Episode 204: Frankenstein (with Rose Eveleth)
/October might be over, but when you’re Mary Shelley, every day is a great day to talk about death. That’s why we were so excited to have guest Rose Eveleth, who walked us through the scientific origins behind Frankenstein and his monster, and the life and times of Mary Shelley.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions sex, misogyny, miscarriage, child death, Covid-19, scientific experimentation, hanging/execution, racism, murder, loss & grief, brain tumor, drowning, and suicide.
Guest
Rose Eveleth is a writer and producer who explores how humans tangle with science and technology. She’s the creator of Flash Forward Presents, a podcast network that demystifies the future, featuring hit shows like Flash Forward, Open World, and Advice For And From The Future. Her work has covered everything from spoofed fingerprints to fake tumbleweed farms to million dollar baccarat heists. You can read more about her, and see her other work, here.
Housekeeping
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Transcript
Amanda: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore. Every week, we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
Julia: And I'm Julia.
Amanda: And this is Frankenstein with Rose Eveleth, also, from the past. We are recording this on Monday, November 2nd. The world is going to be different in a couple days when this episode comes out. So, we don't know what that's like. We know that we love you conspirators. And we're gonna do our best to make the world better no matter what that world looks like.
Julia: Absolutely. And I think that we really do touch on that kind of mentality in the episode. So, hopefully, this is a beacon of light in whatever the future has to hold.
Amanda: Absolutely. Rose is a podcaster we have admired for years. Her show Flash Forward is incredible as well as the now family of shows and the Flash Forward Presents situation network. And, whether you listen to Advice For and From the Future or Flash Forward or you are being introduced to her wonderful perspective in this episode, we think there is a ton of great stuff for you to dive into.
Julia: Definitely check out Open World too. It’s a beautiful, like, hope punk anthology series and it's great.
Amanda: What is also great, Julia, is our newest patrons; Natalie and Jenna. They join the distinguished ranks of our supporting producer level patrons: Philip, Uhleeseeuh, Allison, Debra, Hannah, Jen, Jessica, Keegan, Kneazlekins, Landon, Liz, Meaghan, Megan Linger, Megan Moon, Molly, Niki, Phil Fresh, Polly, Riley, Sarah, and Skyla.
Julia: I always think about just like the bright future of tomorrow whenever I think about these patrons.
Amanda: Absolutely. And I also want to thank our legend level patrons, who, like the legend of Frankenstein's monster, have, you know, evolved and gotten more complex over time: Audra, Chelsea, Drew, Frances, Jack Marie, Lada, Livie, Mark, Morgan, Necrofancy, Renegade, and Bea Me Up Scotty.
Julia: Just take me to a universe where they can bea me up too. Pew, pew, pew.
Amanda: I know, right? And, oh, man, I just – this episode is so great. I think you guys are gonna really like it. It's all about not just my favorite thing, which is the mythology of cultural works but also different mythologies of like – hmm, it's just so good. Rose is great.
Julia: Rose really is. And you know what else is great, Amanda? We don't recommend a lot of music on the show --
Amanda: That’s true.
Julia: But I just have been jamming so hard to the Mountain Goat’s new album, Getting into Knives.
Amanda: It's very good. I got it on vinyl.
Julia: Me too.
Amanda: And I'm gonna put it on my wall because it's so beautiful.
Julia: It's absolutely beautiful. I love the cover art so, so much and the music just – I cried real hard at one point listening to it. So --
Amanda: That'll do it.
Julia: -- if that's what you need, a nice cathartic cry, I highly recommend this album.
Amanda: I had a little cathartic cry after we had our live show last week --
Julia: Yes.
Amanda: -- just because it was so nice to see people show up and enjoy what we were doing in front of us. And, to have that feeling – you know, a little bit different, but, to have somewhat of that feeling back of performing for conspirators right in front of us, which I think is so fun. And, if you missed the live stream, that's totally okay because you can still buy a replay of the show and watch the video just like people did on the actual live stream day. Go to spiritspodcast.com/live to grab your ticket and get the link to the show.
Julia: It's – honestly, I think it is one of our best live shows we've ever done.
Amanda: I agree.
Julia: The make of it was so much fun. I really, really loved it. And it's definitely worth watching and rewatching even if it isn't live.
Amanda: Absolutely.
Julia: Amanda, I also want to let our listeners know that we're doing something kind of special for American Thanksgiving this year. So, if you have a problem, a question, or searching for advice that you think a mythological figure could potentially solve for you, send us an email. We'll title it, Myth Advice. And it is going to be a fun little experiment episode for us to try out.
Amanda: Yeah, I cannot wait. It is going to be amazing and have a special guest in on the episode. And it's just gonna be wonderful.
Julia: Yeah. So, spiritspodcast.com/contact, include Myth Advice in the subject line or you can email it to us directly at spiritspodcast@gmail.com.
Amanda: And, finally, if you are looking for even more stuff to take your mind off of the present or to listen to while – I don't know – like, volunteering, making donations, making the Civic community that you live in better, you should check out the Multicrew, we have a weekly friendly debate podcast called Head Heart Gut that we have been publishing for over a year now, exclusively, for Multicrew members. And, if you've ever wondered – with all of these big holidays coming up and maybe some family time, whether it's together or virtually, if you've ever wondered or had a passionate argument about the best course of a holiday meal, which I definitely have, you don't have to wonder anymore because we're going to settle it once and for all in this month’s Head Heart Gut.
Julia: Also, if you need arguments to have over Thanksgiving dinner that are extremely low stakes --
Amanda: That are not politics.
Julia: -- that are not politics, Head Heart Gut is a great show to kind of use as a jumping off point.
Amanda: Yeah, it is a really fun structure too. So, like, if you and your, your family and friends want to, you know, use our debate format to talk about, like, the best – I don't know – like a [Inaudible 5:07] or the best breakfast pastry, whatever you want to do, it can be a really fun way just to talk to people and get your adrenaline up and, you know, get your arguments out in a way that ultimately is extremely low stakes.
Julia: For sure.
Amanda: So, you can join the Multicrew at multicrew.club. So, with that, we want to just give you a big virtual hug. We love you. We're going to get through this. And enjoy the latest episode of Spirits: Frankenstein with Rose Eveleth.
Amanda: Rose Eveleth, welcome to Spirits. Thank you so much for joining us. We're so glad to have you.
Rose: Yay. Thanks for having me. I'm super excited to be here. Longtime listener, first time caller, I think. So, I'm excited to talk.
Amanda: Yeah. And the person whose podcasts I think I recommend the most. You are the --
Rose: Aww.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: -- proprietor of Flash Forward network, Flash Forward Presents, the excellent show Advice For and From the Future, Flash forward, of course, which, if you listen to Spirits, you should already subscribe to Flash Forward, and the new Open World, which is now complete and you can marathon it in its entirety.
Julia: Yeah.
Rose: Yes. Yes, it's very exciting. That show had a wild ride. It was originally with a different company. They laid everybody off. There were like lawyers. It was the whole thing. But it's done now. And you listen to it. And I'm stoked. Yeah. So, it's exciting to – it is exciting to be able to, like, save a project from the brink of, you know, capitalistic collapse, I suppose.
