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    The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein: A Novel
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    The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein: A Novel
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    The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein: A Novel
    Audiobook9 hours

    The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein: A Novel

    Written by Peter Ackroyd

    Narrated by John Lee

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    When two nineteenth-century Oxford students-Victor Frankenstein, a serious researcher, and the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley-form an unlikely friendship, the result is a tour de force that could only come from one of the world's most accomplished and prolific authors.

    This haunting and atmospheric novel opens with a heated discussion, as Shelley challenges the conventionally religious Frankenstein to consider his atheistic notions of creation and life. Afterward, these concepts become an obsession for the young scientist. As Victor begins conducting anatomical experiments to reanimate the dead, he at first uses corpses supplied by the coroner. But these specimens prove imperfect for Victor's purposes. Moving his makeshift laboratory to a deserted pottery factory in Limehouse, he makes contact with the Doomsday men-the resurrectionists-whose grisly methods put Frankenstein in great danger as he works feverishly to bring life to the terrifying creature that will bear his name for eternity.

    Filled with literary lights of the day such as Bysshe Shelley, Godwin, Lord Byron, and Mary Shelley herself, and penned in period-perfect prose, The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein is sure to become a classic of the twenty-first century.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateOct 6, 2009
    ISBN9780307702272
    Unavailable
    The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein: A Novel
    Author

    Peter Ackroyd

    Peter Ackroyd is an award-winning novelist, as well as a broadcaster, biographer, poet and historian. He is the author of the acclaimed non-fiction bestsellers, Thames: Sacred River and London: The Biography, as well as the History of England series. He holds a CBE for services to literature and lives in London.

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    Reviews for The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein

