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Monday, March 12, 2007
The Structure of Mad Scientific Revolutions
As some of you know, I’ve been amusing myself of late by cleaning up the Project Gutenberg Frankenstein, which was a bit of a monster. When I’m done, it will be a thoroughly presentable creature, of the 1831 variety. More to the present point, Adam Roberts and I are now planning - when my editorial efforts are complete - to work it up into a nice little free critical edition. Spark it to life with some discussion. Make a little Glassbead Book, eh? It will be lovely. (The Theory’s Empire book is coming out real soon, by the by.)
So we’re soliciting contributions. I’ve got a title I like: Frankenstein - or - the Structure of Mad Scientific Revolutions. You see, we intend to place the accent on the SF aspect - notably, Brian Aldiss’ well-known contention that Frankenstein is, properly, the first SF novel. His oft-quoted definition: "Science fiction is the search for a definition of mankind and his status in the universe which will stand in our advanced but confused state of knowledge (science), and is characteristically cast in the gothic or post-gothic mode." Frankenstein sort of fits in there, you see.
So consider this a call for posts. I’m going to work up something about SF and the counter-Enlightenment. You want to contribute? (We don’t have a date set yet. Couple months?)
I figure the SF theme is a fairly broad umbrella. You don’t have to agree with Aldiss. (Adam doesn’t.) You could write about genre issues and gothic. Lots of ways to take it, while still touching on the stipulated theme. Why have a theme at all? Obviously the fact that I am teaching philosophy and film, with a focus on SF, has given me Rotwang on the brain. But that’s not a bad thing, I say.
Curious how the editorial issues relate to the SF issues? You might read this.
Comments
As if I wasn’t busy enough already, now there’s the temptation to try to write something for this. I mean, if one is going to address Demiurgy in SF, Frankenstein is obligatory. If I manage to find time, I’ll Email you something. (I still haven’t found time to go through Theory’s Empire comments, so hopefully Adam has.)
Good illustration, BTW. But is he supposed to be holding a painter’s palette?
Bring in a little Kabbalism and the notion of the golem put into a sci-fi context.
Golems are good. Glad you like the illustration, Rich. I dunno what the little wheel thing is. It’s a lever attached to a plate. It’s what the guy is actually manipulating in the film itself. Mad scientific equipment.
In her current column in Salon, Camille Paglia mentions a forthcoming book arguing that Frankenstein was really written by Percy:
Finally, I read a fabulous book last week—John Lauritsen’s “The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein," which will be published in May by the gay-themed Pagan Press, based in Dorchester, Mass. Lauritsen, who is known for his work in gay history and for his heterodox views of the AIDS epidemic, sent me an advance copy, which arrived as I was on my way to midterm exams. Its thesis is that the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and not his wife, the feminist idol, Mary Shelley, wrote “Frankenstein” and that the hidden theme of that book is male love.
As I sat there reading while proctoring exams, I tried unsuccessfully to stifle my chortles and guffaws of admiring laughter—which were definitely distracting the students in the first rows. Lauritsen’s book is important not only for its audacious theme but for the devastating portrait it draws of the insularity and turgidity of the current academy. As an independent scholar, Lauritsen is beholden to no one. As a consequence, he can fight openly with myopic professors and, without fear of retribution, condemn them for their inability to read and reason.
...
Lauritsen assembles an overwhelming case that Mary Shelley, as a badly educated teenager, could not possibly have written the soaring prose of “Frankenstein” (which has her husband’s intensity of tone and headlong cadences all over it) and that the so-called manuscript in her hand is simply one example of the clerical work she did for many writers as a copyist. I was stunned to learn about the destruction of records undertaken by Mary for years after Percy’s death in 1822 in a boating accident in Italy. Crucial pages covering the weeks when “Frankenstein” was composed were ripped out of a journal. And Percy Shelley’s identity as the author seems to have been known in British literary circles, as illustrated by a Knights Quarterly review published in 1824 that Lauritsen reprints in the appendix.
And no doubt Lord X wrote Shakespeare too.
"As an independent scholar, Mr Mybug is beholden to no one.”
I looked up Lauritsen’s book on Amazon. His author profile there says he’s “[a] retired market research analyst, [and] his writings, including ten books, have won him international acclaim.” These other books seem primarily to involve the theory that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS.
Well, I started to write an essay, and got fanfic instead. It’s over at the Save Our Kaufman thread:
The Importance of Earnest Beings: An Epistolary Frankenfanfic