Julia: And it's a solar punk Anthology, right?
Rose: Yes. Yeah. So, every episode is a piece of audio fiction that sort of looks at the future in a hopeful way in some capacity. And then, after that, I interview the creators of those pieces about their work. Sort of like how they think about the future, what they're hopeful about, how to stay hopeful amidst all of this stuff.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: So – which is a tall order, I think, for many people. And, also, just sort of a little bit about why it's worth trying to be hopeful. I think nihilism can be very appealing sometimes. But we sort of make the case for hope as an active practice as opposed to just sort of, like, accepting things the way they are.
Julia: I love that.
Rose: Oh, good.
Julia: Definitely, the show we need right now.
Rose: I hope so. I hope so. Yeah. Yeah, it is – it is – it was funny. We started it last year. And I feel like, as 2020 crept along, we were like, “Wooh, boy, okay.”
Julia: Wooh.
Rose: We're doing this.
Amanda: And, crucially, you are the only person with better, I think, short sleeve, patterned button downs than Julia and myself.
Julia: Yes. Yeah.
Amanda: So, you know, I just – I aspire.
Rose: This shirt that I'm wearing currently is – was a gift from a friend who saw it and was like, “I have to just purchase this and send it to you.”
Julia: What a good friend.
Rose: I know. It's great. It's like – yeah. Instagram ads have me totally pinned. I don't know if you get those ads and you're like --
Amanda: Oh, yeah.
Rose: -- goddamn it, I do want that.
Amanda: I get my – like, my, my Rose ads is what – is how I think of them. I feel like the bolts, you know, queer-ish button downs.
Rose: Yeah. Mhmm.
Amanda: Very good.
Rose: Yeah, I've been calling it Butch Miss Frizzle. It’s kind of like --
Julia: Yes.
Rose: -- the aesthetic, I think.
Julia: That's it.
Amanda: Incredible. Well, today, we are here to talk not about fashion or even the future, but the past.
Julia: Yes.
Amanda: Tell us, Rose, all about Frankenstein please.
Rose: Okay. Frankenstein is an incredible story. It starts as a book by Mary Shelley. And, if you have not read Frankenstein, I feel like, A, you should do that.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: If you have read Frankenstein, you may want to reread Frankenstein, in part, because it's just good and not many things that were published in 1818 are actually still very readable, I would argue.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: Frankenstein very much is. But, if you have already read Frankenstein, you probably have not read the 1818 version of Frankenstein, which I highly recommend seeking out.
Julia: Aah.
Rose: So, Frankenstein starts – the story of Frankenstein starts really in 1815 when there's a volcanic eruption. So, there's a volcanic eruption. It causes the next year, 1816, basically, a summer that is super dark. It's like cold and dark because of all the ash in the air. I'm in California right now. So, we experienced that, actually, somewhat recently with the fires, where, all of a sudden, it was dark and cold all day. And I was like, “Hmm. I should write a horror novel,” but I didn't.
Julia: Or sleep with Lord Byron. You know, one of these two.
Rose: Right. Or – yeah, I can do that – either.
Amanda: Yeah. Yeah, Lord Byron's here. We can't swim in the lake. Let's --
Rose: Yeah.
Amanda: -- create a – you know, create a whole genre, please.
Rose: Yes. Yes, exactly. Yes. Yeah. So, Frankenstein is the original horror novel, right? It is the beginning of the horror genre to – in many people's eyes. I think that's fair to say. It is written by Mary Shelley in 1816. It started in 1816 and finished and published in 1818. Most people, however, have read the 1831 version, which is actually somewhat different. And it's worth if you have read it. If you've – all this to say is, if you've read the book and you think you've read the book, I would recommend – actually, there's a – you can buy a version that has both in it and you can get it from a library probably too, where you can see the differences between the 1818 version and the 1831 version.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: So, the 1818 version is published without a name on it. There's no name on the book because women authors were like --
Julia: Classic.
Rose: -- not a thing people were stoked about. The second edition, published in 1823, has Mary Shelley's name on it. And that is also a scandal --
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: -- because people are like, “Oh, no.” This story, it was published in a three – it was a three-volume novel. This novel that we loved and everyone – kind of the critics were really excited about was written by a woman, which is a problem.
Julia: Oh, no.
Amanda: Oh, it wasn’t revealed. People didn’t know.
Rose: Yeah. Yes, no one – no one knew. Well, so, so, it was revealed that it was Mary Shelley. There were two reactions. The first was that, all of a sudden, the critics panned it even though they had liked it before. And the other version of it – the other thing that happened was they assumed that Percy Shelley, her then husband had written it. Right. Like, of course, she could not have written it.
Julia: Sure.
Rose: And Percy Shelley did write the prologue and he did actually help her edit it. And different versions of the book have more or less of his hand in it. You can tell it's a Percy Shelley section if the writing is, like, extremely florid and just like way too much.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: And Mary Shelley's writing is actually very direct, which is what makes Frankenstein still very readable today. Right.
Julia: Right.
Rose: It is very, like, straightforward and descriptive and kind of like the books that you might read today. So, most people have probably read the 1831 version, which has a bunch of changes to it which we can get into once we start talking about the rest of it. So, volcano erupts 1815. 1816, Mary Shelley has just had a miscarriage, lost a child, is very depressed. She is with Percy Shelley. They're not married yet. They are, like, sad, also, somewhat in a hot spot in terms of, like, being together, being not married, having potentially had a baby, et cetera, et cetera.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: They decided they are going to escape for the summer to their friend's cottage on the lake. I guess, it's not really a cottage. It’s like kind of a more like a mansion.
Julia: Yeah, it’s a mansion, but --
Rose: So, rich people are like, “Oh, yes, my, like, cottage.” And you're like, “That has 19 rooms in it. That’s not a cottage.”
Julia: It seemed quaint to them and that's what matters.
Rose: Exactly. Very instagrammable.
Amanda: It reminds me of early pandemic --
Rose: Exactly.
Amanda: -- where everybody reveals themselves to have country retreats.
Rose: Right. Exactly. And you're like, “Where are all of you? Like, where – what is happening here?”
Amanda: Oh, your Connecticut. summer home, okay,
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: Exactly. Yes. So, they go to Lake Geneva to go live with Lord Byron and John Polidori, who are these, like, other intellectuals. So, Mary Shelley is born into a very intellectual family. Her mother was actually very early feminist who died when she was very, very young. She basically – I think Mary Shelley was maybe a couple of years old. And her father was an – a very famous scholar anarchist.
Julia: Good combo.
Rose: So, she kind of was like – yeah. So, she was already kind of like in this literary world, in this kind of, like, high society, academic kind of group. So, that's how she kind of hooked up with all these people. Anyway, they go to Lake Geneva. And they're like, “It's this weird, creepy summer. There's no sun. It's cold. We're in Lake Geneva. Everyone's depressed.” Mary Shelley's depressed because she had a miscarriage. Everyone else is depressed because they're too rich and it's cold. And it's not a good summer.
Julia: Yep.
