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Mary Shelley and The Last Man
Jun. 21st, 2018 10:50 amMary Shelley is widely credited with creating the genre of science fiction with her first novel Frankenstein. Well, she didn't stop there - she died in 1851 and wrote a sizable body of work, including what was billed as another science fiction novel, The Last Man. I discovered that I could get a paperback version of that book on Amazon so I took a flyer.
Now, I knew one of the reasons we don't read the novel much today is that it is set in the later half of the 21st century and to nobody's surprise Shelley didn't get much of her future right. Until I read the book, I didn't know how much she was off. Her late 21st century has only one technological advantage over ours - "sailing balloons" that might be able to get you from London to Scotland in 48 hours. She has a minor political change - England is a republic - but the heir to the throne is still heavily involved in politics. Oh, Greece and Turkey are still at war.
Structurally, the novel is very slow. The first half is a story of Lionel Verney, his sister Perdita and their childhood to involvement with the Earl of Windsor, the son of the former King. Frankly, by the time the plague hit I had stopped caring and skimmed the rest.
Now, the novel was very successful in her era, and I think I know why. It's only technically a science fiction novel. In reality, it's a roman a clef about her life with Percy Shelley and Lord Byron. Contemporary readers would see the parallels and gossip about them. Modern readers, unless much more heavily steeped in the history of the time than I am, just get lost.
The moral of the story - novels are a product of their time. Sometimes they age well and sometimes not.
Now, I knew one of the reasons we don't read the novel much today is that it is set in the later half of the 21st century and to nobody's surprise Shelley didn't get much of her future right. Until I read the book, I didn't know how much she was off. Her late 21st century has only one technological advantage over ours - "sailing balloons" that might be able to get you from London to Scotland in 48 hours. She has a minor political change - England is a republic - but the heir to the throne is still heavily involved in politics. Oh, Greece and Turkey are still at war.
Structurally, the novel is very slow. The first half is a story of Lionel Verney, his sister Perdita and their childhood to involvement with the Earl of Windsor, the son of the former King. Frankly, by the time the plague hit I had stopped caring and skimmed the rest.
Now, the novel was very successful in her era, and I think I know why. It's only technically a science fiction novel. In reality, it's a roman a clef about her life with Percy Shelley and Lord Byron. Contemporary readers would see the parallels and gossip about them. Modern readers, unless much more heavily steeped in the history of the time than I am, just get lost.
The moral of the story - novels are a product of their time. Sometimes they age well and sometimes not.
