Frankissstein

Victor brings Ry to another underground room in Manchester, this one full of animals. Victor says he gets the animals from a farmer friend, and Ry asks if Victor has sex with the farmer as well. In another room, Victor has two robots named Cain and Abel that are mapping a brain. Victor continues to talk about his quest to eliminate death, and Ry expresses disgust at cryogenics, preferring Victor’s idea of uploading the brain’s contents. Victor agrees, showing Ry some preserved brains he is using in experiments. Victor asks Ry to acquire a specific brain from Alcor.

The narrative returns to Bedlam, 1818. Wakefield reads Frankenstein’s journal while Frankenstein sleeps. Wakefield thinks Frankenstein is mentally ill, and his journal reflects his experiments with dead bodies. Frankenstein hoped to make new life, and Wakefield rejects the possibility of reanimating a corpse. Wakefield says he believes Jesus resurrected Lazarus, but he notes that no one has resurrected a dead body since then. Wakefield sees a picture of Frankenstein’s wife, Elizabeth, and he assumes she is dead. Frankenstein wakes up, and he tells Wakefield he is not sure if he is the story or the teller.

After the chapter is a quote from earlier in the novel: “Only in the living of it does life seem ordinary. In the telling of it we find ourselves strangers among the strange” (195).

Victor praises Ry’s large hands, and Ry says that he could be King Kong, which would make Victor Fay Wray, the actress who played King Kong’s love interest Ann Darrow in the 1933 film. Victor explains that he came to the United States to study with I.J. Good, or Jack Good, a codebreaker and statistician who worked with Alan Turing. Good left England because of the way the British treated Turing, who was gay. He was born Jacob Gudak but changed his name to escape the discrimination that came with his Jewish identity. Ry notes that Victor is also Jewish, but Victor says he wants to move humanity past that kind of identity. Good called AI the “last invention,” since an ultra-intelligent machine would always invent better machines than humanity ever could. When Victor met Ry in Arizona, he was visiting Good, and Good’s head was cryogenically preserved at Alcor in 2009. Victor wants Ry to retrieve Good’s head so Victor can scan his brain. Ry is fundamentally opposed to performing experiments on humans, but Victor convinces Ry that he is not using Ry for his own benefit. Ry goes with Victor back to Victor’s home, and he finds that Victor is reading a biography of Robert Oppenheimer, who worked to create the atomic bomb. Ry sees that Victor’s ring is an ouroboros, a snake eating itself. They have sex and fall asleep.

The chapter ends with a quote from Mary Wollstonecraft, in which she says she is destined to tread her own path, pushed forward by her nature.

The narrative returns to Bedlam 1818. Wakefield brings Mary to meet Victor Frankenstein. Frankenstein tells Mary that she created him and his monster, who are one in the same. Wakefield calls Frankenstein mad, but Mary asks how Frankenstein could be made from the words in her book. Frankenstein does not know, but he wishes to be unmade, warning that his monster will wreak havoc on humanity. Wakefield asks if Mary wrote Frankenstein, as Sir Walter Scott assumes Percy wrote it. Mary confirms that she wrote it, and Frankenstein claims to see the monster in the yard. Neither Mary nor Wakefield can see the monster.

After the chapter is a quote from Mary Shelley, saying that what terrifies her will terrify others.

Ry and Ron meet Max More, the CEO of Alcor. Max leads Ron and Ry through the facility, answering Ron’s questions about cryogenics. Ron is disturbed by the idea of being frozen after death, and he wonders how people will choose who to reanimate. Seeing an opening for a partnership, Ron suggests selling sexbots to people who intend to be cryogenically preserved, so they have a companion to wake up to. Max considers Ron’s offer but does not commit. Claire, the event manager from the Tec-X-Po, arrives and greets Ry warmly. Claire says she took a job as Max’s assistant at Alcor, and she agrees to go out for a drink with Ry and Ron.

Ry, Ron, and Claire go to the same diner Ry and Victor went to, and the waitress greets Ry, offering to get him the same bourbon and grilled cheese he had with Victor. Claire explains that she took the job at Alcor, despite her discomfort with robots and science, because she wants to investigate reincarnation. If people are cryogenically preserved, she wonders where their souls go, and she hopes they can affirm her beliefs when they are reanimated. Ron tells Claire about his sexbots, and she is disgusted. However, Ron quotes the Bible and convinces Claire to hear his story.

When Ron got divorced, he moved in with his mother and bought a sexbot. After investing in cryptocurrency, Ron went on a trip to Thailand and had sex with sex workers. During a storm, Ron had an epiphany about solving men’s loneliness. Claire is moved by Ron’s story, and she suggests making a Christian Companion bot, which could comfort people without the necessity of lust. Ron reveals that Ry is transgender, which upsets Claire. Claire and Ron go to dance, and Ry goes to the bathroom. A drunk man gets angry with Ry for peeing in a stall, and, when he gropes Ry, he discovers that Ry does not have a penis. The man attempts to sexually assault Ry in the stall, but he cannot maintain an erection. Ry pushes him away and runs outside. Ry cries and wonders why sexual assault is part of his experience as a trans man.

The chapter ends with the repeated quote from Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 53”: “What is your substance, whereof are you made?” (245).

Between 1818 and 1819, Mary and Percy travel in Italy with their children, Clara and William. Mary laments going with Percy, as Clara dies in travel. They debate moving elsewhere, but William loves Italy. However, William dies of illness, and Mary stays in the bed where he died. Mary feels broken by the loss of her three children and wonders what death is. She thinks about being a mind without a body, and she wonders if William would still be alive if he did not have a body. Percy tries to cheer her up. He tells her about a mass protest by working-class people in Manchester, opposing the Corn Laws, which forbade the import of cheaper food from other countries. The laws have made food unaffordable for the poor, while rich landowners charge exorbitant rates for food. Mary is intrigued, sitting up in bed to discuss the issues with Percy. She craves cheese, as she does in all her pregnancies. Percy suggests returning to England, but Mary is reluctant to travel while pregnant. Percy writes a poem, The Masque of Anarchy, noting that a review from England labelled him as an anti-establishment writer. Mary knows her mother would go to Manchester to join in the protest, which is reportedly peaceful. Percy includes Mary’s thoughts about supporting the many instead of the few in his poem.

The chapter ends with a quote from Emily Dickinson: “The brain—is wider than the Sky—” (259).