Rose: And they're like, “Why don't we have a horror story writing contest?” Which is like, “Sure. Why not?”
Julia: Yeah, that's what people did back then. If it was like cold --
Rose: Yeah, it's a totally normal thing.
Julia: -- and boring --
Rose: Yeah.
Julia: -- you would tell scary stories.
Rose: Exactly.
Amanda: I did really love the idea of a bunch of friends who are all, like, macabre enough that they're all like, “Let's write horrifying stories to amuse each other.”
Rose: Yes.
Julia: We're just so guff.
Rose: Yeah, exactly. I know. I was just watching the – this is a total aside. I was just watching the not most recent but one season to go Great British Bake Off --
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: -- where there's the creepy lady. And I loved her.
Julia: Love her.
Rose: I loved her. I like don't even – I actually don't love her. I find it too scary. I'm very easily spooked.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: And, so, like her aesthetic is not my aesthetic, but I appreciate a commitment, you know.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: Like, I just really appreciate going higher.
Julia: 100 percent.
Rose: Yeah. So, so, they're in Lake Geneva and Mary Shelley's like, actually really into this idea, likes to write, is a good writer, but she can't think of anything to write about. And, so, she's like, “What am I gonna do?” you know. And, and she's not the only one. None of – she's the only person who creates something readable out of this challenge to be fair. But, so, at the time – and she had written in letters and stuff later on that she was stuck. She didn't know what to do. And, one night, she's sitting there and she is, I believe, the only woman there among those sort of, like, main group of people.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: She's sitting there and she's listening to these two men; Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, drunkenly, recount a bunch of science incorrectly.
Julia: Sure.
Amanda: Oh, my god.
Rose: Which is like, “Who has not been there?”
Julia: Aargh.
Amanda: No one's been there more than you.
Rose: I know. It's true. It's funny. I was joking with someone. I was like, “Who among us hasn't been there?” And they were like, “Some people don't have that experience.” And I'm like, “Oh, that is my life.” So, she's listening to these two men recount the experiments of Erasmus Darwin, who is a predecessor to Charles Darwin. And Erasmus Darwin believed that you could coax life out of garbage, right? So, this is before we really understood, like, where life comes from --
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: -- or, like, the idea that bacteria exists on surfaces, right? There's things that we cannot see, et cetera, et cetera. So, they would look at a pile of garbage. And they would see like fruit flies emerge. And they would think, “Okay. Well, those fruit flies were created by that garbage, right?” So, this is the idea of spontaneous generation --
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: -- that life kind of comes out of decay, right? Which is like, at the time, totally reasonable. Like, if you have no idea how any of this works, like, sure, why not. And, so, Erasmus Darwin would do all these experiments where they would basically try to – he and these other scientists would try to seal a jar full of flour and then see if anything grew in it. And the idea being that it was sterile, because it was clean and they couldn't see anything in there. But, of course, as we all know, there's stuff in there that you can't see. As we record this in the midst of a pandemic, like, there's invisible stuff everywhere that could kill you.
Amanda: There's also – there's so much here. There's – I mean they’re making a sourdough starter base on –
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: 100 percent.
Rose: Yeah.
Amanda: That’s hilarious. It is dark. It is cold. There's natural disasters. Nobody's going anywhere. I mean, listen --
Rose: Yes.
Amanda: -- it’s kind of exactly what happened 200 years ago again.
Rose: Exactly, yes. And we're all, like, telling scary stories to each other about the future.
Julia: Yeah.
Rose: And here we are. And, so, so, they're recounting this. And they're like talking about these experiments, but they're – of course, they're drunk. And they're not getting any of them correct. And, so, at one point, they are saying that Erasmus Darwin was able to coax life out of vermicelli, which means little worm in Italian. It technically has only ever really been applied to pasta, right?
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: Like, many of you may be familiar with the idea of vermicelli noodles. So, basically, they're like, “Yes, he got this – he got this pasta to come to life, basically, somehow. Mary Shelley just listening to these guys probably is just being like, “Oh, Jesus Christ. Really? Like, whatever.”
Amanda: Drinks brandy silently.
Rose: Yeah, just like like, “Uh, huh. Sure. Sure. Sure.” And probably what they were trying to talk about was a small organism called a Vorticella, which is a real thing. And Vorticella are, actually, quite interesting. You can dry them out and then rehydrate them. And they can retain some function. Kind of like, if you've ever heard of like, water bears, Tardigrades, where they can, like --
Julia: Sure.
Rose: -- live in that suspended state of being dried out to desiccation and then kind of come back to life. Vorticella can do similar things. And, so, that's probably what they were talking about. But, instead, they decided that he, like, had made noodles come to life, which, sure, why not.
Julia: Mhmm. Checks out.
Rose: So, Mary Shelley overhears this and she, to her credit, is like, “This is bullshit. You definitely don't know what you're talking about,” but it does sort of, like, get her thinking about bringing life back. Obviously, she's just had this death of her infant. Like, she is very much processing that grief and she's thinking a lot about life and death. You know, her mom died when she was really young. She's had a lot of death in her life. What if you could create life out of death or out of nothing? And she also tells the story that, when she was sort of thinking about this, it was late at night. She cut – she sort of wakes up in the middle of the night with this vision of the story. She looks out and there's a super bright moon. And it just sort of like all comes together. And she kind of has this vision and then she sets out and writes, Frankenstein.
Julia: Wonderful.
Rose: Which is this great story. And Frankenstein is also sort of inspired – likely inspired. She never actually says – one of the interesting things, people will often argue that, oh, very – in all the movie versions, there's a strike – a bolt of lightning, right, that comes in and that's what animates Frankenstein. That's, like, the main thing.
Julia: Sure.
Rose: In the books, she's actually much less specific about how this works and what it actually is. She's very vague about it, which I think is actually sort of part of the enduring appeal of the story. It could kind of be any Boogeyman where it's like, “Oh, science going too far. Like, playing God, et cetera, et cetera.” Many people have referred to CRISPR in sort of Frankensteinian terms --
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: -- right – as like the current Boogeyman for science. She kind of comes up with this story. Now, the other funny thing about the full moon part of the story – she – she's written this in letters where she talks about, like, she had this vision. She wakes up. There's this bright moon. And, once again, men do not believe her.
Julia: Sure.
Rose: And, for years and years and years, they – there was all of this stuff about how I go, “Yeah, she's probably just being overly dramatic. That definitely never happened.” And then, at one point, some astronomers actually went back and figured out, like, was there a very bright moon on that day at that time and it turns out there was. She was not lying.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: Like --
Amanda: Eat shit, everyone else.
Rose: Yeah, exactly. But the other interesting thing about the story to me – and then, I think, the impact of the story is also super interesting – is that this question of what actually animates Frankenstein's monster, which we should be clear to say it's, “Frankenstein is the doctor. The monster is Frankenstein's monster,” which everyone always gets wrong and it's sort of a funny joke to me. So, when Mary Shelley was very young, there were these series of experiments that were very, very famous called the galvanism experiments – the corpse galvanism experiments. Basically, this was scientists realizing that, if you apply an electrical current to certain muscles, they will move, right? Like, even after something is dead.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: So, early on, Galvani had – there's actually some really amazing sketches of this. He's, like, out in a back patio in Italy and he has a weather vane, and a lightning rod, and a cable. And it's attached on this, like, lovely little wrought iron table to a dead frog. This is, like, [Inaudible 20:09].
