“Frankenstein” is a book about the mystery of creation — but what accounts for its own, this strange and desolate work of the imagination? Mary herself addressed this question in the introduction to the 1831 edition; how did she, a teenage girl who never had a day of formal schooling, “dilate upon so very hideous an idea”? And what accounts for its longevity? Byron and Percy Shelley feel like relics, but Mary’s work is still read, recast, passionately debated. Reportedly the most assigned college text in the United States, “Frankenstein” has been hailed as revolutionary and reactionary, feminist and drearily misogynist. It is interpreted as thinly veiled autobiography, a warning against scientific hubris, a critique of the French Revolution. It has been described as a book about fathers and sons but also might be read as the keenest expression of a daughter’s longing for her mother.
The creature appears in at least 400 films, and this season brings another, “Frankenstein,” from Guillermo del Toro, the Oscar-winning director of “The Shape of Water.” It is the movie he has been trying to make his entire career. “My Everest,” he calls it. “Every movie I’ve done is the training wheels for this one.”
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