The Last Man

Mary Shelley

Review by Kris Vyas-Myall

The “other book” from Mary Shelley seems to get as much flack from SF critics as Frankenstein gets love. Having now finished the book, I wanted to dispel some of the myths I had heard about it:

1. It does not make any effort to predict the future.

The book includes regular balloon services over the Atlantic, we have humans called “automata of the flesh” (implying the presence of similar automata of metal), and we are told:

“the discoveries of science had augmented in a ratio which left all calculation behind; food sprung up, so to say, spontaneously—machines existed to supply with facility every want of the population.”

There also plenty of political predictions too, with England as a republic, the separation of America into Northern and Southern States, and an independent Greece retaking Constantinople.

There are two things I think people are actually referring to. Firstly, it is not as obsessed with the gadgetry of the future as other works are (if you want one of the same period with such description, try Jane Loudon’s The Mummy) but that is not the point of the novel. It does not matter to Shelley’s destruction of humanity if houses are lighted by candles, gas or electricity.

The second part is that it still represents a predominantly agrarian society and focuses the political conflict between aristocrats and republicans.  I find this an even harder objection to swallow, even England would not reach 50% urbanisation for another two decades, and this was still 20 years before the publication of the Communist Manifesto. Two hundred years before this was published was the creation of the first English Republic in a largely agrarian landscape. Having this still be the case at the end of the 20^th Century is not the beyond what many would have thought.

2. It is too long.

With the recent Penguin Classic edition being ~500 pages long, it would seem on the longer side to many mid-century critics but it is shorter than Dune and has nothing on the sprawling fantasy works we see today.

I think what people may be referring to is the florid style and glacial pace as the world is destroyed. But I believe that is a feature, not a bug. Having lived through our own pandemic now, we know what it is like to experience dullness along side the creeping dread of the illness. Here we see it move from being a foreign problem, to an urban problem, to one in nearby villages, to the simple fact of life that corpses pile up everywhere. This can only be done (to my mind anyway) through careful exploration and vivid description.  

3. It is dull.

This, I believe, is a product of our modern expectations. We have seen so many Hollywood interpretations of a pandemic, with entire towns dying in minutes and secret bases of scientists working on a cure. These characters are not Victor Frankenstein, there is nothing they can do about the disease themselves, whether they are immune or not is a case of luck. As is noted:

“individuals may escape ninety-nine times, and receive the death-blow at the hundredth”

This is instead a tale of people trying to cope in this world and accept that there is nothing that can be done. It is therefore not an easy tale, but a rewarding one.

4. It no longer has any relevance.

I feel this has gone by the wayside somewhat in the last few years, but I still want to touch on it. Apart from the obvious similarities we see within our own pandemic, just because the people here are from another time, does not mean there is not much we can learn from them, any more than we would dismiss the contents of A Christmas Carol or Pride and Prejudice.

In many ways that are glaringly obvious (to me at least) the work is clearly semi-autobiographical, looking at her relationships and the loss of both her husband and Lord Byron. The nature of loneliness, grief but also acceptance, are important ideas we can all draw from today.

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