FFB: The Cross of Frankenstein - Robert J. Myers

THE STORY: Victor Saville discovers he is the illegitimate son of the notorious Victor Frankenstein. He is approached by Frederick Greene, a visitor from Baltimore, to concoct a chemical formula drawn from the work of Victor's father. By accepting this unusual commission Victor puts into motion a fantastical scheme involving exhumation of the dead and subsequent reanimation for an unimaginable purpose. His adventure will take him to Scotland and then to America where he will confront the horrors of his father's legacy and try to put a stop to Greene's unspeakable plot.

THE CHARACTERS: Victor Saville is a fine replication of Shelley's original Victor Frankenstein. He is perhaps more moral than his father whose scientific experiments he abhors. He already knows of the dangerous and murderous character of the Monster his father created and who has survived these forty years since the original tale of Frankenstein published in 1818. Victor is accompanied in his adventures by Felicia McInnes, his aunt's ward, the daughter of an evangelical minister who died from cholera along with Felicia's mother. She begins as his confidante but soon he is falling in lust love, with her and will do anything to protect her. Felicia is kidnapped and falls into the clutches of a bizarre religious cult led by another evangelical minister, the half sane Reverend Ritter. Victor sets out to rescue her and avenge himself on Greene.

Greene, Ritter and Victor's former valet all turn out to be the rogues and villains of the piece much more than Frankenstein's Creature, or rather Monster (with a capital M) as Myers refers to him throughout the novel. All of them seem to be in thrall to the Monster who though he has also managed to make it to America has a part so small in the plot that he is almost relegated to a cameo. Myers' Monster is like a stand-in for an animated statue of Baal. He is treated as an idol, worshipped and looked to as a conduit for the salvation of dead souls through resurrection. But unbeknownst to the foolish cultists led by Rev. Ritter the Monster is wholly evil, bent only on desturciton and killing.

The bulk of the story takes place in Virginia and its environs with the climax set in a networks of caves where a bizarre religious cult have made their home. They are formed of true believers awaiting the resurrection of their beloved dead relatives. In one of the many labyrinthine caverns Green has set up a laboratory similar to Victor's father's lab. Unlike the sacred resurrection of Jesus Christ which most of the cultists believe will occur with their loved ones Greene has, unknown to the cultists, hacked to pieces and reconstructed in a parody of surgical procedures all of the dead just as Frankenstein did. Greene has hopes of creating an army of what he hopes will be a slave population to work the mines and lumber mills of the American South. But the essential ingredient to making these reanimations possible is the formula that Victor was entrusted to replicate. All depends on the manufacture of this artificial purple blood.

ATMOSPHERE: The story is rife with adventure set pieces from horseback and carriage chases in the mountains to pursuit by canoe on the whitewater rapids near Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. At times the book takes on the spirit of a James Fenimore Cooper novel and I expected Natty Bumppo to race out of the forests and come to Victor's aid at any minute. It is these sections where the writing is at its best, the excitement is genuine, and the reader waits with breath held awaiting what will happen next.

Sadly, the climax of the story takes an anachronistic detour into the land of sleazy sex. It was after all written and published in the 1970s when sex scenes seemed to be almost mandatory in popular fiction. When it happens in The Cross of Frankenstein (1975) the story ceases to be firmly rooted in the mid 19th century and reminds us of contemporary times. There is an absurdly graphic description of a blasphemous sexual ritual that ends in an orgiastic romp with the cultists coupling like mad rabbits in the caves. Felicia under the influence of Reverend Ritter's rhapsodic preaching allows herself to be ...how do I put this tastefully?... Oh heck, basically a zombie rape occurs. So it's not only a sex scene tainted by blasphemy with Reverend Ritter quoting Biblical passages, intoning about God's plan and all, but it is also a necrophilia scene. Doubly Gothic, eh? The sequence is just plain ridiculous especially when you note that much of the writing uses ill-chosen metaphors like "as a shank of lamb seeks the skewer" to describe the sexual activity. It's all unintentional hilarity. Maybe hysteria is a better word. The book takes on a decidedly salacious tone with Victor instantly transforming into a horndog obsessed with Felicia's naked body because (of course) she has managed to lose her clothes at this point and never bothers to cover up anything. I'm far from a prude, gang, but this was truly absurd and laughable and completely wrong for the book.

