Mary Shelley

            On Sunday There was hardly any white left in the snow banks along Queen Street and they were looking pretty flat, almost like old dirty knife blades lying on their sides without handles.

            My afternoon siesta lasted an extra hour.

             I weighed 92.4 kilos when I got up.

            I re-read several more pages of Frankenstein and made notes along the way. I also read several more pages of Gretchen Henderson’s “Ugliness: a Cultural History”. I’ve got four pages of notes so far. Here’s some interesting stuff:

Victor Frankenstein’s remarkably secluded and domestic upbringing had given him an invincible repugnance to new countenances. Victor rejected Monsieur Krempe and his scientific doctrine based on his repulsive countenance and the gruff sound of his voice. Monsieur Waldman was attractive to Victor and had the sweetest voice ever heard and so his ideas were accepted. Of the death of Victor’s little brother William, the declaration that “Nothing in human shape could have destroyed that fair child” ignores the thousands of atrocities that had been committed by humans throughout history. “The mere presence of the idea was an irresistible proof of the fact” is something a scientist would not say. “I considered him in the light of my own vampire. My own spirit let loose from the grave.” This suggests that he thought of the possibility of the monster being his own dark aspect or doppelganger. The first physical description of Victor’s mother is presented in a painting that his father had commissioned which depicted her kneeling in agony at her father’s coffin. Why would someone want to remember one’s wife in this manner? Was she most beautiful to Victor’s father when she was in grief? Justine while on death row was rendered by the solemnity of her feelings exquisitely beautiful to the eyes of Victor. If beauty arises as a result of dark circumstances then what does that say about ugliness? Justine’s beauty was obliterated in the minds of her accusers. Victor imagined himself suffering more than someone about to be executed for a crime she did not commit. Elizabeth says “Misery has come home” and “Men appear to me as monsters”. The sight of the awful and majestic in nature solemnized Victor’s mind. The presence of another would destroy the solitary grandeur of the scene. The monster and Victor have the mountains in common. They meet on common ground. Why does man boast of sensibilities superior to the brute? The monster’s second sentence is, “All men hate the wretched”. Misery made me a fiend. If my creator abhors me what hope can I gain from his fellow creatures that owe me nothing? Mary Godwin considered her stepmother to be disgusting and Mary’s father could not reconcile the monstrous parent-child dynamics that emerged between his daughter and his wife and so he sent Mary away. As Shelley’s mother wrote, “A great proportion of the misery that wanders in hideous forms around the world is allowed to rise from the negligence of parents.”

            There was a skinny, slight young blonde woman in a hoody outside that looked like she might have been a crack addict shouting for my upstairs neighbour David. She was standing just off the edge of the sidewalk in the street in front of the doorway of my building and continuously calling “David!” Finally I opened my window and pointed out to her that David’s window is above the doorway of the donut shop. She said, “Yeah but I’m tryin to stay off the street!” I said, “Okay, but he could hear you better if you stand over there.” She moved over and renewed her serenade. I didn’t get the logic of her needing to stand in the street to be heard. Her voice would have carried just as well from directly under David’s window. I don’t know if he was even home.

            I had a burger on a bagel for dinner and a bran muffin with yogourt for dessert. The muffin was a little too filling.

            I watched an episode of Rawhide. In this story Gil Favor begins to question his judgement in both his decision to take the herd across a dry plain late in the season and in the men he’s hired to help do it. A new drover named Talby is convinced that another named Johnny is really a wanted outlaw named Billy Carter. He says Billy killed his daughter but later we learn that she was killed by someone else that was gunning for Billy, but he blames him anyway. Things keep getting stolen from the other men’s things and Talbot keeps saying it’s Billy that is the thief. As the plain is being crossed and they keep finding dried up holes where water is supposed to be, everyone starts to get on each other’s throats. Friends get into fistfights. Wishbone quits. Another waterhole turns out to be poisoned. Pete, Joe Scarlet and some other men quit. Wishbone stays on. Talbot confronts Johnny and he finally admits that he’s Billy Carter. Billy is ready to have a shootout but Gil steps in. He outdraws Billy and shoots him in the shoulder. It’s discovered though that Billy’s gun is not even loaded and he wanted to die. He shows Talbot the marriage licence from when he ‘d made Talbot’s daughter his wife. From that day she made him empty his gun and he’s kept it empty ever since. She died when someone came gunning for him and she jumped in the way. Suddenly Talbot starts treating Billy like a son and they stay on together with the herd. Gil has given up hope now. They are almost out of water and the herd will soon drop. He admits he was wrong and tells them to leave, but they refuse to go. The other men that left also return, lying that they’d gotten lost. They’ve come from the direction that the herd has to go and they say there’s water over the hill.