The Man Who Died Twice – but this blog is about Frankenstein.

I’ve always enjoyed my old horror/suspense/literary fiction. I have collections of Poe and Lovecraft. I have giant Dracula anthologies. So a retelling of Frankenstein interested me. I’d seen trailer for it, but didn’t know when it came out or much else about it.

I’ve garnered a reputation as someone who is bad at watching TV or movies. How, you ask?

Spoiler: It’s me, I’m the problem.

You see, it’s not that I don’t watch stuff, it’s that when your mind is preoccupied with survival, in some sense of the word, you fail to pursue anything above that. And if you know anything about me, you know that my entire life has been one of survival.

I describe it as being born in a pit, the pit runs deep, and I was not born at the bottom of it, not by a long shot, but born there I was. For a long time, I didn’t realize there was life outside of it, and when I did spot that light, I made a beeline for it.

But it’s not easy work, climbing out. Sometimes you slide back down, sometimes you peak the world outside and immediately retreat.

I largely feel I made it out of the pit, though at what point I’m not entirely sure. It feels now like I’ve made a home beside the pit. The world beyond it is overwhelming and big, with so many paths …

How is one to choose? This was not something I was prepared for. I climbed, but didn’t fully believe I would live to see the light beyond the cavern. And now here we are … overwhelmed with choice, with demands. In every avenue there’s a weight of expectation which is not unfamiliar, but unwelcome.

In watching Frankenstein, I found myself thinking about Mary Shelley, by all descriptions a pioneer, a vagabond, someone who would, today, probably exist on the fringes.

I know she was not literally a vagabond.

And in the last few several handful of years I’ve found myself in survival mode more often than not. Not out of actual necessity, but out of exhaustion, confusion, rest. SImply put, I’m just tired. This constant need to meet some standard just beyond your grasp is exhausting. And who sets this standard anyway?

I find myself retreating to the home beside the pit. But there’s an ever present fear there. A stench that arises and settles in the pit of my stomach. It fans the fear of falling back in, of making it this far only to never venture further. Why do all this work to just wait … for further struggle, recapture? The pit is littered with the bodies of those just like me, who struggled out but never made it further.

It’s like Everest, a line to get there with bodies scattered all along the path.

And I suppose that’s life, at the end of the day, a lush experiment that overwhelms and disappoints us. All in one, all wrapped in a bow.

Back to Frankenstein, as Mary Shelley intended, the visuals were lovely, the story mostly faithful … it was good. I’m sure Del Toro will receive many accolades for it, and life will continue being devastating and beautiful, all in one, all wrapped in a bow.