a wicked good thing: books by girls

I'm part of this book club focusing on women writers. A few months ago we read and reviewed Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein." And since I'm too tired to rant on about what's bothering me now I'll share my book review here:


I read Frankenstein for the first time when I was about 19 years old (yes, a long, long time ago) during the beginning of my “female self discovery” period. I was just starting out on my own - naive and stupid at 19 years old - and here was this girl who wrote this legendary story that continues to inspire on so many levels - and she was all of 18 years old!

I loved this book the first time I read it so I was excited that it was the first book of the club. I ran to my bookshelf and was pissed to find I had lost it somewhere along the years. So I made a trip to my local Border’s to pick up another copy because I had to fill the hole in my shelf. (I’m a greedy little bitch when it comes to my bookshelf.)

I have to say I was irritated that I could not find it in the Literature section because they keep it in Horror section. ::IRRITATED:: Sure it’s a story of a horrific deed and its horrific consequences but it is so much more. (Don’t get me wrong, I can fully appreciate a good horror story as well.)

I have always been attracted to myth and the fact that Frankenstein’s subtitle is “The Modern Prometheus” made it that much more attractive to me when I first picked it up. The idea of rejecting authority, of denouncing a cruel and neglectful god was appealing to a 19 year old girl who was escaping her parents rule for the first time and openly rejecting the family religion. At that point in my life I couldn't figure out why I was supposed to worship this fucked up God that didn’t seem very loving or nice. (I was “brought up” Catholic) Why should the monster have acted any differently when he was treated so cruelly by his maker? I had no sympathy for the whiny doctor and identified with “the monster” that didn't even have a proper name. His struggles for love and acceptance in a crazy world broke my heart.

Today, as an older woman who has experienced breeding first hand, I still think the doctor is a self-centered, not to mention whiny, dick. One of my “irritations” in life is irresponsibility. Kinda like that dick doc that impregnated that crazy Octo-Mom – yeah, it’s like that. I enjoyed the fact that a young woman came up with a cautionary tale about the power of creation and the responsibility it demands in a way that both men and women of all ages can understand. It’s interesting that when she wrote the story she had already lost a child. There is something about having held a life inside you only to birth a stillborn that instills a deep sense of failure, guilt and anxiety. I felt those vibes a lot more on this second reading – as I have admitted, I am a breeder (as opposed to that 19 year old girl I used to be) and after experiencing the resentment and terror that comes with motherhood, your view changes like you wouldn’t believe. Not that, as a woman alone, you can’t imagine or empathize – nothing so insulting. It’s just that you can’t imagine crazy until you’ve visited. Feeling that sort of creation you are responsible for growing inside you can make a girl whacked for the rest of her life. Maybe that is why I enjoyed the recurring use of the birth and abortion motifs. Is it fair to say that only a woman could write so clearly of such things?