Julia: Incredible.
Rose: And he’s just waiting for a storm. Yeah, the pictures are great. And then, when the lightning hits the lightning rod and the light – the electrical current goes, the, the frog's leg twitches, right? And this is before scientists really understood, again, like what animates life, how muscles move, this idea of like electrical potential. This is before we had batteries, but this is like right around this idea of, like, what is electricity, how do people move, like, how does any of this work. Galvanism, which people may have heard of --
Amanda: I love a word origin.
Rose: Yes.
Amanda: I love a word origin.
Rose: So, that's where it comes from, Galvani. Galvani has a, a nephew, who decides to take his experiments one step further, Aldini.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: And, and Aldini is like, “You know what would be really sweet?”
Amanda: Oh, yeah.
Rose: If I were to apply this to dead people instead of just frogs.
Julia: Sure.
Amanda: Classic nephew of somebody --
Rose: Exactly.
Amanda: -- with inventions, who sounds like a magician and just wants to one up his uncle.
Rose: Exactly, yeah. And, like, he does --
Julia: [Inaudible 21:05].
Rose: -- this on, like, horses. He – like, he does – he finds some large animals to kind of practice on. He feels confident. There's a couple problems with applying this to people. So, none – well, there are some ethical problems.
Julia: For sure.
Rose: First of all. But there are also problems around, like, not every organism goes through the process of rigor mortis, right?
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: So, , when a person dies, they get stiff. That's like a very classic thing that many people know happens. If you want to move a dead person's leg, it's very difficult once rigor mortis has set in. Different organisms have different versions of that. Sometimes, it never happens. Sometimes, it sets on way later. But human sort of have a pretty clear window for rigor mortis. And, so, what he needed to do this was a very fresh corpse. Like, he couldn't just go – not like the regular people who could just dig up people in the graveyard --
Amanda: Right.
Rose: -- like, regular corpse robbers, grave robbers, et cetera. No, he needed a fresh corpse. So, he went to a murder trial. And, basically, this guy – everyone kind of assumed that he was going to be convicted and hanged to death. And, so, Aldini, like, had to deal with the judge and was like, “I'm gonna just grab this guy as soon as he gets killed.” I have read a couple of rumors – and I've never been able to substantiate this – that he bribed the judge to issue the, like, murder – conviction and death sentence. I've never seen that proven anywhere. But, also, like, I would totally believe that. That's like – seems like the kind of thing --
Amanda: Oh, yeah.
Julia: Yeah.
Rose: -- this guy would do. So, so, she – he grabs the corpse. He brings it to this sort of medical amphitheatre, right, where there's people waiting. And he hooks it up and he runs the current. And the corpse sits up, right, on the table.
Julia: What a bold choice to be like, “I'm not gonna test this out first.”
Rose: Oh, no.
Julia: We're just gonna grab the first fresh dead body we can find. Everyone gather around.
Rose: Yeah, it's hard to get a fresh body, man. You can't waste them on – you know, you got to do it for the gram.
Julia: Yeah, you have to do it for the gram.
Rose: Yeah, PicsArt didn't happen basically is his – is his whole ethos. And, so, he does it. And, like, people just, like, lose their fucking minds. Right.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: They're like, “Oh, my god.”
Amanda: Yeah.
Rose: Like, I mean it is incredible. If you've never –like, if – we now kind of understand what's going on here. But, if you did not understand and you see a dead person sit up on a table, like, that's terrifying.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Yeah.
Rose: And, also, it opens up a lot of questions of, like, what is death, what is life, like, how do things move around, all of this stuff. And those experiments, obviously, got a ton of attention. And there were all these newspaper articles about it. And this is all happening when Mary Shelley was very, very young. So, she was, like, growing up probably hearing about this stuff constantly. So, when she wrote Frankenstein, it's never actually – the word Galvanism is never used. Electricity is actually not really mentioned. She never actually says what it is that animates the monster, but everyone assumes that that's what she's talking about because that's sort of like the thing that's in the air. That's the thing everyone's talking about. And everyone assumes that Mary Shelley is, like, pulling from this history, which she probably is, right? That's what she's thinking of.
Julia: Yeah.
Rose: But it's not specifically and explicitly stated in the book.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: So, that's the other interesting thing to me about that story. It’s, like, you have all of these – well, after the corpse Galvanism experiments, bioelectricity becomes very trendy as a thing. And, with that, there come tons of scam Science, right?
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: Like, various electrical corsets and, like, just all the stuff that you might think of that, you know, scammers would, would do.
Julia: Like, what would an electrical corset do?
Rose: Oh, slim you, obviously.
Julia: Obviously.
Amanda: Cure hysteria, Julia.
Julia: Great.
Amanda: Or get rid of fat.
Rose: Yes. Yeah, keep your womb in the right place.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: If it starts to move around, you got to keep it --
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: Keep it down there.
Rose: You got to just --
Julia: Yeah.
Rose: -- keep it in there.
Julia: Okay.
Rose: Yeah, I like to think of them as like a weird taser for, like, if you – if someone gets too close. It’s like, “Stand back.”
Julia: Yes, perfect.
Rose: I don’t think that's how they work, but I hope that's how they worked.
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Amanda: And, now, let's get back to the show.
Rose: So, yeah. So, they, they were – there were all of these scam products and sort of like snake oil salesmen going around the country, especially in the US, of course.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: Sort of like selling these electrical products. It's like, you know, bioelectricity as a thing. Because of that, bioelectricity got this pretty bad reputation among actual scientists, right? Because they were like, “This is a scam.” They're like, “This is just a showman thing. There's not actually anything happening here.” They sort of finally understood that, you know, many muscles have electrical potentials and, like, why they respond to electricity. Around the same time, the US was trying to clean up its medical education. And there were a lot of medical schools out there. And some of them were good. And some of them were not so good.
Julia: Sure.
Rose: And there was this question of like, “How do you accredit a medical school?” You know, all this stuff. I mean, there was no – now, we have medical schools that, like – you know, you can't just, like, open up your own medical school. You and I could not do that, which is probably a good thing. I do not think we are qualified.
Julia: Yeah.
Rose: But, yeah. So, so, there was this guy who was sort of commissioned to kind of clean up medical schools or, at least, propose a method of cleaning up medical schools. And one of the things that he put out in his eventual report, the Flexner Report, is that nontraditional, non-allopathic medicine should not be taught. So, bioelectricity moves in that category.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: And, so, for many, many years, there's – the Flexner Report is very controversial for a lot of good reasons. It's super racist. They basically use it to shut down all the black medical schools except for two. There is a very clear lineage there. And there's also – there was actually some really interesting recent work that tried to estimate how many black doctors could have gotten their degrees if they had gone through these black institutions.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: And, like, the, the racial imbalance in medicine is, obviously, a huge problem and has real impact on the ways in which people are treated. So, the Flexner Report is, like, this very fascinating document that had a – has a really terrible legacy in many ways.