    3.5/5

    138 ratings23 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Peter Ackroyd has written the Frankenstein story from a new angle,but until the final lines it is not clear how different this angle is. Certainly I should have realized how this would end,but I have to admit it came as a complete surprise. The 'Monster' is much more believable than in the original story and just as horrific.As always,Ackroyd is brilliant and his book a true tour-de-force.
    • 4/5
      Ackroyd is a great writer, arguably England's finest, and this book is one of his most charming, weaving together his wealth of knowledge about London with plausible fabrications concerning the poet Shelley and his wife Mary, who invented the Frankenstein myth and mystery. His tale flows enticingly from page to mind, and is spellbinding. Even his concept of the science of the time is interesting; if only the laws of physics were so obliging!
    • 4/5
      I must admit that while Ackroyd is an awesome writer, I had my doubts about this book. He captures the voice of Mary Shelley (as the original Victor Frankenstein) brilliantly. At times, however, this book was historically inaccurate, nor true to the original Frankenstein. However, it wasn't different enough to merit being its own book. (I have the same problem with remakes of songs.) However, it is completely worth sticking through to the end, not just because of Ackroyd's prose but because of the new perspective he shines on the story. After finishing this book, I immediately wanted to read it again, as well as Shelley's original masterpiece.
    • 5/5
      Peter Ackroyd is as much a denizen of the 19th century as an individual living in the 21st century. I have greatly enjoyed Ackroyd's biographies of Blake and Turner. Ackroyd's bold re-imagining of Mary Shelley's groundbreaking novel is rich and rewarding for the reader. The best way to approach Ackroyd's "Casebook of Victor Frankenstein" is to let the words wash over you and lead you to new streams of thought and discovery. Highly recommended.
    • 3/5
      Frankenstein is one of my favorite books. I can't really say why I love it as much as I do, but I had to read and analyze it many, many times in the course of my English degree, and even in high school before that. After the second time, I was frustrated that it's such a go-to novel, but by the fourth time it was assigned, I realized that I truly enjoyed reading it and looked forward to seeing it on the syllabus.Another book that I like quite a bit is Peter Ackroyd's Chatterton, mostly because of the narrative structure and interplay of historical fact and fiction.It is unsurprising, therefore, that the title of this book caught my attention ("oh, no, this isn't one of those Pride and Prejudice and Zombies things, is it?" was my first reaction), or that upon recognition of the author's name that I decided it's a book that needed reading. I was hoping for more interesting narrative techniques and maybe some of the mingling of fact and fiction that Chatterton had.What I found in The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein was a narrative voice that echoed strongly of the one Mary Shelley used in the original novel - the language, especially, felt authentically 1810s/1820s to me, though I'm by no means an expert (but I can compare it to other historical fiction and fiction from that period and see which it better resembles). As a result, it was very easy to see Ackroyd's novel as an extension of Shelley's.There is also the mingling of fact and fiction - Frankenstein's characters and plot are superimposed over historical events, with the two telescoping and shifting to accommodate each other. For example, Frankenstein leaves Ingolstadt for Oxford so that he might fall in with Percy Bysshe Shelley's group, and events in Shelley's life are sped up or erased in order to match the patterns in Frankenstein. Too, the experiments Frankenstein performs in the original novel are placed in the context of scientific study from the period and shown in much greater detail than the almost fantastical things he does originally.Overall, I found The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein a satisfactory read. It held my attention to the very end and kept me reading to see how the next part of history or Frankenstein would work into the plot and play out. While it wasn't, ultimately, a very groundbreaking or completely original look Frankenstein, it was enjoyable.There are two things I want to note: first, that Ackroyd seems to have tidied up history to be a bit less troublesome and more pleasant with regards to relationship tangles. Former wives, children, unpleasant hangers-on are removed from the scene swiftly or else never appear, so that the ugly parts of the Shelleys' biographies needn't be bothered with. This does help with the telescoping mentioned earlier, so that history can match Frankenstein's plot, but it was something that caught my attention and provided me with some amusement. Secondly, this book has made it very clear to me that I need to read more about the history of London. Descriptions of neighborhoods (townships? boroughs?) were given, but I had no idea what they indicated, and many were without enough context to understand the implications without a trip to Google and Wikipedia. I'm given to understand that this is common with Ackroyd's books, but it made my reading take much longer than it might have, as I had to stop often to look something up, especially about distances from one place to another. This isn't really a negative comment about the novel, but rather a note about how much a role the setting plays.
    • 2/5
      I purchased this because I adore [Frankenstein], and this seemed like an interesting idea. However, I barely made it through the first few chapters. It just seemed a bit too fake for me. I understand it's an echo, a mimicry, but it felt too close to plagiarism. I might give it another go over the summer, when I have more time (and patience).
    • 4/5
      This is Peter Ackroyd's retelling of Shelley's classic in his own postmodern sort of way. Actually, in this novel, Victor Frankenstein is a real person. Included among his best friends is Percy Bysshe Shelley, and through him, Victor meets up with other Romantic-era superstars: Lord Byron, Byron's personal physician Dr. Polidori (writer of a small novella you may have heard of: The Vampyre), and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, the author of Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus) herself. Ackroyd has written this novel in the same period voice as that of Shelley, and like Shelley, his Frankenstein succeeds in the reanimation of a corpse who is conscious that he is dead and angry at his reanimator for not leaving him to his peaceful rest. Like Shelley's work, Frankstein's creation doggedly trails him. Yet, much is obviously going to be a bit different in Ackroyd's version, and these differences lead up to an ending that truthfully I didn't see coming, although it made total sense.Ackroyd's attempt at re-envisioning Shelley's classic interweaves his excellent descriptions of historical London with modern psychological insight into human nature to produce a rather chilling and haunting work. The same themes of Shelley's book apply here -- if you haven't read her novel, I'd start with that one and then try this one -- so in that particular sense, Ackroyd's book doesn't really come up with something new, but his writing is engaging and excellent, and will be well worth the time put into it. I can highly recommend this one, especially to people who've already read Mary Shelley's work, or to people who want an engaging and intelligent read.
    • 5/5
      Great book.Really sets up the time and atmosphere and has some interesting philosphical ideas behind the story.Interesting new angle on a classic of literature.
    • 4/5
      There was a lot that I liked about "The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein" but I wanted to like it even more. Ackroyd does a great job of creating a cast of interesting characters, not the least of which is the title character. He is a likable person and even when strange things start happening to him, you don't question his narration because it is so simple and straightforward. Of special delight is Victor's relationship with his servant Fred.But the ending was abrupt and a bit too confusing. After being invested in Victor for 330 pages, his story cuts off in 20 pages with an ending that (I think) was supposed to be fairly obvious but to me came out of left field and wasn't flushed out enough. Maybe this was worked out in the final version (I had an Early Reviewer's copy).Overall, a good idea that was made into an interesting read. For those who like historical fiction and a bit of mystery thrown in, this book is worthwhile.
