Dennis Cutchins and Dennis Perry

Manchester University Press; 1 edition (October 1, 2018)

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is one of the most popular novels in western literature. It has been adapted and re-assembled in countless forms, from Hammer Horror films to young-adult books and bandes dessinées. Beginning with the idea of the ‘Frankenstein Complex’, this edited collection provides a series of creative readings that explore the elaborate intertextual networks that make up the novel’s remarkable afterlife. It broadens the scope of research on Frankenstein while deepening our understanding of a text that, 200 years after its original publication, continues to intrigue and terrify us in new and unexpected ways.

Review by Leslee Thorne-Murphy presented at Faculty Book Lunch:

What better way to spend Halloween week than reading about Frankenstein adaptations? Nineteenth century stage plays, campy fifties flicks, Belge comic strips, and of course the classic Boris Karloff film—all these adaptations play a role in the “Frankenstein Network,” as Dennis Cutchins and Dennis Perry designate the ever-multiplying field of Frankenstein adaptations. This term, the Frankenstein Network, is central to their collection of essays. As they explain in their introduction to the volume, “the adaptation studies approaches found in this collection focus on the complex relationships between the various texts, disparate traditions, and dynamic media in which Frankenstein has been adapted.” In other words, grappling with the monster means grappling not only with Mary Shelley’s text, but with the myriad interpretations of the monster that each reader is bound to have accumulated. One’s own personal network of Frankenstein familiarity, Cutchins and Perry designate a Frankenstein Complex. So, before you go take your turn at the Frankenreads event this week, take a look at Adapting Frankenstein and add to your own repertoire of Frankenstein adaptations. Because, of course, every scholarly article is its own adaptation. Of special note are the essays by our very own faculty. Jamie Horrocks deftly shows us what happens when Frankenstein goes steampunk, or at least neo-Victorian—hint, it involves bizarre aquatic life and a reanimated John Keats. Joe Darowsky picks up the baton with a canny glance at when Frankenstein meets the X-men, and other comic-book adventures. Also don’t miss Dennis Perry’s essay, where he geeks out over whether the classic sci fi film, Forbidden Planet, best reflects the aesthetics of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, the biblical Adam and Eve story, Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau, or, of course, the monster himself. And you really shouldn’t miss the creepy, albeit very astute, reading of Bakhtin’s Rabellais included in the book’s introduction. I personally think it’s the perfect segment to browse in between trick-or-treaters tomorrow evening. The volume contains an impressive collection of essays, 18 of them, plus the introduction and afterword, from a wide variety of scholars both close to home and ranging throughout the globe, from leading voices in the field of adaptation studies to those just beginning to add their voices to the field. It’s a truly impressive and commendable achievement. So, kudos to everyone involved.