INNOVATIONS: Myers' attention to details in the life of Frankenstein are spot on. He clearly knows the book very well. The whole story begins as Shelley's Frankenstein begins with the introduction of Margaret Saville and talk of her correspondence with Captain Walcott. The entire first chapter in which Victor learns he is not her son, but was adopted and raised by her, soon becomes a miniature summary of Shelley's novel. Victor discovers his true parentage and of his unwanted inheritance, that he is the son of the infamous and immoral Frankenstein who dared to rival God as Creator. From the start, too, Myers has managed to capture the flavor of Shelley's 19th century prose and mostly manages to maintain the proper level of pastiche, until of course those sleazy sex scenes.

I liked especially the metaphor of slavery that pervades the novel setting up the sequel The Slave of Frankenstein (1976) in which Myers will more fully explore his idea of the reanimated dead as servants to mortal men. Frequently Myers has some pointed turns of phrase and sections where he discusses the difference between creating life and merely reanimating a corpse. While not heavy on philosophy or theology the inclusion of these passages gives the novel an extra heft that makes it more that just a potboiler thriller.

QUOTES: "Electricity and the fluid, then, were the essence of life. Not life -- animation. Life as I knew it had a spiritual and moral quality absent in the Monster. The hand of God touched not on this ghastly enterprise."

"Born without sin. Not the original sin, that is true. But I already knew that he was born from refuse, the offal of the charnel house, this soulless creature with no sense of right or wrong, a cleverness that passed for kindness to these simple folk, and cunning that knew no moral ends."

THE AUTHOR: Robert J. Myers had a rich life in Washington federal service and journalism. He began life as an Asian specialist in foreign service and was recruited during World War 2 by the OSS to work on a project to mobilize Koreans in the war against Japan. After the war he joined the CIA and continued assignments in Asia before becoming the station chief in Cambodia and deputy chief of the Far East division in the early 1960s. In 1965 he started a career in journalism. He founded Washingtonian magazine and later became publisher of the New Republic where he remained for more than a decade. In addition to the two novels based on Shelley's Frankenstein Myers also wrote The Tragedie of King Richard, the Second, a political satire and allegory in which Nixon becomes an avatar for the king.

EASY TO FIND? Very good news for this title. Close to 200 copies of The Cross Of Frankenstein are currently for sale in the used book markets on the vast shopping mall we call the internet. You have your choice of every available edition from the 1st US edition with its 19th century woodcut style DJ illustration to the paperback sporting Boris Karloff's iconic face of the Creature. Prices are very affordable based on what I saw, even the hardcovers with DJ are between $10 and $25 each. Happy hunting!

NOTE: The sequel to this first novel, The Slave of Frankenstein, will soon be written up as part on my ongoing "Frankenstein @ 200" series which so far includes posts on Frankenstein in Baghdad, Clay by David Almond and Monster by Dave Zeltserman.

F@200: Monster - Dave Zeltserman

Happy 200th Anniversary to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein! Today marks the bicentennial of the re-release of the novel after its anonymous publication on Jan 1, 1818 and subsequent temporary pull from sale. Shelley's name did not appear on the book until an 1823 edition published in France.

I doubt that those select few who have actually read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley will recall the one page in which Victor Frankenstein describes his initial foray in his quest to absorb all knowledge of natural philosophy. At the age of 15 Victor devoured the occult teachings and arcane books written by Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus and the medieval German bishop and alchemist Albertus Magnus. He then describes how he is ridiculed for this immersion in the occult by his professors when two years later enter enters Ingolstadt University to study science and medicine. But Dave Zelterserman did not forget this passage. In composing his spin-off of the tale of monster and creator he took off with this bit of information like a madman fleeing a burning Gothic castle pursued by pitchfork armed villagers.

