I was having a conversation with a lady I just met, the mother of an acquaintance. She was very friendly and talkative, and we fell into quick and easy banter. At the time I was taking a class called "Frankenstein Across the Curriculum," a course dedicated solely to the ins and outs of the first science fiction book, Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. I had fallen entranced into that class - I found it endlessly fascinating, the way the very young Mary Shelley had dreamed up the story and characters, how she had created the mad scientist, Victor Frankenstein, a nice man, really, who made a very bad mistake, and his creature, another nice man/thing who, but for being so misunderstood, could have been his good friend instead of the death of everything he knew and loved.
Somehow this lady and I got on this very subject. She had always wanted to read Frankenstein, she said, and she asked me many questions about the book. I explained how the doctor had become obsessed with creating life on his own, how he had pieced together stolen pieces of corpses from cemeteries, animal parts from slaughterhouses. Then one fateful night, Victor infuses the spark of life into his horrid, ugly creature, and then it all goes mightily downhill from there.
The lady sat listening, nodding her head. Then she asked, "Is that a true story?"
4 comments:
Are you serious? HA! Now that's funny!
I remember working at the community center and a woman called and asked "if it rains on the night of the fireworks would they be held inside?"
Hilarious. Reminds me of that great scene in "Christmas Vacation" when Clark is telling the kids that a traffic controller spotted Santa's sleigh on radar flying across the city.
Cousin Eddie looks up amazed and says "Are you serious Clark?"
I love these stories! Tell me more!
I once convinced a friend of mine that Mt. Rushmore was naturally made from Glaciers. True story.
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