Julia: Yeah.
Rose: It, also, less importantly, eliminated bioelectricity as a thing to study, as a thing to teach.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: Which is sort of interesting because bioelectricity actually is a real thing.
Julia: Sure.
Rose: Like, you know – and is useful in certain contexts. And, in fact, there's some really fascinating research covered recently on Flash Forward. That --
Julia: Plug, plug, plug.
Rose: Yeah, rate, review, and subscribe. That looks at actually using bioelectricity to do things like herd cells, right? So, each cell has electrical potential. If you cut yourself, there's actually a difference in electrical potential in the middle of the wound to the outside of the wound --
Julia: Huh.
Rose: -- which is partially how your skin cells know to grow to the middle and, like, that's how they kind of – that's how wounds heal.
Julia: Wow.
Rose: And, so, there's this idea that you could use the bioelectricity and bioelectrical concepts to actually herd cells and have them go where you want to go or have them go away from things you don't want to, to be at. So, that could have applications for things like cancer and things like that.
Julia: Wow.
Amanda: That's awesome. I, I recall being taught in high school that the nervous system functions, like, using and/or, like, quite, like, electricity. So, I mean it makes – it makes total sense to me.
Julia: Yeah.
Rose: Totally. Yeah. Right. And, like, you know, action potential, right, is like a thing that --
Amanda: Yeah.
Rose: -- you know, people, people learn about. And, at the same time, like, when you – and, and the researcher I talked to who was, like, at Princeton. Like, very legit researcher, not kind of like trying to scam anybody into buying an electrical corset. He'll go and talk – and give talks and he'll have, like, doctors be, like, skeptical because they were never ever taught anything about this stuff --
Julia: Huh.
Rose: -- because – because it's been sort of eliminated from the curriculum in so many places.
Julia: Wow.
Rose: Because of this legacy of, like, scamming. And, and, even today when you read these papers about bioelectricity, many of them reference Frankenstein. Many of them are like, “I know this sounds like Frankenstein, but hear me out. It's real Science, you know,” in this way that I think is really fascinating. That, like, you just cannot escape the story.
Julia: Yeah.
Rose: And I think – I mean, like, horror can't escape the story. The story is everywhere. We all still know it. You know, Mary Shelley was really not ever famous for anything else.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: Like, no one ever read any of her other work. Her letters and this are the two things that we get from her. She does revise Frankenstein between 1818 when it first comes out in 1831. And, interestingly, she revises it not just for like language, but also for content. So, she revises it – the first version of this can very much be read – and I think it's fair to say is a woman processing grief and loss of a child, right?
Julia: Sure.
Rose: And thinking about, like, what if we could bring people back or what if we could create life. In 1818, she had lost her – she had had this miscarriage. In 1831, she had already had two children and both of them had died.
Julia: Wow.
Rose: And, so, she – like, it's – it's an interesting and different. One example of the differences are that – so, when Dr. Frankenstein first brings the monster to life, there's this moment where he's, like, totally repulsed by the monster. Fun fact. In the book, the monster has a yellow skin.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: In almost all of the movie versions, it's green because yellow doesn't read on camera, especially on old cameras very well.
Julia: Ooh.
Rose: And, so, she changed it to green.
Julia: I didn't know that one. I love that.
Rose: Frankenstein is supposed to be yellow.
Amanda: Also, no neck bolts.
Julia: I know.
Rose: No neck bolts. No neck bolts. Yeah. And, also, in – another fun fact. So, the reason Frankenstein is very large – and he is very large in the book as well. And this is actually so interesting to me because it is – it is true to modern science. The doctor talks about how it's actually very challenging to create, out of nothing, organs and, like, the sort of small details of the human body. So, he actually make them bigger to make it easier to make.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Cool.
Rose: Which is totally true when you talk about, like, trying to 3D print organs. Like, there's a lot of little tiny shit inside of our bodies --
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: -- that, like, is actually really complicated. So, he's huge. But – so, there's this moment in the – in the book – in, in all versions of the book where the monster is animated and comes to life for the first time. And its eyes open and the doctor regards the monster for the first time. And, in the 1818 version, the monster – the reaction is he just freak out and run away.
Julia: Sure.
Rose: And he's just like, “I can’t – like, this was not what I thought.” He – so, he had tried to make the monster beautiful. That's a very explicit thing that they state in the book. And that did not happen. And, so, this sort of, like, the hideousness – the physical hideousness of the monster is very important part of the story, obviously. And, so, in the 1818 version, he just, like, bolts and leaves.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: In the 1831 version, he's a lot more sympathetic to the monster.
Julia: Yeah.
Rose: And he's sort of, like, he sees him as, like, poor, and helpless, and miserable. And he's like – he has a much more sort of maternal instinct to the monster in this way that is very interesting if you consider that, in 1818, Mary Shelley had not really had a baby. I mean she – she'd had this miscarriage, but she had not raised a child. 1831, she's raised two and they have both died. And, so, there's like this change in the way that she is thinking about what Frankenstein's sin really is, right? So, in the first book, the sort of – and this is all my argument.
Julia: Yeah. No, I love it.
Rose: Other literary scholars may disagree with this. But, in my – in my reading in the first book, Victor Frankenstein's sin, his main sin, the big thing that he did wrong was that he abandoned this child of his.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: That he, like, left.
Amanda: That's something that I think is not obvious from film and TV adaptations --
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: -- and just general pop culture. It’s that the, the creature, like, wants to be raised --
Rose: Yes.
Amanda: -- and taught.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: And it's sort of, like, rampage, you know, is a result of rejection from a number of people.
Rose: Totally. Yes, exactly. And then, in the 1831 version of the book, it's changed to be that his, his sin is, like, playing God, and thinking that he can do this, and thinking that he can create these things, which is a pretty different thing than --
Amanda: Yeah.
Rose: -- abandoning what you've created, right? And, like, that is a really interesting tension to me that I'm fascinated by where you have this woman who wrote – I mean wrote both of these versions. And this is why I tell people they should read both because there are these really interesting differences between the two. And I think it's, like, you can totally see her thinking change on what the story is. The 1831 version also is softened in some very interesting ways to not be quite so radical about, like, women doing things on their own. Like, there's like other things in it that they sort of like – she tones down. But that's kind of, to me, the main thrust of the big difference between the two. It’s that you, actually – like, this sort of original sin of Victor Frankenstein is totally different between the two of them. And you can kind of read it as, like, her changing her feelings about what the story is even about. And I think, in the movie adaptations, often, it is about like, “Oh, he's playing god. Like, how could he think he has this power?”
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: You know, all this stuff. It's not as much about sort of, like, the question of abandonment, and care, and, like, what your responsibility is to something that you create, which is a really interesting distinction.
Julia: And it's a really interesting reflection on parenthood, too. It’s the idea that you are creating something that you will not have full control over.
Amanda: Totally.
Julia: Like, in creating a person, you are kind of just, like, hoping that you can raise this person right, but they are still out of your control for a certain amount of time, you know.