Monster (2012) is the the tale of Frankenstein told from the creature's viewpoint with Victor Frankenstein cast in the role of sorcerer and alchemist. We learn that the monster is not so much a stitched together body of the best physiques of mortal men but a former apothecarian's assistant who is well versed in physical sciences and chemistry. Friedrich Hoffman is his name and he has sworn vengeance on Frankenstein for what he has done to him. Hoffman was engaged to a marry his beloved Johanna but Frankenstein murdered her and framed Hoffman for the crime who was then arrested, tried and executed in a particularly horrific manner. Then Frankenstein used Hoffman's corpse in his experiment in reanimation while also casting a powerful black magic spell that held Hoffman in Frankenstein's power.

Victor and creature by Harry Brockway
Frankenstein (Folio Society, 2004)

The novel is a fine pastiche of a true 18th century Gothic novel yet also a mash-up of a contemporary noir novel of revenge. You can bet there will be no real happy endings. Zelterserman does his best to replicate the tone and flavor of the Gothic novel's origins with some adept prose style but lays it on thick with horror novel motifs. Hoffman escapes from his prison and sets out to find Frankenstein plotting a revenge that is not so much "eye for an eye" as it is the typical "I'll get you sucker" plot crime fiction fans have read in countless paperback originals of the past and still be being recycled in books, movies and TV. The crime plot is out of place in this overloaded Gothic horror novel replete with Satanists in the woods, supernatural wolves, vampyres (Zeltserman's preferred spelling), black magic spells, and perverse sexual orgies with more than the required debauchery and depravity.

The word depraved occurs repeatedly throughout the story. Monster is clearly meant to be not only a revenge novel but a savage satire on the perversities that pass for thrill-seeking among the soulless and bored. The scenes of human degradation passed off as private entertainments are luckily few. Much of the story is filled with the basic ingredients of penny dreadful shockers of days past with hairbreadth escapes from the numerous villains, several daring feats of rescuing the handful of imperiled women, and an assortment of violent hand to hand fights.

Victor's obsession with alchemy and the occult have so tainted him that he has lost all sight of his former self. Unlike Shelley's conflicted man of science and religion this Victor is amoral in the extreme. Hoffman is not only his creation but his slave held captive with the aid of black magic. In a complete role reversal from his inspiration Zelterserman makes Hoffman the true man of science. using his skills as an apothecarian and his knowledge of chemistry he will succeed in counteracting the magic with a concoction of herbs and chemicals. Later, he also turns the tables on Frankenstein when he steals a page from one of the occultist's secret books planning on using a spell on his creator. The revenge of course smacks of 21st century irony in another nod to noir plotting.

Many readers may be turned off by what seems an inundation of debauchery and Gothic horror. Yet anyone who is familiar with the work of Walpole, Radcliffe, Francis Lathom and Eliza Parsons will recognize that excess is what Gothic novels are all about. German ghost stories and novels like The Necromancer (1794) in fact served as the inspiration for Shelley's novel. With this in mind one cannot help but admit that Monster is one of the more ingenious retellings of the Frankenstein story. About the only thing missing from this story are wicked nuns and corrupt monks and the body of a child found walled up the cellar of an abbey. As an added bonus, now almost expected in a work of historical fiction, there are cameos from real life figures like Samuel Hahnemann (the founder of homeopathy) and the Marquis DeSade himself. Monster may seem like a deluge of horror, wickedness, and unrestrained cruelty but it all rightly belongs there. However, it is not sustained or resolved in the final pages when disappointment and compromise nearly ruin everything.

We learn that Hoffman, unable to age like a human, is doomed to an eternal life. He survives to see the horrors of both world wars, the invention of automobiles and airplanes, and muses on the horror of modern men and their inventions all of which seem like monsters to him. One day he wanders past a bookstore where he discovers a copy of Frankenstein. After reading the book he is enraged by its contents calling it a nothing but lies. Prior to this sequence Zelterserman had pulled off a well researched, but not quite perfect, pastiche of the nascent Gothic horror thriller. When he resorts to obvious preaching on the well flogged topics of man's inhumanity to man, the inevitability of war, and all the rest of it rather than relying on the strength of allegorical meaning in his use of supernatural legends and Gothic trappings the novel ironically loses much of its power and relevance. Hoffman's anger gives way to a resignation and confession as he takes pen to paper to tell the true story of his creation, his victimization and his many crimes all the whole hoping for forgiveness for what he has done. Eliot's lament from "The Hollow Men" -- "This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper" -- comes to mind.

