Note on this edition: this is an electronic version of the 1999 book ...

212Demonic Texts and Textual Demonsthrough the novel that gave Asimov’s “syndrome” its name: Frankenstein,or, the Modern Prometheus (1818; “F”) by young Mary Shelley. 32 The powerof lightning introduces the protagonist to “the subject of electricity and galvanism,”and to this mysterious, invisible energy that could make the deadconvulse, as if re-animated. 33 As man-machine hybridity has gained newprominence in the popular imagination, Frankenstein has been raised to theposition of the inaugurating work in the SF genre. 34 Since this novel is visiblyconnected with the problematics of the unconscious, the irrational andthe demonic, it puts the validity of cognitocentric approaches to science fictioninto question. Not so surprisingly, Suvin disparages Frankenstein as SF;he writes about it under the title “Romantic Recoil.” He is unable or unwillingto deal with its numerous “irrational” aspects. For instance, he onlytouches upon the interesting question of why Victor Frankenstein’s creationhad to be so hideous in its appearance. The creature is not a product of demonologicalresearch, but of the natural sciences – so why is it such a “monster,”evoking supernatural fear? 35 The answers are connected with the technologicalredefinition of identity and the particular role demonic conflictsplay in this context.The first modern theories of magic saw it as a “pseudo-science,” an imperfectattempt to see direct causal relationships (supernatural forces) wherescience is able to see more complex systems at work. 36 In the European context,the relationship has also been argued in reverse: the practitioners ofmagic and alchemy were among those who developed laboratories and experimentalmethods used later by scientists. In Frankenstein, the order ofinheritance is clear; young Victor Frankenstein is attracted to occultism and32The references are to the Oxford University Press edition: Shelley 1818/1992.33 F, 41. The discussion of electricity is slightly different in the first and the secondedition (the first edition mentions experiments with kites to conduct electricity fromthunderclouds to earth; see also Mary Shelley’s introduction [1831; F, 9]). Electricity wasseen as a divine or mysterious power; Armstrong (1981) describes the magical relationshipto it in the nineteenth century, amounting even to attempts to revive the dead. Thepower plants were for a long time designed like cathedrals (Giles Gilbert Scott, builder ofLiverpool Anglican Cathedral, has been said to have built two cathedrals, “one for God,one for Electricity”; Pacey 1983, 88).34 Especially Brian Aldiss’s genre history, Billion Year Spree (1973; the revised editionTrillion Year Spree, 1986) has been important in establishing Frankenstein’s position.(Aldiss has himself written a “sequel” to Shelley’s work, Frankenstein Unbound [1973].)The exploitation of the monster in theatre and film made Boris Karloff’s rugged, awkwardfigure synonymous with “Frankenstein,” and Victor’s surname into a commonnoun in dictionaries (“an agency or a creation that slips from the control of and ultimatelydestroys its creator” [American Heritage Dictionary]). Such compilations as TheEssential Frankenstein (Jameson 1992), The Frankenstein Omnibus (Haining 1994), orThe Ultimate Frankenstein (Preiss 1991) witness the lively interest in the Frankensteintradition and its origin; Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (the 1994 film by Kenneth Branagh)claims the same by its title.35 Suvin 1980, 133.36This theory is presented in Edward Tylor’s Primitive Culture (1871), and developedby James Frazer (The Golden Bough, 1890) and Bronislaw Malinowski (Magic, Scienceand Religion, 1925), among others.