Amanda: And the sort of project of creating a family, whether that's in fertility or negotiating different systems of adoption and making different families. You know, everybody kind of grows up assuming that that's available easily if that's the thing that you want. And I can definitely see, you know, to your point, Julia, that the latter version says, like, “God, you know, wow. I thought that I could just do this.” And life doesn't work out that way.
Julia: Yeah.
Rose: Well, in the monster too, right? Part of the tension in the second half of the book is that he wants a partner. He wants someone like him, to have a family, to have this thing. And the question of whether or not Victor Frankenstein will do it or not is kind of the animating plot point of the second half of the book. This is like the oft parody like, “Oh, Mrs. Frankenstein, you know, he wants to meet, et cetera.” But, in the books, he talks about he's lonely, right? He doesn't have anyone to talk to.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: And, obviously, you know, I, I feel like there's no spoilers in Frankenstein. It was published in 1818.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: Like, you know, [Inaudible 39:29]
Julia: It's been a while.
Rose: Yeah. Like, the statute of limitations on spoilers has run out. But he doesn't do it, right? He destroys the, the companion that he makes.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: Which is sort of an interesting choice to also be read around, like, who gets to choose what your family is and who you are. You know, Mary Shelley's mother died when she was very, very young. She never really knew her. She was very close with her father. When her father remarried and had other kids, there was a lot of tension around, like, she was kind of the favorite just because she was kind of this precocious young, you know, very smart person. I mean she wrote this when she was 18.
Julia: Yeah.
Rose: She wrote Frankenstein when she was 18 years old.
Amanda: Geez.
Julia: And there's a big difference between 18 and 13 years later when she revised the book. So, yeah, it's – yeah.
Rose: Totally. And, also, you know, her – Percy Shelley doesn't live very long either, right?
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: So, she, like, loses a lot of people in her family and, also, kind of has this very tortured and tenuous relationship with her father, who's also, like, by all descriptions, kind of, like, not a great guy. Like, he's this academic thinker anarchist, but, like, also, has a reputation for being kind of mean and, like, all these other things.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: But he – you know, his, his relationship with her was a point of contention with his second wife and their other kids because, like, you know, as family is complicated.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Yeah.
Rose: And, yeah.
Julia: Not great.
Rose: And, so, she, she has this story of these people searching for family. And the other piece of this is that the monster murders pretty much everybody that Victor Frankenstein loves, right?
Amanda: Yeah.
Rose: His friends, his fiancé, you know, like, his family. And, so, this question of, like, loss and grief is, like, runs throughout the entire story in all of its versions, which is I mean, like, for an 18-year-old, it's a lot of rain.
Julia: Yeah.
Rose: And I think it was received very interestingly. The other interesting fact I will add is that, in 1818 and even 1831, like, talking about things like this openly about grief and about sort of like miscarriage even was, like, not a thing people were doing.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Uh-uh.
Rose: I think, you know, Mary Shelley was perhaps inspired in part to be honest in the fictional sense about this because her father wrote a biography/memoir-ish of, of her mother after she died.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: And, in it, talked about, you know, illegitimate children, talked about miscarriage, talked about her suicidal ideation.
Amanda: Wow.
Rose: And that book was super controversial because people were like, “You do not talk about this stuff.”
Julia: Yeah.
Rose: This not appropriate to put in a biography. And, so, I think that she, she was around all of these ideas about, like, what is and is not okay to disclose and sort of what these stories should look like. And I mean, I think, beyond just knowing that being a woman and having her name on a book would be hard, I think that's probably partially why she didn't put her name on the 1818 version because it does deal with so many of these pretty intense topics that, like, many people feel, felt, and probably still do, in some cases, feel are like not appropriate for women to be discussing and talking about.
Amanda: And this is also decades before that sort of, like, Victorian mourning culture began. Prince Albert didn't die until 1861. I just looked it up. I didn't know that year. And then Queen Victoria is like, you know, wearing black and kind of having a really profound and public display of grief kicked off the, you know, hair of deceased loved ones as jewelry and, like, all the kind of things that I think most people know happened in the sort of Victorian age, but that didn't happen yet. Like, this is way before people even, like, acknowledge death with their clothing or in the decoration of their homes after somebody dies.
Rose: Yeah. And, and, you know, this – it's 19 – it's 1798 that her father publishes this book about her.
Amanda: Wow.
Julia: That's early.
Rose: It's super early. And it was like – and he, also, interestingly, says that he was totally blindsided by the reaction. Like, he thought this was this, like, compassionate portrait of this woman that he loved and to get this – and he was like, “This is an important piece of work. She was this really interesting scholar. I want to talk about her. I want to kind of, like, have her, you know, be out there.” And the reaction that he got, I think, was very surprising to him because he sort of was like, “I'm – I'm” – he's sort of – I mean I actually have not read his memoir or his biography of her. I would love to because, like, it actually sounds like the kind of thing like a modern memoir or biography would talk about all of these things, right?
Julia: Yeah.
Rose: But, at the time, it was like, “No. No. No, you don't talk about suicide attempts. You do not talk about love affairs. You do not talk about illegitimate children. You do not talk about any of these things.” And he did because he was like, “This is who she was, right? Like, this is --
Julia: Yeah.
Rose: -- you know --
Julia: This is her life. Yeah.
Rose: Yeah. I meanMary Shelley also does not live very long. She dies of a brain tumor at age 53.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Wow.
Rose: So, she is not around for very long either. So, yeah, a lot of death – a lot of death.
Julia: Yeah. Yeah, kind of just surrounded her her entire life, huh?
Rose: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I was reading earlier about the, the various astronomers’ attempts to like confirm that Mary Shelley did see the moon --
Julia: Yeah.
Rose: -- which, like, I both appreciate and, also, I'm like, “This is absurd that like --
Julia: Yeah.
Rose: -- very smart people are spending a lot of their time to, like, prove this thing that this woman said. Like, we have no reason to doubt,” you know.
Julia: Yeah.
Rose: So, I think I will say I do think that hair jewelry starts in the 1600s.
Julia: Oh, okay.
Amanda: Gotcha.
Rose: But I do – like, there are, like – the, the, like, full out Victorian, like, morning thing doesn't happen for a little bit later than that.
Julia: Yeah.
Rose: So, Percy Shelley dies at 29. He drowns. His boat gets caught in a storm and he drowns, which is a really bad way to go, I think.
Julia: Yeah.
Rose: Yeah, I feel like that's not great. Anyway, so, she decided that she wanted to keep something from her now dead husband. And the thing that she wanted to keep was his heart.
Julia: Yup.
Rose: And, so, she just took it. She just took his heart and was like, “I'm gonna keep this.” And, so, he was cremated but without his heart. So, she had it and she just, like, kept it on her desk. Like, as a thing --
Julia: Yes, wild.
Rose: -- just like to have on her desk.
Amanda: Incredible.
Rose: Which is incredible. I will say that there is a guy who is a – who studies fungus. But he is a person who has had a heart transplant. And he actually also has his own heart on his desk in like a little thing, which I would totally do --
Amanda: So metal.