    • 3/5
      After finishing this book, I'm still not sure what to make of it: it's either ingenious or a total mess. Ackroyd blends fact and fiction to come up with something new, something not quite historical fiction but not quite a fictional biography either. The premise is that, long before animating a creature, Victor Frankenstein attends Oxford University, where he meets the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Except for a short visit home to Geneva to see his sister (real sister, not, as in the novel, cousin-sister) Elizabeth, who is dying of consumption, and to attend her funeral and that of his father, the story is set in England. Frankenstein's experimentation and the final creation of life all take place in a deserted potter's barn near a Thames estuary. Shelley pops in and out, and the biographical facts surrounding his life blur into fictional events from Mary Shelley's novel. For example, the discovery of Harriet Shelley's body in the Serpentine mingles with young William's murder in Frankenstein. Here, her death is ruled not a suicide but murder: she has been strangled (like William) with a necklace (the supposed motive for William's murder) that is subsequently found in her brother's pocket (as the locket with Caroline's portrait is found in Justine's pocket, both she and Harriet's brother being framed). What to make of this? Revising and recording in his journal the "facts" of the fictional Victor's life is a clever strategy, but I found myself a bit irritated by the distortion of Percy Shelley's biography; a good historical fiction writer would not have gone this far. As a result, I found myself puzzling over diversions from Mary Shelley's novel as if it, too, was biography. Readers who are as familiar with Frankenstein as I am may find themselves lost in a strange book, somewhere between fact and fiction (but always, predominantly fiction). But perhaps this is what Ackroyd intended: to shake up our notions of reality and of genre.If nothing else, it's quite a ride.
    • 4/5
      If Shelly's Frankenstein is a story about the creation of the Monster, then Ackroyd's The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein could be the creation of the creator. I found this an interesting take on the idea of Frankenstein and his monster, and the ending was one of the very few endings that had me really considering the entire book as a whole. Not many books do that for me. I can't wait until I pick this up again and reread it in order to pick up on the smaller details that I'm sure I overlooked the first time around. An enjoyable read, especially for anyone who likes the original.
    • 3/5
      Peter Ackroyd's fan fic book "The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein: A Novel" for some reason did not strike my fancy. While this was an interesting take on the famous story, the writing was ambitious but dry. There were good parts of the story; well written and quick to read, but for the most part, in my opinion, the book fell flat. Ackroyd does his best to bring characters to life with a new angle in which characters are exposed to the plot, but it is a rather tough going. I do think that new eyes could counter my personal stance, but for this reader, the only Victor Frankenstein for me is Mary Shelley's.
    • 5/5
      What if Victor Frankenstein had left university at Ingolstadt and taken up residence at Oxford, where he met and befriended Percy Bysshe Shelley? Ackroyd moves the Frankenstein story mostly to England, where it settles in surprisingly well. There's a good deal of solid research (not surprising for Ackroyd) on the science of the era, particularly electricity and galvanism, and a couple of plot twists that I particularly enjoyed, one playing with an alternative but not uncommon interpretation of Mary Shelley's text and the other with the source of the creature's, er, raw material. This is clearly an "alternative history" as both fictional characters (Victor's family) and real ones (the Shelley circle) have altered backgrounds and relationships at times. The major disappointment for me was that the creature's narrative was a far less significant portion of the book than it is in the original. Because I read what I read and teach what I teach, this book delighted me from start to finish, though there's darkness and obsession in plenty.
    • 4/5
      The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein is a super novel and one which gets better and better as it goes on. Peter Ackroyd is well known as a contemporary authority on London, and few writers today or at any time previously have so single-mindedly memorialised this wonderful city: Ackroyd has written not just London's widely acclaimed Biography, a companion piece about the Thames: Sacred River that flows through it, and biographies of its more famous sons (William Blake and Geoffrey Chaucer) and some historical fiction largely set in the city.In this context it comes as no surprise that Peter Ackroyd's reworking of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is also set largely in the city, despite the original's setting in and around Geneva. On a broad scale Ackroyd's historical themes are unified: the galvanic force of electricity invigorates and brings life; in the same way the river flows through and animates the great metropolis. Life having been given, in each case does as it will, as dirty and degenerate as it is upstanding and honorable, and it is surely no coincidence that Ackroyd's creature makes his home in the wild reaches of the Thames estuary, and draws strength and wickedness in equal measure from its frequent immersion in the river, both at Limehouse and up river at Marlow.Ackroyd's historical rendering of early nineteenth century is (as far as I can tell!) flawless and as usual is exquisitely, intricately observed, and his adoption of the register of a novelist of the period is equally well rendered.The other interesting aspect of this novel is the depiction of the romantic poets and their entourage: "Bysshe" Shelley features from the outset as a struggling and somewhat neurotic gadfly; we meet Lord Byron somewhat later (a pompous, overbearing, spoilt fool) together with Mary Shelley herself (depicted far more sympathetically as the real artist amongst a bunch of dilettantes) and Byron's long-suffering physician/drug supplier, John Polidori. The interactions of these historical figures, with their own (fictional) creation Victor Frankenstein in their midst - together with, unannounced, *his* fictional creation (yet another sweet irony!) - drives the plot for the last half, across the continent to Villa Diodati for the famous night of Gothic ghost stories and then inevitably, like a moth to a light, back to the sacred Thames for the final denouement.It's a slow burner, but the more I reflected on a neat little tweak at the death, the more my admiration grew for Peter Ackroyd's achievement here. And the book's title is a neat little in-joke in itself.A modern - post-modern, even - Prometheus indeed.
    • 4/5
      An enjoyable, atmospheric and believable take on the Frankenstein story, in which Shelley, Byron and Mary Shelley appear as characters, alongside the eponymous Victor Frankenstein and his monstrous creation. Much of the action is set in Peter Ackroyd's beloved London. It held my interest throughout, and is well paced with a very satisfying ending.
    • 4/5
      much fun from a writer who digs deep historically
    • 3/5
      Loved this book so much a review will be coming. I need to go and discuss this book at the Sandwich in Group. Thank you brenda for finding such a cool book.
    • 3/5
      Through most of this book I was bored. It didn't really get interesting to me until about half way through. Nice twist at the ending though ...
    • 3/5
      This was rather slow to start for me. That may partially be because this has been a stressful week for me, but it finally picked up about 150 pages in.

