ON a dreary, wet November night, like several recently, with "vast mists rising from the rivers and curling in wreaths around the opposite mountains whose summits were hid in uniform clouds", Baron Victor Frankenstein infused the spark of life into his newly assembled monstrous being. In the original book, published in 1818, Mary Shelley does not tell us exactly how this was accomplished but in all film versions of the story the creature is made viable by energy extracted from a lightning stroke.
Now when you come to think about it, this cinematic extrapolation is not inconsistent with many of the theories currently in vogue about the origins of life on Earth. It is also meteorologically consistent with the type of weather portrayed in the novel that eventful night. And thirdly, it fits in admirably with the protagonist's known boyhood interest in meteorology, and in thunderstorms in particular.
During a family holiday, the young Frankenstein experienced "a most violent and terrible thunderstorm. It advanced from behind the Jura mountains, and the thunder burst at once with frightful loudness from the various quarters of the heavens. I remained as long as the storm lasted, and suddenly I beheld a stream of fire issue from an old and beautiful oak. As soon as the dazzling light had vanished, the oak had disappeared and nothing remained of it but a blasted stump."
His interest aroused by the power of this electrical display, the young idealist goes on to conduct experiments on the nature of electricity, and has several other hair raising experiences in the process many of them probably in a literal sense. On one occasion, for example, standing by the Lake of Geneva, "the thunder burst with a terrific crash over my head. Vivid flashes of lightning dazzled my eyes, illuminating the lake, making it appear like a vast sheet of fire." It is not unreasonable on the evidence, to assume that this was the energy the baron harnessed to power his new creation.
If you have a mind to do so, you can view the two classic cinema interpretations of this story tomorrow evening, Saturday, at the Irish Film Centre, Temple Bar.
Consecutive showings of both the 1931 Boris Karloff version, Frankenstein, and Kenneth Branagh's 1994 production Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, begin at 6 pm, organised by science culture in association with the IFC to coincide with the European Week of Science and Culture. The scientific plausiability of both films will be analysed by geneticist Prof Paddy Cunningham of TCD and the £15 subscription, I am told, includes refreshments.