Cat, as well as the Demon "Alcohol," and in which our narrator affects a "Spooky Manner."



To the best of my knowledge, the works of Edgar Allan Poe don't have any definitive illustrations, like Alice or Sherlock, or even any "original" ones, like Anne, but he does have the advantage of over 160 years of influencing literary history, and by extension artists of many stripes. Here are a few quick public domain "Black Cat" illustrations/artworks I found:

 This etching was done by Alphonse Legros, a French artist who did a series of these etchings around 1861 to illustrate Charles Baudelaire's French translations of Poe's works.

 This one, done by English illustrator Aubrey Beardsley in 1901, is in a very different style, inspired more by Japanese woodcuts. It does, though, show essentially the same scene, the same that most people choose to illustrate from the story: the climactic reveal of the cat atop the head of the narrator's dead wife.

This painting, though, is inspired by the story but not intended to illustrate it. Gino Severini painted this in 1911, and one can make out important aspects of the story if you look closely enough. The cat, of course, both before and after eye-gouging, but also the glass filling with wine, showing what Poe intended be the real monster of the story.

(Although the guy with the axe is also kind of the monster.)


If you would like to read along, the text can be found at Project Gutenberg. No reading ahead, though!