Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Apologies to anyone who hasn't seen the mid-season three episode of Stargate: Atlantis that was shown on Sky One this evening but:
Oh my God, they killed Carson! You bastards!
I've just finished rereading Frankenstein by Mary Shelley for a reading group at work. I first read it around fourteen years ago whilst on a family holiday in Norway. I thought I remembered enjoying it, which would give a clue as to what a maudlin little goth I was back then as I now think it's the most badly-plotted piece of Romantic Luddite nonsense. Two hundred years ago it had an advantage that stories about the dangers of science weren't yet a genre in their own right and the birth of Michael Crichton was a good century and a half away, but now it's central message that the pursuit of knowledge is bad and any attempt to improve the lives of men is wrong, for a book subtitled The Modern Prometheus Shelley seems to prefer to concentrate on the character's punishment for stealing something that is the domain of the Gods and ignoring the positive effects it had for mankind.
And talk about a whiner! Frankenstein spends most of the book either passively bemoaning his wretched life or swooning when his monstrous creation has dispatched another of his hapless relations. As good little atheists the Shelleys would have had little truck with original sin, hence the monster learning to be monstrous only after severe mistreatment at the fists of humanity, but the fact that he is apparently so ugly that everyone who sees him automatically attacks him points to a rather unpleasant beauty fascism that dooms the creation as much as the lack of forethought on the part of his creator.
I've now just started on My Husband Betty by Helen Boyd. After purchasing it and reading the introduction I find out it's actually intended for the partners of trannies so I don't actually have anyone to pass it on to, but never mind, I'll persevere.
Oh my God, they killed Carson! You bastards!
I've just finished rereading Frankenstein by Mary Shelley for a reading group at work. I first read it around fourteen years ago whilst on a family holiday in Norway. I thought I remembered enjoying it, which would give a clue as to what a maudlin little goth I was back then as I now think it's the most badly-plotted piece of Romantic Luddite nonsense. Two hundred years ago it had an advantage that stories about the dangers of science weren't yet a genre in their own right and the birth of Michael Crichton was a good century and a half away, but now it's central message that the pursuit of knowledge is bad and any attempt to improve the lives of men is wrong, for a book subtitled The Modern Prometheus Shelley seems to prefer to concentrate on the character's punishment for stealing something that is the domain of the Gods and ignoring the positive effects it had for mankind.
And talk about a whiner! Frankenstein spends most of the book either passively bemoaning his wretched life or swooning when his monstrous creation has dispatched another of his hapless relations. As good little atheists the Shelleys would have had little truck with original sin, hence the monster learning to be monstrous only after severe mistreatment at the fists of humanity, but the fact that he is apparently so ugly that everyone who sees him automatically attacks him points to a rather unpleasant beauty fascism that dooms the creation as much as the lack of forethought on the part of his creator.
I've now just started on My Husband Betty by Helen Boyd. After purchasing it and reading the introduction I find out it's actually intended for the partners of trannies so I don't actually have anyone to pass it on to, but never mind, I'll persevere.
Labels: books, transvestites
