The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein [Paperback]

In this, Ackroyd's latest novel, Victor Frankenstein is a contemporary and companion of Percy Bysshe Shelley at Oxford before Shelley gets sent down for publishing an atheistic pamphlet. Frankenstein eventually cuts short his own studies and joins his friend in London. Here he attends lectures on the new science of electricity and as an amateur anatomist wonders if it can be used to reanimate corpses.

After inheriting money upon the death of his father, he makes the acquaintance of a group of resurrection men who provide him with the cadavers he needs for his experimentation. But he unwittingly unleashes a terrible beast into the world...

I thoroughly enjoyed this, as I have all of Ackroyd's fiction (and non-fiction) that I've read. Here he carefully interposes a fictional character created by another writer - i.e. Victor Frankenstein - into the lives of real historical (mostly literary) figures, and adds his own excellent fictional characters to the mix - Fred Shoebury, his mother etc. He's done this many times before of course, and this is one of his strengths.

The author has great fun with the major poets of the period. In addition to the fanciful and excitable Shelley, he also has cameos for Coleridge, Southey and Wordsworth, among others and there's lots of scholarly in-jokes (you won't believe the former identity of the monster he creates!) However, his greatest portrait is that of the fiercely intelligent and impulsive Lord Byron, who grows increasingly impossible and fiery as he's taken over by the demons that live within him.

And as Shelley's in here so is his wife Mary - the writer of the original `Frankenstein' novel. One scene is set in the chateau near Lake Geneva which saw the genesis of the original book.

This novel brilliantly evokes the sights, sounds and smells of pre-Victorian London. His descriptions of the stinking, muddy streets, the effluence of the Thames, the dark, low-ceilinged inns, the charnel houses. He's also clever at using place names that resonate with historical significance: Cheapside, Limehouse, St Pancras, Clerkenwell... Ackroyd is a master of the idioms of the time and there is not one single word of his narrative or dialogue that does not feel authentic.

I read the last few pages with my heart beating so fast I could hear it, but I don't know whether I was completely happy with the ending or not - which is why I've dropped a star. However, I am sure there will be many among its other readers who will think it brilliant.

Peter Ackroyd is a bona fide genius and we should treasure him.

I bought this on impulse as the free book in a "three for two offer" as I have always been fond of the original novel by Mary Shelley and was curious to see how a post-modern rendition of the tale would play out.

It is a fast-paced novel and, thankfully, a quick read. The story bounces along with a great deal of energy but the narrative has no real substance. The characterisation of the working class owes much to Dickens with their cheeky cockney wit and tendency to malapropisms. While this may have been acceptable in the Nineteenth Century, it seems a lazy trick to rely upon now. Shelley and Byron have some verisimilitude but ultimately read as caricatures than considered portraits. Victor himself is an engaging narrator but many of the scenes he recounts leave one with a sense that the author has failed to realise the vision that arose in his imagination and has merely sketched an outline. I was uncomfortable too by the diminishment of Mary Shelley's achievement by the implication that she was only capable of retelling a drama played out before her eyes rather than the creator of a complex and philosophical idea.

It is, however, the ending of the novel which really offends. Unlike another reviewer, I had early on wondered if I had guessed at the conclusion but discarded the idea as simplistic and obvious. Sadly, I was wrong and the 'twist' played out as I had predicted. As Andrew Motion noted in his review in The Guardian, it is akin to the 'it was all dream' cliché. Up until that point, I would have recommended this as an airport novel, to be read and discarded as ephemera. The conclusion enraged me to the extent that I cannot now even make that recommendation. Read the original instead. It is far more satisfying.

This is an intriguingly-imagined and compelling story, mixing the startling and often heart-breaking exploits of the fictional Victor Frankenstein with real-life characters of his era, including Shelley, Byron, and Frankenstein's original creator, Mary Shelley. The writing is exquisite, and if Mr Ackroyd let any modern expressions slip through the net, I didn't spot them (and I am a pedant about such things...) The atmosphere and imagery of early 19th century London is so vivid it's almost possible to smell the river and the cobbled streets and gaols, and to see the resurrectionists striking their repulsive bargains with the infirmaries. The story unfolds with the measured control of a master and is a wonderful journey. The ending is absolutely remarkable - as a professional writer I should have spotted what was coming, but I didn't!