Rose: -- if I had --
Julia: That was goth as hell.
Rose: Like, if I was able to, I'd be like, “Yeah, give me that heart. I want that heart.
Julia: Oh, 100 percent. I get it. I get it. That's like, “Look at what I've conquered. I have conquered death here and --
Rose: I think it’s awesome.
Julia: -- I still stand.
Rose: Yeah.
Amanda: I had benign tumors removed from my hand when I was a kid. And they – the doctor was like, “It is disgusting and you do not want it because” – but I really wanted to.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: I was like a 12-year-old kid who was like, “But it's poetic.” And he was like, “No.”
Julia: Small child, “No.”
Rose: I did demand – yeah, I demanded my IUD when it was removed. So, I have that.
Amanda: That one. Yeah.
Rose: Like, technically, they're not supposed to give you because it's technically biowaste or whatever. So, the other thing about Percy Shelley's heart, to say, is that there is a story – and I don't actually know if this is true or not. So, the story goes that they, they cremated him but his heart wouldn't burn. That like, for some reason --
Julia: Yeah, I heard it was calcified or something. Yeah.
Rose: Yeah, it was calcified. I don't know if that's true or not. I have some skepticism around that idea. But, like --
Amanda: I can’t imagine it would be.
Rose: Yeah. And, like, I just don't – I – it would disintegrate even if it doesn't burn, right? Like, I --
Julia: Yeah.
Rose: Yeah. And, so, I need – I would need to look into this. I actually haven't looked into this because it is a good story that like they tried to burn him and his heart, which is like laying there which is this amazing image of, like, the calcified heart.” I should look into this because it would – it would be very – it would be interesting to know, like, how much evidence there is that that is exactly what happened. So, he did have tuberculosis when he was a kid.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: And that can cause some calcification of the heart. But, like, if his heart was calcified to the point where it wouldn't burn, then it wouldn't be functional. Like, he would have been dead. Like --
Amanda: Yeah.
Rose: It’s just like that's not really --
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Or even, like, deposits or build up, you know, I feel like the muscle would definitely start going.
Rose: Right. And, like, he did not die of a heart condition. He drowned, right?
Julia: Yeah.
Rose: So, like, you know, maybe it was like some – it was – it was coming for him. But I feel like that's probably not what happened, although, I want to believe. That is a very, like, fitting Mary Shelley thing to have happened where you like walk up to the pyre and your, you know, husband's ashes are everywhere and his heart is just lying there. That's a great image. I just don't know that it's true.
Julia: Well, I do really like that a lot of her life has been kind of, like, created into legend. You know, like the idea that she lost her virginity on her mother's grave is another one that I absolutely adore. I don't know how true that is.
Rose: I do not think that is true.
Julia: But it's wonderful. It's a very cool fake fact.
Rose: Yeah.
Amanda: Yeah.
Rose: Right. Well, it is like she is the, like, mother of horror, right?
Julia: Yeah.
Rose: Like, that is – like – and, so, all these, like, ideas around like what is sacrilegious, what is horrific, what is scary, and, like, how she – and she was surrounded by death.
Julia: Yeah.
Rose: Like, lots and lots of things happened to her. So, yeah, like, give, give her that if that – if that's what she wants. I don't know. I'm all for Mary Shelley having whatever memory of her that she would desire. And, if that means that she lost her virginity on her mom's grave, go for it. Like, I’m for it.
Julia: I’m into it.
Rose: Yeah.
Julia: Honestly.
Amanda: I think it's way more metal to, to take your husband's perfectly fine heart as a token than to have – like, it feels like it's – it's kind of misogynizing Percy for the fact that, like, his heart would not burn.
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: So, I, I like that Mary just, like, knew what she want and took it. Like, so much of her story – and, like, biographical criticism is not the only way to interpret literature. That means like looking at the biography of the author and their life and kind of how that impacted what they wrote. It's not the be all and end all. But, in this case, I, I love this idea that, you know, we think of grief and death so often as, like, an abandonment or, at least, as a, a lonely thing. And she has given so many people a voice, like a space, a way to think about this in a way that is, like, kind of from the side and a little bit more approachable than thinking about something tragic head on and just sort of carving out space for herself, not just in a profession or in publishing, but in, in her life and, like, not being defined by her losses but by what she made instead.
Rose: Yeah, I also love, to that point of, like, her taking what she wants, there is a story – and, again, I do not know how true it is – about the heart where somebody else tried to claim it. I believe it was his friend who was like there at the time. He tried to make a claim on the heart and Mary Shelley was like, “Absolutely not. Like, that is mine.”
Julia: [Inaudible 49:54].
Rose: And she like – yeah, she took it, which is sort of – is sort of interesting. The other thing is that it was eventually – so, eventually, the heart was buried in the sort of, like, Shelley family vault --
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: -- which was buried I believe in, like, 1889 or 1890. And it was wrapped in – they wrapped the heart in a copy of one of his poems to like --
Amanda: Oh, man.
Rose: -- seal it as, like, just a classic --
Amanda: These romantics.
Rose: Yeah. Yeah, it is – it is, like, creepy romantic in a way that I kind of love. I mean this is after, you know, she was dead. So, it was a – it was a decision made by her son, I believe. But, yeah, that’s a lot – yeah, she's a fascinating lady. And I just like – I don't know. I would love to know, also, like, what she thinks about the way people talk about Frankenstein now --
Julia: Yeah.
Rose: -- and all the movie adaptations --
Amanda: Yeah.
Rose: -- and, like, the parodies. I mean do you, two, have a favorite Frankenstein movie adaptation?
Amanda: I really love the stage adaptation that the National Theatre did in, like, the late aughts or early 2010s, starring Johnny Lee Miller and Benedict Cumberbatch. They switched off the roles of Frankenstein and the creature every night. And they – it was filmed for National Theater live.
Julia: Ooh.
Amanda: So, you can definitely find a copy on the internet. But I love that they really documented the process of the creature, like learning and growing up to be a person. And, to me, that really evokes the, like, abandonment theme and feeling better than any adaptation I've seen.
Julia: See, Amanda gave a really good thoughtful answer. And my instinct is like, “Well, Young Frankenstein, obviously.”
Rose: Yeah.
Amanda: It’s also very good.
Julia: It’s a good movie.
Rose: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I do – I have a very soft spot for Young Frankenstein. I think I probably saw that movie before I read Frankenstein. And I think probably --
Julia: Oh, 100 percent for me.
Rose: Yeah. Yeah, I think, also, like, I avoided reading Frankenstein for a while, A, because I don't really read horror. I'm actually very easily spooked. But, also, like – like I said, like, many books from 1818 are, like, not good to read.
Julia: Yeah.
Rose: Like, they're not readable.
Amanda: No.
Rose: Whereas, I will say, like, Frankenstein is very readable. Like, I, I would highly recommend it. It is also like, it's a frame story, right? I love a good frame story.
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: Oh, yeah, me too.
Rose: Like, it’s like the set up --
Julia: It’s like always sad news and letters.
