Jeanette Winterson’s new novel looks at the past, present and future to explore themes of love, gender, identity, faith, artificial intelligence and immortality. It is beautifully written, lyrical, funny and playful at times but also dark and timely. The past, told by Mary Shelley, is of the summer of 1816 on Lake Geneva with Shelley, Byron, his doctor Polidori and her stepsister Claire Clairmont, when boredom and bad weather led to her creation of Frankenstein. In the present, Ry Shelley is a t Jeanette Winterson’s new novel looks at the past, present and future to explore themes of love, gender, identity, faith, artificial intelligence and immortality. It is beautifully written, lyrical, funny and playful at times but also dark and timely. The past, told by Mary Shelley, is of the summer of 1816 on Lake Geneva with Shelley, Byron, his doctor Polidori and her stepsister Claire Clairmont, when boredom and bad weather led to her creation of Frankenstein. In the present, Ry Shelley is a transgender doctor, Ron Lord a Welsh sexbot entrepreneur, Claire an Evangelist Christian and Polly D a Vanity Fair journalist. All are drawn to Victor Stein, a charismatic scientist working with artificial intelligence. Possibly the most famous moment in literary history, the story of the stormy night on Lake Geneva has been told many times. I thought Winterson did it wonderfully, her Mary is lyrical, happily in love with Shelley but also angry and fed up with men. “The gentlemen laugh at me indulgently. They respect me up to a point but, we have arrived at that point.” as Byron speaks of the animating principle, the life spark, which he firmly believes is male. In the present, as Ron Lord plans for a future where manufacture of his sexbots will stimulate the economy of post Brexit Wales, Victor Stein lectures that “artificial intelligence is not sentimental – it is biased towards best possible outcomes. The human race is not a best possible outcome.” Stein, like Mary Shelley’s creation, seeks godhood, eternal life and believes that one day, humans will be able to upload their consciousness into any body – biological or robotic, they desire. He is fascinated by Ry who “Now male, now not quite, now quite clearly a woman” has already, in certain ways, done so. Ry is “liminal, cusping, in between, emerging, undecided, transitional, experimental, a start-up (or is it an upstart?) in my own life.” So many thoughts about what it means to be human, about our history, storytelling are interwoven with the bigger themes of the novel in a questioning and playful way. I loved it, a very enjoyable read. My thanks to Random House and Netgalley for the opportunity to read Frankissstein.
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