Yuletide Madness has gone live as well, and as it turns out, I got a treat there together with my two fellow Frederician Salonnières mildred_of_midgard and cahn, and (wittty and touching) poetry, no less: Thirteen Ways of Looking at Frederick.

Meanwhile, my three Yuletide tales have all received lovely comments by their recipient, and I've been busy exploring all the others. An early selection of those which caught my eye so far:



The Americans:


Motherland: post-show, Elizabeth and Martha.

Stand in the place where you are: also post show, Stan and Oleg.


Frankenstein (Mary Shelley's original novel):


Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge: AU in which the second Creature lives, and a very different story unfolds.


Galaxy Quest:


Boys go to Jupiter: in which the Feds want to know what exactly happened at that Convention, and Gwen deals with it. Superbly.


James Asher Vampire Series - Barbara Hambly:

The Road Home: The WWI era story I didn't know I wanted but so much did. James Asher (undercover, of course) has been too long with his small German bataillon not to feel responsible for them, and Simon Ysidro feels responsible for James Asher. (The title happens to be that of a Erich Maria Remarque novel, the sequel to All Quiet at the Western Front.)


The Last Kingdom:

A Lady To Guide Him: in which Hild, warrior nun extraordinaire, is mentoring young Athelstan.


The Lion in Winter:

Zeal Now Melted: How being a son of Eleanor of Aquitaine worked out for Geoffrey.


Midnight Mass:

Sundowning: can't be well described unspoilery for a rather recent show, so I'll just say it's a John Pruitt character portrait.


Cut and Run: whereas this one is shows Sarah in the show's backstory, at the moment of her graduation.


Much Ado About Nothing:

Skirmish and Retreat: which takes Beatrice's cryptic answer to "you have lost the heart of Signor Benedick" and comes up with a plausible backstory for these two.

Taking a break from my Yuletide reading to resume December Meme duties, to talk about today’s requested topic.

Just about the first thing you have to explain to people who never read Mary Shelley’s novel is that Frankenstein (first name Victor) is the name of the creator, not of the monster, that’s how much the Universal movie icon came to dominate pop culture consciousness. (Though Boris Karloff’s character isn’t called Frankenstein in the two Whale films, either.) Mind you, today I just probably exempt Benedict Cumberbatch and/or Johnny Lee Miller and/or Danny Boyle fans, since Boyle’s stage production starring these two actors switching between the roles is very much based on the novel, not the movies.

So, the novel. Very much a product of the Romantic era, with its author being the daughter of two revolutionary philosophers, book-obsessed, and already with some traumatic events in her own nineteen years old life behind her. Starting with her mother, the feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, having died shortly after her birth. There is a notable absence of mothers in “Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus” - the full title of the novel – safe in a nightmare, Victor F. embracing the rotting corpse of his dead mother. And of course the whole premise is an all male act of creation turning into a nightmare birth sequence, with the second attempt – when Frankenstein comes near creating the woman his first creation requested, and then destroys her just before completion, deciding this is the responsible thing to do – a miscarriage, an abortion or horror of the female form, however you want to interpret it. Mary Shelley – at this point still Mary Godwin, Shelley’s first wife still being alive – would lose all but one of her children, and the death of the first one wasn’t far away. Her older half sister Fanny, her mother’s illegitimate daughter, would kill herself, if I recall correctly (though I haven’t looked it up and may misremember).

But Victor Frankenstein isn’t a mother. He’s a father, and a pretty rotten one. It’s not surprising that the character who changes most in the adaptions tends to be Frankenstein. With the caveat of the major, major change James Whale made when letting Karloff’s monster be inarticulate in the first of his two films and only capable of a few words in the second; Mary Shelley’s monster learns to speak, read and write in true Rousseau fashion, by observing the family he’s, unknown to them, hiding with and narrates a third of the novel in first person. The principle of the monster not starting out evil, only horrid to look at, but turning violent as the result of the universal hatred he meets remains. (Mary Shelley starts her novel with a quote from Paradise Lost, created reminding creator he didn’t ask to be made.) Frankenstein, on the other hand, can be an obsessive amoral scientist not caring about victims when played by Peter Cushing in the Hammer horror movies, or a well intentioned and misled obsessive scientist in the Universal horror movies, or, in Kenneth Branagh’s adaption a noble scientist eager to defeat the death who took his mother and who makes a fatal mistake when abandoning his creation, but is excused from this mostly by illness and trying to make up for it later. This isn’t just cinematic convention but something of a necessity when adapting the book; Victor Frankenstein in the novel is one of those characters who may have been intended as sympathetic but effectively never is, all high flown Romantic language and callous behavior, abhorring his creation for looks alone the moment it becomes animated, not daring to reveal the truth even when Justine dies for it (but expecting to be the one deserving pity for this), managing to make the one attempt to actually do something for the being he created into yet another disaster, and then somehow missing the point of the “I’ll be with you in your wedding night” threat by immediately proposing to Elizabeth and leaving her alone in said wedding night, looking for the monster.
I say “may have been intended as sympathetic”, because I can’t be sure. Mary gave a third of the novel to the monster to narrate, after all, making his case quite fervently (also, the one still alive at the end of the book isn’t Victor, though the monster announces the intention of suicide); and her own father had disowned her for practicing his own philosophical principles by running away with Shelley (whose money he however was quite eager to take). And then, there may have been an ambivalence in her not only about parents and children and the act of creation but also about romantic heroes; Shelley had already tried to get her in a three way situation with one of his friends en route to Switzerland, which hadn’t been her idea of free love, and she had an illustration of what can happen if you crush on someone who just sees you as a brief diversion by her stepsister Claire and Byron.

