Monsters at the Margin

VIRTUE IS FOUND at the margins of society more often than at its centre. If this is so, Mary Shelley's Monster is a real find! Her creature is an isolate of great sensitivity, kindness, and insight. Contrary to James Whale's 1931 film of the Creature as a lumbering dolt, Mary Shelley's Monster was modeled on Rousseau's notion of humanity as the "noble savage." The nobility of the Creature is evident as he unveils his chronicle to Victor Frankenstein upon the icy crags of Mount Blanc. Meet Frankenstein's Creature

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Time and Time

WHEN I IMAGINE my life stretched out in a line from the moment of birth to “closing time” at death, events appear episodic and disconnected. Some experiences overlap, even crash into one another but all occurrences are moving in a uniform direction from the present into the future. Life on the flatline forward has the tone of a child telling a story who punctuates it with "and then... and then... and then...." This straightforward style of living doesn't tell much about where we are at this particular moment as compared to all the rest. A flatliner calendar has the required

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A Reading Guide For After The Flood

Lovers of books often complain that we read too slowly and wonder if we will ever take the time and effort to master the The Art of Speed Reading. My difficulty is that sometimes, strike that - often, that I need to acquire the Art of Reading Slowly to integrate what I read. I don't do that nearly enough. My habitual approach is to read a book with my mind and my hand outstretched to the read. I read distractedly often merely to get the basic gist, get through to book, and then add another book to my growing list

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Dante's Recovery

HAVE YOU EVER been so swallowed up in something unfair happening to you that you couldn't find your way out of it? The Italian poet Dante Alighieri found himself the victim of vicious politics in 13th century Florence. Eventually he would write an epic poem about it—The Divine Comedy. Here is an imagined journey on what might have been on Dante's mind as he wrote his poem. One after another they rose to expose me. Libel and barbs of betrayal dripped from their venomous lips. The president's gavel scarred his lectern as he called out, "Order!"

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The Value of Fright

I imagine that I live in a shadowy theatre where an unbelievably frightening scene is about to overwhelm me. I have the choice of putting my hands in front of my eyes or looking directly into the gruesome screen. "If it scares you so much, why look?" you might ask. I look because there are eye-opening benefits in being horrified. To confront horror enables me not only to test my courage but to check my discernment, that is, my ability to see through things. What is it that I am really afraid of? Is it the scarred monster conjured

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Who Was Mary Shelley?

GIVEN HER FAMILY legacy, it seemed inevitable that Mary Shelley was to make a significant contribution to . Both her parents were influential authors and propagandists for their respective causes of feminism and radical liberalism. Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, was a leader in the early feminist movement and wrote a classic entitled A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792), still read in women's studies classes today. Mary's father, William Godwin, published a political treatise entitled Enquiry Concerning Political Justice in 1793. His goal was to translate the insights of the French Enlightenment into an English context. Mary

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