      Ackroyd has a great style - I didn't feel so much like I was reading a neo-Victorian novel as I was the real thing at times. His settings and descriptions were wonderful, and the overall atmosphere of this was great.

      As far as story and plot go, however, I wasn't all that impressed by this one. It has an interesting take on the tale, with Frankenstein being a friend of the Shelleys rather than merely the subject of Mary's tale (which does make an appearance, by the way), but something in the execution was lacking for me. The "twist" was obvious to me well before I got to the end, so I was disappointed by that as well.

      I considered two stars, but it gets an extra one for style.
    • 4/5
      There is no joy without its attendant pain.

      Despite the above citation, this was more fun than exemplary. Ackroyd flips the Frankenstein myth with panache. The good doctor hangs out with Shelley and Byron. Science crackles, but only under the penumbra of abject poverty. Mayhew reaches Freud and together pierce Gothic expectations. There’s less a Miltonic fall than a fissure.
    • 3/5
      Victor Frankenstein, a young man from Switzerland, joins Oxford University, where he meets Percy Bysshe Shelley. The two become friends, although their interests only just coincide – Frankenstein wants to understand how life is created, and focuses his investigations on reanimating dead bodies using “the electrical fluid”, whereas Shelley’s investigations are more metaphysical. Even after Shelley is expelled, the two remain close – Frankenstein even moves to London to be near him. In order to further experiment, Frankenstein contacts some “resurrection men” and has them deliver cadavers to his laboratory in Limehouse. Most of his experiments are failures, but when he is handed the body of Jack Keat, a few short hours after he committed suicide (he was dying of consumption), Frankenstein successfully brings him back to life… And you just know the story going to end up at the Villa Diodati. Ackroyd takes a few liberties with Shelley’s life, and Byron comes across as a dickhead, but the whole adds up to an entertaining take on the Frankenstein story and the Romantic poets. The period detail is impressively handled, Frankenstein is a sympathetic narrator, and there are a number of neat touches to the scientific thought of the day which I found amusing. A good book.
    • 2/5
      Icame across this one while writing my MA thesis on "Frankenstein", so this one was a must-have for me.Quite huge disappointment though... The premise is interesting: a retelling of Frankenstein, yay!
      But while the idea is good, Ackroyd wastes it IMO. Maybe I'm not getting its point, but to me it seems just a mingling of facts and fictions out of the Frankenstein universe and its genesis.
    • 4/5
      Atmospheric, historically correct, well written are a few of the accolades that this book and it's author deserve.“ The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein “ by Peter Ackroyd is very good if not excellent book! The author is an accomplished writer and scholar of whom to this time I have not had the pleasure encountering before. The author skillfully combines and interweaves the lives of the characters of Mary Shelly's novel “Frankenstein” with those of party that stayed at a villa at Geneva where “Frankenstein' was first apparently conceived. The characters also interacted with other historic personages and institutions as they existed in England at that time.Overall a very good book indeed!