The big confrontation between Frankenstein and the Creature which starts with Frankenstein being outraged about his brother’s and Justine’s death and ends with him promising to create a mate for the Creature after the later had accused Frankenstein in turn is one of the novel’s highlights and the one where I’m sure we’re meant to sympathize with the Creature the way we do. Incidentally, my favourite adaption of this isn’t in any of the Frankenstein movies but in Blade Runner - the scene where the android Roy Batty meets his maker. “I want more life”, yes indeed.

The idea of a man-created humanoid becoming a monster and/or demanding justice has haunted sci fi and fantasy ever since Mary wrote it. And I think it will do so for quite a while yet. It’s the most powerful legacy of the novel, and I wish, between all those dead children, Shelley and her father, she could have known.

I'll expect we'll all be busy readingthe results from the rare fandoms ficathon the next days, if not weeks - I know I'll be - and here are some early recs from yours truly:

Dexter:

Fools Rush In Deb and LaGuerta, post season 2 and pre season 3. No spoilers for the third season, and great interaction between them, as Deb thinks she knows a little too well how LaGuerta must feel.

A mother fucking roly poly chubby cheeked shit machine: or, why Deb Morgan is awesome. Seriously, this is Deb in her foul-mouthed, vivacious, hold-no-prisoners glory in a funny and touching ensemble story which co-stars Rita, Masuka and of course Dexter. Highlights include Rita and Deb being mistaken for a couple, Masuka being Masuka and Dexter's, err, unique reaction to a fact of life. Set post season 3.

Baby birds and brothers gone: this, by contrast, is all about the angst - an AU in which Harry adopts both of Laura Moser's sons, and the consequences that has.

Iron Man (comicverse):

The 3. A.M. Phonecall: effortless melding of old and new canon in a portrait of Tony during the time when he hit alcoholic rock bottom, in three of his relationships - with Maya Hansen, Henry Hellrung and Steve Rogers - and of these three people themselves.

James Bond:

There seems to be quite a lot of Bond/Leiter slash this Yuletide, but being me, I went straight for the stories with M first. The rebooted Bond franchise: it's all about M, and M/Bond. Well, to me. :)

Attendant: M and Bond post-Quantum of Solace, the gen version. Captures their relationship beautifully.

Better Days: M/Bond post Quantum of Solace, the post coital version. What makes a hero, indeed.

Black Ships:

Five Steps Taken Along The Path Of Life: Xandros in jo_graham's Black Ships, drawn with a skill readers of the novel will appreciate to no end.

Frankenstein:

An epistle of a gentlewoman of quality to her famed brother, Robert Walton: this is hilarious if you've read Mary Shelley's novel, and a dead-on pastiche to boot. I'm still giggling.

State of Play:

The American remake is nearly upon us, so enjoy fanfic based on the original, which was one terrific miniseries starring John Simm, David Morissey and Bill Nighy and James McAvoy, among others.

Cigarettes, Wedding Bands: Cal looks back. There is great subtext to be had, as in the series itself, and no easy answers.

Watchmen:

Watchmen fanfic, and not all about Rohrschach! Nothing against Rohrschach, but he tends to dominate what little exists of Watchmen fanfiction, so I'm glad for a break now and then. All the more when the results are so good:

Nothing Beside Remains: Adrian Veidt, after. I think what puts me in awe the most is the way the writer uses bits of interviews Veidt gives interspersed in the text which read completely like Alan Moore wrote them.

A mirror of the trackless sky: Dan and Laurie, in the brave new world of brittleness and hope. Does a great job of capturing both, and the different ways they relate to past and present.