Few literary works have managed to produce the mysticism, iconography, and semantic charge of Frankenstein or the modern Prometheus written by Mary W. Shelley. A landmark of the Gothic novel and a staple of science fiction, Frankenstein is perhaps the most enduring fruit of that legendary year without the summer of 1816, quenched by Tambora’s ashes. A true bestseller, Mary W. Shelley’s debut feature never came off the shelves, and yet its latest edition, a lavish volume curated by Red Fox Books, illustrated by David Plunkert, is cause for celebration.
Unlike other works that share the same time and genre as Frankenstein, Shelley’s novel is perceived to have an unusual validity. This isn’t fun since Frankenstein’s pregnancy coincided with the days of Villa Diodati, so works like his bastard sister John William Polidori’s The Vampire or Matthew G. Lewis’s monumental The Monk, an absolute pinnacle of Gothic novel, are no fun from our time, but Frankenstein is two years old. A hundred years later, he takes his pulse with the anxieties of this time. Really any time.
The obvious reason for this is that Mary W. Shelley’s novel delves into a primitive and eternal existential question, the possibility of overcoming death. Drawing on the dichotomy created by Víctor Frankenstein and his creature, the author explores the results of scientific research aimed at regenerating dead tissue and giving new life to an inactive body. The first, a gifted scientist, is an obsessive man who is not afraid to desecrate tombs to further his research. Like Captain Walton, another pioneer determined to achieve an unfathomable goal (to reach the North Pole despite the obvious danger to himself and his crew if they persist in his situation), Frankenstein is unaware of the consequences of his actions. their investigation. When he succeeds, it will be when the patchwork creature comes to life, when he realizes the hideousness of his enterprise: “For almost two years he worked tirelessly, with the sole aim of infusing life into an inactive body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. He wanted her with a fervor beyond measure; but now that I’ve accomplished that, the beauty of the dream has faded, and disgust and horror fill me. A monster, a tragic figure, a humanoid destined to be victim and enemy, rejected by his creator, a rejected son who traps the trauma of being unique within his brutality. His longing is as human as to get in touch with an equal, to have a mate.
This dichotomy, Frankenstein and his creature, has become a universal myth. We were talking about a semantic footprint: four years ago, geneticist He Jiankui shocked the world by announcing the birth of the first genetically modified babies. The scientist used the CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing tool to alter the genes of fetuses to make them immune to HIV. Soon the world press found a reference to explain the quality of He Jiankui’s research to the global public: His research was more about Dr. But its echo in the global audience and in the collective memory is not assimilated.
It also happens that in Frankenstein, its rich iconography, enhanced by cinema, conditions its approach in any medium or space. The shadow of filmmaker James Whale, who filmed both Doctor Frankenstein (1931) and The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) for Universal, is still elongated and reluctant to copy, despite the charismatic Boris Karloff, both of whom are the creature incarnation. and it leads to pastiche. The fact that the doctor and his monster top the list of fictional characters most adapted for the big screen: about a hundred, behind only Sherlock Holmes and figures close to Dracula and Hamlet.
Despite all this iconographic load, Red Fox Books’ effort to present a new version of Frankenstein, or the modern Prometheus, is a success thanks to careful printing and powerful illustrations by David Plunkert. The basis of the volume is an already classical translation of the work by María Engracia Pujals, which is one of the most republished adaptations in Spanish since its first publication under the Anaya label in 1982. In fact, therein lies the only objection to this new edition, and it is not related to the translation: the publisher mistakenly identifies the adapter as María Engracia Pujols, both on the cover and on the inside pages.
Still, this edition of Frankenstein is dazzling. With an unusual format (22.9 by 19.1 centimeters, leaving an almost square volume), the book even changes the color of its pages to distinguish parts of the story. Thus, Walton’s narrative is mirrored in a heavenly, icy blue, while Frankenstein’s is mirrored in the usual white pages, although it simulates a papyrus by reserving a distinguished plate on a sepia background for the beginning of chapters. These are the details that enrich the book, and the elegant final papers, printed in black on a red background, synthesize the Greek myth of Prometheus, who in several images was punished for stealing fire from the gods and giving it to humans.
As for the images themselves, they are promoted in various ways. On one side are the plates that reproduce the anatomical elements in an ancient treatise on surgery, closing each chapter, once again supporting the construction of the story and reinforcing the distinguished aspect of the volume. But there are also plates showing passages from the story, powerful compositions where Plunkert expertly uses collage to create highly compelling images with a thought-provoking Dada orientation that so uniquely evokes different passages of the text.
Most striking at first glance is the drawing that separates chapters 3 and 4 of the first chapter, the elegant page that introduces the creature’s awakening and the consequent horror of Frankenstein when he realizes the hideous thing he is the author of. . . This is a fold showing the two moments of “membership”, the process of assembling where Víctor Frankenstein builds his still faceless anonymous creature here. On the next page, a complete visual delight, complete with the image of the doctor working in his lab, his face again covered in a mask.
However, there are other equally elegant sheets where the singular format of the book makes full sense when you dig deep into the volume, immersing yourself in its pages. The peaceful and conspicuous beauty of the paintings in which Elizabeth plays is contrasted with the impressive severity of the appearances of the creature, whose face is wrinkled with scars, or with Frankenstein’s rage as he destroys his comrade, whose remains would sink the creature’s remains into a black sea. pages later, in another beautiful composition that also integrates the text. In short, it’s the images that make this new Frankenstein a myth-living volume.