Amanda: All my papers in college were, like, did you know there's metatextual elements --
Rose: Yeah, exactly. I love that, like, we, at some point, abandon that where it's like – I mean, honestly, I feel like there's a parallel in podcasting where, like, there is still this idea that, like, you need to explain where the tape came from in fictional podcasts --
Julia: Yes.
Rose: -- in this, like, framy way and it's like --
Amanda: Yeah.
Rose: Or you can literally just tell the story. It's fine.
Amanda: It's fine.
Amanda: Yeah, it's fine. It’s fine.
Julia: Well, you know, I was – I was revisiting Dracula recently. And I forgot it's also like a story --
Amanda: Yes.
Julia: -- within a story. It's like, “Oh, we found these letters and these diaries and here's what happened, you know.”
Rose: Exactly. Yes, exactly. I do love, also, Frankenstein does something very unusual in the way it is written, especially for the time, which is it does switch off points of view, right?
Julia: Yeah.
Rose: So, you switch between the --
Amanda: Yeah.
Rose: -- the doctor and the creature. And that is not something that you saw very often in books written in 1818, right?
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: This, like, sort of switching of perspectives, which actually lends itself to what you were describing, Amanda, the, the play, which actually kind of love the idea of them switching back and forth at different nights.
Amanda: Yeah.
Rose: That's really interesting. I will – I will have to check that out. I do – I do love – I don't know. There's something so interesting about that story. And, like, my – I have a friend who is blind who loves the fact that, like, the only person who cares about this monster is the blind guy --
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Yeah.
Rose: -- who’s like, “You seem good.” Like, yeah.
Julia: You seem chill.
Rose: Yeah, and who, like, can't convince his family to, to, to do it. I just also love that this whole story starts with, like, a volcanic eruption in 1815. Like, that's just the stage.
Amanda: It’s made for horror.
Rose: Yeah, exactly.
Amanda: Like, if this wasn't the birth of the horror genre, I would still be, like, I choose this version because it's just so good.
Julia: Totally.
Rose: Yes, totally. Yeah. Yeah. And, yeah, they're just all fascinating. Oh, one person did say, which I think is fun, is that the book itself is such a cornerstone that it can be used in multiple different courses. So, they had to read it in a philosophy course, a science ethics class, and an anthropology course, which I think, like, is a testament, right --
Julia: Very cool.
Rose: -- to, like, the ways in which --
Amanda: Incredible.
Rose: Yeah, totally.
Amanda: I read it in like a survey of Anthropocene media before that was a very well-known term about sort of, like, human, human urges to harness environmental processes, like, for personal gain, which is the story of humanity.
Julia: Hey.
Rose: Yeah. Apparently, in the film Bride of Frankenstein, the bride is a redhead. But you can't tell because it's a black and white film --
Julia: Yep, that makes sense.
Rose: -- which is sort of interesting.
Amanda: I think the yellow skin to green skin is gonna by my --
Rose: Yellow skin. Yeah.
Amanda: -- my persisting fact.
Julia: Here's a fun fact that I actually know off the top of my head, when they filmed Young Frankenstein, they had to do him in blue, because they just couldn't get the right color with the black and white film that they were using.
Amanda: Oh, fun.
Rose: Blue. That's – I wish – I want to see pictures of that to, like --
Julia: Yeah.
Rose: -- see it. I have two other ones that I'll say. One of them I just think is funny. Tim Carmody, who's very smart and funny on Twitter – shout out to Tim – said that he – I'll just gonna read this tweet because it's very funny. He says, “Mary Shelley could have written lots of different kinds of books about Byron. And she picked a timeless monster story to write.”
Amanda: Incredible.
Rose: Very funny. The other one that I just thought of that I think is amazing is the film version of Frankenstein in 1931. Boris Karloff actually has – is responses, in many ways, for actor protections --
Julia: Mhmm.
Rose: -- and much of, like, actor organizing --
Amanda: Wow.
Rose: -- because he was asked to put on this incredibly heavy suit basically to play Frankenstein with all the stuff --
Julia: Yeah.
Rose: -- and the shoes and everything else. And they were asking him to work these just, like, absolutely unreal hours and he was exhausted. And it was just brutal. It was totally brutal. And he finally was like, “This is not okay. Like, we can't – like this is not an okay thing to be asking.” And he got – he kept getting sick and he – whatever. And, so, he, actually, because of that experience, wound up organizing and creating an Actor's Guild essentially and, like, pushing back on, like, how many hours you can ask someone to work and actually creating worker protections for actors because of having to play Frankenstein in 1931. So, that's a fun fact about Frankenstein.
Julia: Oh, hell yeah. Thanks, Boris Karloff.
Amanda: Incredible.
Rose: There's a great – you must remember this episode actually about this Frankenstein and Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff as --
Julia: Incredible.
Rose: -- these wonderful men in some, like, so thematic conversation with one another.
Amanda: Sawbones also has a really good episode about the, like, regulating of medical schools and board exams.
Rose: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Anyway, the other thing to know is that, in 1816, after these – this summer on the lake where they did this horror story contest, they do finally marry Percy Shelley and Mary Shelley. And they marry. It happens after the suicide of Percy's first wife. They married did not get married --
Julia: Haaa.
Rose: -- until after she commit suicide, which is pretty terrible. I mean, I guess, as Tim said, Percy, Shelley, and Byron as well are both – you can write a lot of monster books about those guys.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: Just messes up human beings, really.
Amanda: Yep.
Rose: Yeah.
Julia: So, speaking of someone who's not a mess of a human being, Rose, where can people find your work?
Rose: I mean --
Amanda: Yes.
Rose: -- thank you for that, but I also am absolutely a different kind of a mess of a human being, I would you say.
Julia: Let me pay you compliments.
Rose: Yeah. You can find me on the internet. I am Rose Eveleth, E-V-E-L-E-T-H. The only Rose Eveleth that you will find for better or for worse. And you can find me on Flash Forward. There is an episode recently called Shock and Awe, which is actually about a lot of this stuff, the history of bioelectricity, the future of bioelectricity, talks a little bit about Frankenstein, some more fun facts about Frankenstein. And you can also listen to my show, Advice For and From the Future, which is exactly what it sounds like, Advice For and From the Future. The next one we have coming up --
Amanda: I love it so much.
Rose: -- is one about whether you can ask your friend to turn their Alexa device off when you go to their house. Like, is it okay to be like, “Hey, can you turn off your listening robots?” And, like, how do you have that conversation? So, those are the kinds of things that we talked about on that show. And, yeah, you can find me on the internet.
Julia: Well, thank you so much, Rose. It was delightful. That was a great conversation. I love talking about people from history. So, this was just the best.
Rose: Thanks for having me. I can talk about Frankenstein all day. And I definitely – like, people should read the 1818 version. Like, check it out. If you haven't – if you've already – even if you think, like, I already read that, you should check it out and make sure you’ve read the original.
Julia: Do both.
Amanda: I will, for sure. All right. Thanks, Rose.
Rose: Thank you.
Amanda: And remember everybody.
Julia: Stay creepy.
Amanda: Stay cool.
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Transcriptionist: Rachelle Rose Bacharo
Editor: Krizia Casil