FFB: Clay - David Almond

THE STORY: There’s a new kid in northern England town of Felling. Stephen Rose has been sent to live with his aunt, known as Crazy Mary by the kids in Felling for her eccentric ramblings about Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Stephen is an odd boy, a loner of sorts, with a talent for sculpture. His breathtakingly beautiful human figures draw the attention of the art teacher at school and the admiration of a handful of Stephen's fellow students. Not one to make friends easily Stephen nonetheless is drawn to Davie, a mischievous altar boy who steals communion wine and smoke cigarettes with his pal Geordie down by the abandoned quarry. Stephen tells Davie that they have a lot in common not the least of which is a talent for creating things. When Davie shows Stephen the rich clay deposits by the marshy land surrounding the quarry the two begin a strange friendship fueled by a secret experiment that unveils a unnatural creativity defying science, religion and logic.

THE CHARACTERS: Davie narrates Clay (2005) in a mix of Felling’s Irish tainted dialect and a colloquial teenspeak. The reader watches him in his various personae as he flits between allegiance to his best mate Geordie, the burgeoning bond with eerily fascinating Stephen Rose, and a first taste of teen romance in his attraction to Maria. Looming menacing in the background but never really encountered in the flesh is Martin Mould, the local brute of a bully known as Mouldy to those he terrorizes. Described by Davie as having evil eyes, fierce breath and vicious spit Mouldy is a giant of a boy with massive hands, an apish muscular body and towering height. Though “only sixteen but already [drinking] like a man” Mouldy is the ostensible villain of the piece. All the kids talk of him and the fear he instills in them. Davie suffers from nightmares after a particularly violent encounter with Mouldy. He’d like to see him dead. Eventually the secret friendship between Stephen and Davie leads to a campaign of revenge with their secret weapon being a statue Stephen and Davie call Clay that Stephen swears the two of them can bring to life with an unholy ritual.

INNOVATIONS: Clay may be targeted to young readers, but it reads like a profound adult novel. Almond touches on a variety of mature themes all involving creativity and the power of imagination as a tool of survival. He covers everything from divine inspiration, the mystery of innate and inexplicable talent seen so early in young people, and the love/hate dichotomy of intense yet callow friendships. In Stephen Rose author Almond has created a Machiavellian artist reminiscent of a teen Faust armed with occult powers, seductive attraction and inescapably hypnotic words. The story draws on the legend of the Jewish Golem and subverts it with blasphemous use of Catholic ritual in the creation and animation of the statue Clay. Clearly there are also allusions to Shelley’s Frankenstein throughout the story as well as in the never-ending rhetoric Stephen taunts Davie with:

Are we not gods ourselves when we make something new? And why is it God who can only create? Stephen poses: “Mebbe there was a time of beasts and monsters before there came the time of us. Mebbe there’s things like them things walking still. Mebbe there’s things around us that was created by the devil and not by God. Things like the thing that snarled through the door at you. Things like your Mouldy.”

Peter Pratt, the Felling school art teacher, joins in the discussion answering similar questions and more importantly offering advice and counsel. When asked if human creativity is equal to the creativity of God Pratt warns Davie not to think so immorally. To contemplate such ideas is to begin straying down paths that lead nowhere good. He reminds Davie that artists have “astounding skills that may indeed be God-given, but [are] nevertheless human.” Ultimately Pratt teaches that the difference between human and divine creation is that humans cannot create a soul and without that art is never truly divine. Stephen Rose will take those words as a challenge, lead Davie by the hand into a darker world where black magic overtakes the soul, where the desires of the artist seem to have a power greater than even the divine power of creating life. And in bringing to life their idol of Vengeance they bring about destruction and death.

Almond explores metaphysics, theology, art and even the ethics of modern science. When Clay at last begins to move and resemble a powerful and handsome human Davie wonders whether if he is just not one more monster that will bring them trouble. When with Maria Davie talks about genetic accidents, “freaks of nature” and “things there seems no reason for.” The conversation of taboo topics leads to Davie musing on the future of science and the observation that one day they may be able “to make life in a test tube. We’ll be able to create living creatures with chemicals and electricity and nuclear power.”

