Mutability

Though I may not have mentioned it here, I have still been trying to keep up with my reading habit. I finished one book I picked up at a thrift store, and it promptly went into my bag of items to deliver to a thrift store. It wasn't really bad, but it's nothing I will ever want to read again or recommend to anyone or offer a rave review. I suppose I could have tossed it aside when I realized it wasn't going to be as enjoyable as the book jacket implied, but I wasn't going to let it make a quitter out of me!

I figured it was time to look for a "seasonal" selection (much like when I started Dracula last Halloween, and finished it in January). I was about to pick a few from a thick collection of ghost stories when I remembered that I have a copy of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Like Dracula, I read it as part of what may have been my favorite college class...and haven't touched it since (except when rearranging the bookshelves). 

It didn't really surprise me that I didn't remember most of the actual story. I knew, of course, that the classic Boris Karloff film was only loosely based on the book but I'd forgotten just how loosely. It really was a fascinating story. I'd made just a few notes in the margins, so there was no risk of me missing the "important" points. It really is so much more than mad scientist, hulking brute, and angry villagers.

At one point in the tale, Victor tries to escape some of his misery by traveling through the mountains. (Yeah, like that's going to fix anything.) I'd underlined a line or two:

Alas! why does man boast of sensibilities superior to those apparent in the brute; it only renders them more necessary beings. If our impulses were confined to hunger, thirst, and desire, we might be nearly free; but now we are moved by every wind that blows, and a chance word or scene that that word may convey to us.

"We rest; a dream has power to poison sleep. We rise; one wandering thought pollutes the day. We feel, conceive, or reason; laugh or weep, Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away; It is the same: for, be it joy or sorrow, The path of its departure still is free. Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow. Nought may endure but mutability!"

Humans truly are more complicated than just basic instincts!

What really caught my attention, though, was the poem. I checked the footnotes and learned that it's part of the Percy Bysshe Shelley poem "Mutability." (Gee, I wonder how the author became familiar with that poet.) 

There are days we may feel like we're stuck in a rut. Same old, same old. Day after day of the usual stuff. But really, each day is filled with all sorts of wibbley-wobbley things! We may be weeping today and laughing tomorrow. It's said that that the only things certain are death and taxes. While it's true we can rely on them as being inevitable, I would add that the other "constant" in life is change. Seems like a paradox, doesn't it? The more things seem to stay the same, the more they're actually changing. And the "change" is what's really staying the same. (Kind of makes my head hurt to think about it.)

I don't see that as a bad thing. We think, we feel, and we change. It is part of our humanity. If I were writing an essay for a class, I might point out that the "monster" seemed to feel his share of joy and sorrow (as well as anger), so perhaps he was more "human" than he appeared. (But I'm not writing an essay, so I won't try to dig any deeper into that.)

I find myself surprised to have taken away something more than the usual simple pleasure of reading a good book. I think I'll stick with it and see what else I might discover when I least expect it. 

Actually, I did just finish Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (another one from that awesome "Varieties of the Gothic" literature class). That was a lot better than I remembered, too. Time to pick the next book. Since my last choice was from my own shelf, perhaps I should change and get the next one from the library.

Mutability

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;

    How restlessly they speed and gleam and quiver,

Streaking the darkness radiantly! yet soon

Night closes round, and they are lost for ever:—

                                      

Or like forgotten lyres whose dissonant strings

    Give various response to each varying blast,

To whose frail frame no second motion brings

    One mood or modulation like the last.

                                    

We rest—a dream  has power to poison sleep;

    We rise—one wandering thought pollutes the day;

We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep,

Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:—

                                      

It is the same!—For, be it joy or sorrow,

    The path of its departure still is free;

Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;

    Nought may endure but Mutability.