Finding out I was a Frankenstein expert
and other lessons my memoir is teaching me
“You’re something of an expert,” my agent said, meaning this sincerely and as a compliment. “You know way more about this novel and its author than typical readers.”
“It’s just always been my favourite book.” I said, diluting the epiphany I believe he intended us to share.
I was 18 when I sleuthed out my first copy of “Frank”, as I call Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein—the same age she was in 1816 when she began writing it. Mary had left her childhood home, and run off with the charming (and married), older Percy Bysshe Shelley. I was in my second year of university, and second city I’d lived in after leaving home to pursue a degree. She was estranged from her father who spurned her lack of morality; he an outspoken critic of the restrictions of marriage and fidelity himself. Percy was married and had a child with his legal wife, afterall.
I was consumed by the Author’s Introduction to the 1831 edition I bought according to my course syllabus. I remember sitting in the chapel class room at Victoria College (U of T), discovering facts about the novel that people didn’t know.
I’d been “schooled” by popularized interpretations—I thought Frankenstein was the monster’s name, knew there was a “mad scientist”, and that the monster terrorized villages and murdered people. The Introduction told me that Mary wrote the creature as a complex character that was worthy of both pity and scorn, as a representation of what rejection, alienation, and lack of affection can do to a person. She had know this in her life. So had I.
I became a champion of this often misunderstood novel before I cracked its spine. and Once I learned of its Gothic themes, multi-nested structure, and compelling language use, I was a committed uber fan. I still am.
I was surprised to consider that I accidentally became an expert. Then I wondered about how often that happens…how a habit, or a hobby or a fancy we take to something turns into a well-search rabbit hole we go down as often as possible.
Does everyone have something they love enough to become a lay expert on…I’m pretty sure they do. Sports team, antique Depression glass, Jelly Cats, or uses of lavender.
What did you just figure out you’re an expert on? Drop me a note.
