When I next return to Thomas More College in New Hampshire at the beginning of March, I’ll be teaching Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as part of a tutorial on British Romanticism. I haven’t taught it for several years and am looking forward to engaging with its monstrous truths with my students. We’ll be using the Ignatius Critical Edition of the work, which I recommend and not merely because I was the editor of it. It contains some simply superb critical essays on the deeper meanings of the novel.
As my mind turns to Mary Shelley’s original novel, I was intrigued to see an article in today’s Crisis Magazine about a new film adaptation, which unleashes the monsters of our own deplorable zeitgeist. The movie seems horrid but the article about it is insightful and stimulating:
Peter Boyle: For as long as I can remember people have hated me. They saw my face and my body and they ran away in horror. I decided that if I could not be loved which was my deepest wish, I would instead cause fear. I live because this poor, half-crazed genius has given me life. He alone held an image of me as something beautiful. And when it would have been easier to keep out of danger, he used his own body as a guinea pig to give me a calmer brain. And a somewhat more sophisticated way of expressing myself.
Speaking of Ignatius Critical Editions, I noticed when I went to my personal page on Facebook recently, there was (at least for me) a new section asking about what I’ve read; it listed scores of books by the cover. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the edition of Tale of Two Cities chosen was the Ignatius Critical Edition! We’re making headway against the cruel winds of the Kultur Krieg!