282. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (FP: 1818; Penguin Classics, 215) was the last book I read in 2013. The story is about one man's unbridled passion to acquire knowledge forsaking all other aspects of life, ending in his doom. Is it bad to forsake all else in the quest for knowledge? Is this not a fantastic quest for man to embark on? According to Mary, a false balance is an abomination to the Lord [Proverbs 11:1a] and the unexamined life is not worth living for a human being [Socrates]. Or that is what she implies in this Gothic creation of man's attempt at playing god gone wrong. In Frankenstein , Mary describes the woes of a young Frankenstein who left home and his family and friends for school and there sought to investigate further and farther into the subjects of science and of creation to the exclusion of everything including his health. It was his single-idea to create a human being; yet, not being perfect, he could not perfect his creation and so produced a hor...