I am reading Frankenstein for this classics book club I recently joined. Yes, I, Kate Dunn, joined a book club. Not just any book club, but a book club which meets at little independent coffee shops around Chicago and reads only selections from 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. My first meeting is on Sunday, so I am very, very curious. It looks like a lot of the members are interested in eliciting more of a response than the usual book club cat 'n' mouse game of "Piggy becomes notably upset when the other boys steal and break his glasses while shouting 'Sucks to your assmar!' Can you think of a time in your own life when you were similarly outcast? How did that make you feel?" I hope so, 'cause I be bringing out all the big guns concerning science vs. art, male envy of female life-giving, and the repercussions of the denial of language. I really, deeply, truly, madly, profoundly miss conversing with other librophiles about things of simultaneous pretension and import. I gotz the intellectualism withdrawalz.
I will be spending the better part of my coming Saturday reading 'Steiny, as I have been naughty in my diligence. Worst aspiring grad student ever. Anyway, in the opening letters to his sister, Walton describes the moment he first picks up Frankenstein. They sit him down in their ship, they give him some coffee and blankets... they wait 2 weeks for him to start talking. He is "generally melancholy and despairing; and sometimes he gnashes his teeth; as if impatient of the weight of woes that oppresses him," and when he finally does talk he's all pedantic and "I want to protect you from my own knowledge-grubbing mistakes." But that's beside the point. What I find so interesting here is that this sort of situation, where a stranger nurses another complete stranger, who is also clearly insane, back to health without ever even hearing their voice, would never occur in our modern society. People don't know how to deal with this sort of thing anymore. We've created a sterile environment where if you were stuck in ice on board a ship, and you found someone very ill passed out in a sled next to your ship, you'd radio the Coast Guard to come handle it. You might put the lunatic in a blanket. You maybe give him some tea, but not the good stuff, right. Ask him some questions, but not enough to actually find out anything about this person who has stumbled into your life. We no longer nurse strangers back to heath in our homes, in our beds, with our own resources, the way it was done even 200 years ago; a stranger passing by, asking for a meal and a roof over his head for the night. The idea that technology and the conveniences of contemporary existence has sequestered us into our own little bubbles is not new to me. But this is beyond that.
People don't know how to relate to others' humanity. It's no longer our problem. There is no comfort to be offered when you can call the hospital to come take this derelict off your hands in an ambulance. No questions need be asked; Fox News will answer them all on the morning news tomorrow. Nobody needs to really deal with anything that they don't want to; there's always someone else to call who can take care of it. Nobody's got to take care. It's so strange. We don't have to wait for anything either; Frankenstein doesn't go home for six years while he's away at school, makin' monsters. His cousin/lover writes him religiously, daily, for weeks, and he doesn't respond for an entire winter. How did people put up with this shit? What's it like to actually have to wait for days and days to hear any word back on a loved one's life? Asking the mailman every day if a letter came from such-and-such? I cannot even imagine. I have a feeling Ms. Shelley will be probing this further, but I wouldn't know, because surprise, surprise, I haven't actually read the book before coming up with these crackpot theories. I'll letcha know. I'm actually finishing up this blog 12 hours after I started (how 19th century of me! What patience!) and I just want to point out that I forgot to pick up my birth control on Saturday, and so I did it today, which meant I was four days behind, which means I took five pills just a bit ago, which is basically an OD of estrogen. Look out, world! My ovaries are going to be so out of control tomorrow that they just might develop the ability to speak. "Let's pet puppies!" "Ooh, chocolate!" "GIVE US A BABY!!!!!" they'll say. Yikes!
Wish me luck on my book club.
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