Check out Declan's blog for some stunning pictures from the trips:
https://surrealistjunky.com/ What a fine eye! Crossing one of the torrents from Servoz to Chamonix, Mary was carried in a chaise like this. ("Claire went on her mule, P. walked, I was carried"--she wrote in her journal.)
Spring has officially started on my balcony. First planting for this year: thyme, parsley, lemon balm, and million bells.
Dear all,
As I was reading the novel, I asked myself a lot why did Frankenstein refuse to give his creature a female companion, besides what he states. In my opinion, he could have avoided all this misery and the monster would finally have a friend (yes I'm definitely on the monster's side). If you were Frankenstein, without taking in account his excuse for not doing it, what would you have done ? Would you have given the creature a female companion ? Would you have trust his word ? C. Dear all, you give convincing proof that Victor wants to be a creator and nothing less. The novel is explicit about it, indeed, although at one point the overcoming of death, motivated by Victor's loss of his mom, seems to be the highest goal. But as you well show, it's not. More is at stake: the desire to be the creator of a new species. This answer begs another question, which my perceptive friend asked in a very direct manner "why did Mary Shelley make her protagonist so ambitious; why does she have him play God rather than Jesus?" It's tempting to answer this through Shelley's biography, but I wonder how we'd answer it, if this were an anonymous novel (and there were plenty of them in Shelley's time). So just taking the novel as our only resource, why do you think this novelist (let's say we have no clue that she's a woman, and one called Mary Shelley) finds the creator figure more enabling than a story about overcoming death (one dead body brought to life). In other words, what ideas does the novel convey through this creator-figure that cannot be equally explored through a more straightforward story of resurrection?
I once was asked by a friend of mine, a first-time reader of Frankenstein, and, although an admirer of science-fiction, not a student of literature:
“If Victor wanted to find the principle of life and defy death, why didn't he infuse life into a dead body instead of putting himself through the gut-churning business of collecting dead body parts and stitching them together?” What would you answer to this question? "Italia! too, Italia! looking on thee,
Full flashes on the soul the light of ages,
Since the fierce Carthaginian almost won thee, To the last halo of the chiefs and sages
Who glorify thy consecrated pages;
Thou wert the throne and grave of empires; still, The fount at which the panting mind assuages Her thirst of knowledge, quaffing there her fill, Flows from the etemal source of Rome's imperial hill." "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage", Canto III, Lord Byron Reading Byron’s descriptions of Nature in the third canto of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, I remembered a poem I had written a few years ago, on mountains. They bear few similarities, though are both inspired by Swiss landscapes – mine was written after seeing the Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau. --- Is this a mountain that I see before me? So vast and powerful its face. It rises from the earth below me, Cemented in history’s trace. In summer when the weather’s fair, It flourishes with life and leaf. In winter when its front is bare, It stands resistant to insidious grief. Sunshine and blue sky are best For mirthful and sweet disposition, But earthquake is the final test Of mountains’ sturdy disposition. In shrieking gales and howling rain, When lightning splinters our soft core, The mountains stand to entertain This bleating that they’ve heard before. The solid stump is evidence Of many centuries of pain endured. Yet sharp and creviced stony peaks Attest to readiness for more. But rains will end and sunshine come And hardened face will turn from stone. And tender greens will whisper out, Breathing new life to hardened bone. While frozen evils strike the land, And petrify each living thing, The inner stump will surely stand, Awaiting warmth for flowering. It’s no small wonder, then, to turn To these great palaces of rock; Through times of ravages and mourn, And other feats of absent luck, They’ll shed like feathers their adorn, And still maintain their stalwart stock. -OD Speaking of nature and humans, whether we are internal or external to nature, whether nature is with or without us, well, John Muir writes in his journal something as simple as profound.
"I went out for a walk", he writes, "and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, was really going in." John Muir, Journal (1901) That would mean that the more we go outdoors the more we get attuned to our interiority. Maybe that keeps us in (or away) from life happening beyond the room of our own. |
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May 2018
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