Frankenstein

I’ve been collecting things related to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and its various stage and screen adaptations for over 35 years and have been encouraged to start this Tumblr. I’m not a good writer but I’ll do my best.

[myfrankensteincorner]

So this is pretty cool.

I was trying to figure out how to break up the monotony of rows of the same book and my research led me to the “book nook”. I had seen some tacky 3D printed “nooks” on Etsy of Boris Karloff’s Creature reaching through the shelf, but I knew this wasn’t for me. I love the Universal movies, but with the amount of merchandise out there it’s too easy for a Frankenstein collection to become Universal Studios ad. I knew I wanted it to be about Mary Shelley.

My wife (then fiancé) has a tendency to know me better than I know myself and sensed the internal struggle I was feeling over this so she gifted me the materials to make my own nook. She provided me the wooden box, the little table, a little fireplace and little tiny books etc.

I was pleased to discover that one of my Boris Karloff NECA figures fit perfectly inside the box, so I decided to incorporate it into the concept but was still adamant that the focus remain on Mary Shelley. Upon searching eBay, I found a porcelain figurine with a resemblance to Elle Fanning in the under appreciated 2017 biographical film.

Finally I had my concept! Elle Fanning as Mary Shelley sitting at a table strewn with books and anachronistic writing utensils thinking up Boris Karloff’s creature! Wow! How original! Almost ingenious! After patting myself on the back a couple times all I needed to do to finish my project was find some vaguely period accurate wallpaper, a lighting kit and some moss to make it goth.

[myfrankensteincorner]

Welcome to my Frankenstein corner.

Where to begin? I am not a good writer. I’m long winded, pretentious, have questionable grammar and frequently lack a point. When it comes to Frankenstein I’m not a purist and choose not to make a preference between the 1818 and 1831 text. I don’t deny Percy’s inspiration and editing, but I will shun anyone if they even hint at the idea Mary didn’t write it. I don’t mind when film and stage adaptations take liberties with the original novel because in my view it reveals inspiration.

Though my relationship with Frankenstein could nearly be described as religious in nature it’s important to stress that I do not deify Mary Shelley. Once you study her enough to strip away who she was versus the mythologized “OG Goth Girl” who allegedly (but probably didn’t) have her first bisexual experience in her early teens and lose her virginity on her Mothers grave, she becomes much more fascinating and admirable.

Mary had a messy life, she was inconsistent, often hypocritical and her entire life was an upheaval, she lived between two intellectual worlds, she was too romantic to be enlightened, but too enlightened to be a romantic. She was radical, but not a revolutionary. Her time traveling across war torn Europe both inspired and terrified her, and she had a very disappointing son who she loved with all her heart despite him being her opposite: he was dumb, lazy, ugly, an aspiring and failed conservative politician and lived a comfortable existence despite achieving nothing.

Yikes, that diatribe had nothing to do with my Frankenstein corner, but I hope it was provoking enough to show that I’m not a tourist, nor am I one of those quirky people you see online that own 10,000 vhs copies of Wedding Crashers for no reason. Though it’s not my only interest and only one aspect of my hectic life, it is my original obsession, and it’s been going on for over 35 years (at some point I’ll tell my origin story).

One final note, should you decide to follow this tumbler understand likely how this will work is I’ll post a photo first, then over the course of several days write an entry about it and what it means to me. When it comes to the movies I don’t intend to use this blog to review them. I’ll probably focus on one aspect of the film that I particularly like or simply use it as a prompt for an anecdote.