THE AUTHOR: Born and raised in northwestern England David Almond worked as a postman, brush salesman, editor and teacher before turning to writing novels full time. His first novel, Skellig (1998) won several awards and still remains in print as do all of his books. He has written over twenty novels and picture books for children and one novel for adults. Throughout his career his work has been awarded with the Michael L. Printz Honor Book twice, the Whitbread Award, a Carnegie Medal, and a Boston Globe Horn Book award.

EASY TO FIND? Of course it is! In a rare instance on this blog of presenting a book written and published in the 21st century what else would you expect? Clay is one of the most rewarding, penetrating and intense novels I’ve read in a long time. If all young adult books were this rich and dense, insightful and well written, rather than being derivative knock-offs I’d probably read more of them on a regular basis. But I know that this kind of book is so utterly unique and a clear expression of recurring personally felt themes found in all of David Almond’s work that it is a rare book indeed. Happy hunting and happy reading!

F@200: Frankenstein in Baghdad - Ahmed Saadawi

Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi
Penguin Books
ISBN: 978-0143128793
281 pp. $16
Publication date: January 23, 2018

For the first post in my year long salute to "Frankenstein @ 200" I've chosen a brand new book first published in Iran and winner of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction. Saadawi's novel is a phantasmagorical work that incorporates fantasy, Arabic folklore, and wartime horror in a unique retelling of the Frankenstein story. The novel is Saadawi's reaction to the inescapable violence and endless killing of a wartorn city. He envisioned a sort of Nemesis who would haunt the streets of Baghdad seeking out murderers, terrorists and soldiers responsible for innocent victims of war and bombings. In place of Victor Frankenstein we have the junk dealer Hadi who inadvertently creates a Frankenstein monster of sorts when he tries to find missing body parts for a friend's blown-up corpse. When Hadi travels to the Baghdad morgue he discovers that no attempt has been made to separate or identify any stray limbs and that they have been dumped together according to body part. The morgue attendant tells Hadi, "Just take any arm. What does it matter?" In wartime Baghdad corpses and severed limbs have become so commonplace they are just like so much junk to be piled into a bin and disposed of as quickly as possible.

Saadawi has found a way to take the basic concept of Frankenstein's thirst for god-like power and subvert it. The Creature in his novel is not as soulless as Shelley's monster. It is not without identity nor is it without purpose. Just the opposite, in fact, as Saadawi makes the perceptive point that being composed of so many body parts it is a collective of multiple identities. As for the soul there is an entire chapter devoted to the bodyless soul of a hotel guard who is the victim of a terrorist's suicide bombing attack. For the length of the chapter he travels looking for his body while Saadawi reminds us of the Muslim religious belief that without a body the soul will never be able to enter Heaven.

Ahmed Saadawi (photo: ©Safa Alwan)

The guard's soul discovers the body Hadi has reassembled and settles himself inside thus reanimating the corpse and simultaneously reawakening the many "memories" of the violent ends each separate body part endured. The soul of the hotel guard acts as a spirit of vengeance and the body sets out to find those responsible for its various destructions. As each "memory" succeeds in its act of retribution the body part dissolves making it necessary to find a replacement. What more perfect metaphor could be imagined for the relentless cycle of pointless death during wartime?

Sounds utterly gruesome, right? Why read something so truly horrifying and gut wrenching? And yet it's a masterful satire, tinged with biting humor and powerfully moving sequences, never once is there the temptation to sentimentalize the story with grief stricken longing for the horribly butchered victims of war. One character combats her grief for her missing soldier son with an untold capacity for the hope of his return. It is this missing son's  nose that Hadi finds and attaches to the creature Saadawi has dubbed the Whatsitsname (or perhaps the term is translator Jonathan Wright's invention). Each chapter focusses on one of the many characters in the novel with a trio of them -- Mahmoud, one of several journalists, Hadi, and the Whatsitsname -- taking center stage in the weaving narrative. The most original aspects of the novel are the incorporation of fantasy and supernatural. Saadawi cleverly manages to draw on the rich history of Arabic folklore familiarly known to Western readers from the 1001 Nights.

Edmund Dulac painting, 1907 edition of The Arabian Nights

The novel opens with a sort of Iranian X Files division blandly called by the drab and bureaucratic name The Tracking and Pursuit Department, headed by an egotistical and nearly incompetent Brigadier Majid who is surrounded by muscular young male servants who trot out at a moment's whim to serve tea in his offices. Slowly we learn that the Tracking and Pursuit department is primarily in charge of preventing terrorist attacks by predicting possible violent plots and ending them before they ever occur. They employ not only soldiers but a complex network of astrologers, parapsychologists, mediums, soothsayers, and "people who can communicate with spirits and djinns." Mahmoud interviews the Brigadier about the department trying his best to understand why the army would call for help from what he thinks are a bunch of crackpots. Majid replies "It's work. You don't know how many weird stories we have to deal with. The aim is to get more control, to provide information about the sources of violence and incitement to hatred and to prevent a civil war." In one chapter the reader learns that even among these specialists in the occult there is a war for power. Several sorcerers manage to locate the creature known as the Whatsitsname and using their varied talents in spell casting are trying to control the creature in order to eliminate each other so each man can become the chief sorcerer. As the senior astrologer later says to Brigadier Majid: "What's the point of predicting where a crime is going to happen when you can wipe out the criminal before he becomes one?"

Original Arabic edition (Al Kamel, 2013)

Ultimately, it is the creature itself with its multiple identities, its amassed experience and perceptions of the world "remembered" through each body part who "emerges from a daydream" to deliver the true horror of the relentless violence: "There are no innocents who are completely innocent or criminals who are completely criminal." He realizes the most telling aspect that will undermine his mission " [that] every criminal he had killed was also a victim." His rampage is pointless and he longs to be destroyed.  Yet even as the One Who Has No Name realizes his futility he becomes an omnipresent threat.  He is seen everywhere and becomes everything.  Fear spreads and the Whatitsname is called a Shiite extremist, an agent of foreign powers, an enemy of anyone who has an enemy. Even the Americans working to preserve peace blame the creature on an ingenious man trying to subvert their case. Such is the chaos of life in wartime and such is the power of fear.

As in Shelley's Frankenstein a resolution of sorts comes about only with an ironic punishment of the creature's inventor. Only when a face can be put on the creature rather than a name can the hunt end and a criminal be caught. But recalling the creature's observation we are forced to ask ourselves was the true guilty party found and captured? Saadawi offers us no pat answers here. There is no real peace either.  There is only resignation and surrender as the violence subsides temporarily only to make way for more. 

It's Alive! - Celebrating 200 Years of Frankenstein

The Creature by Nino Carbe (Illustrated Editions, 1932)

I've been receiving lot of publicity from various publishers reminding me that Mary Shelley's landmark novel Frankenstein will be celebrating its 200th anniversary of publication which was January 1, 1818. There are various books, both fiction and non-fiction, being released this month and throughout the year in honor of this date. Soon we'll have the first English translation of Iraqi author Ahmad Saadawi's prize-winning Frankenstein of Baghdad (originally published in Arabic in 2013) which I'll be reviewing shortly.

It's not just the world of literature and books involved in the bicentennial. All over the web there are websites connecting various science projects, lecture series and memes to honor Shelley and her novel with talk of cloning, stem cell research and other related topics of ethics in science research. One of the most ambitious is Arizona State's Frankenstein Bicentennial Project.

This is a world wide celebration with over 100 participating institutions from 27 different countries. For a list of the universities and libraries taking part visit Frankenreads, the central website and sponsoring agency connecting the world with the "Frankenstein@200" year long celebration. You may be lucky enough to have an event or series of events in your own city or town.

I've decided to join in this celebration by reading and discussing various contemporary books and vintage novels that employ the Frankenstein theme or Shelley's characters. I'll try to do this at least once a month on a Sunday like today. If I'm lucky in finding most of the books and read them quickly I may sneak in two per month.

Why not join in the fun and read the novel itself or watch the movie and write about it on your blog? The novel is very different from the many movies, I assure you. The TV version back in the mid 1970s with Michael Sarrazin as the Creature is probably the most faithful to Shelley's novel.

To start us off with a bang I'll offer up a video clip of the iconic creation scene from James Whales' original Frankenstein from 1931.