Subject: THE LAST MAN by Mary Shelley

From: "Evelyn C Leeper" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 19:30:26 GMT

THE LAST MAN by Mary Shelley
                   A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
		    Copyright 1996 Evelyn C. Leeper

     While everyone else was re-issuing Mary Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN to
coincide with the release of Kenneth Branagh's MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN
(and indeed there was even Leonore Fleischer's MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN,
the novelization--think about it), Bantam published Shelley's other science
fiction novel, THE LAST MAN.  My suspicion is that not a lot of people ran
right out and picked it up.  First of all, it was in Bantam's "classics"
series, so if bookstores ordered it at all it was put in the "Fiction"
section, or the "Literature" section if they subdivide it further.  How do
they determine what is literature and what is "merely" fiction?  Then its
cover had a small reproduction of a painting of a pastoral English
countryside, rather than a hideous monster with stitches and bolts glaring
out at you.  Finally, a quick flip through would show that the specific
science fiction element--a world-wide plague--doesn't even appear until most
of the way through the book.  On the up side, if Mary Shelley is checking
her sales from the astral plane, her books are quite popular in women's
studies courses, so there is a market.

     The book starts in 2073.  We know this because Shelley -- in the voice
of the narrator -- tells us this.  Otherwise we would have no idea, because
the world that Shelley describes is that of 1823 when she was writing it.
Oh, there are a few changes.  People travel in airships -- the Montgolfiers
had already flown their balloons by 1823.  And someone goes as ambassador to
the "Northern States of America" (page 254).  Mark claims this last is
pretty impressive in predicting the Civil War, but I suspect people could
see it coming even then.  But the social structure of England is as it was
in 1823, with power held by the monarch rather than by Parliament and
elected officials.  And people still get around on horses.  And while having
a war in the Balkans may sound very 21st Century these days, the war Shelley
describes is the same war that Byron fought in, with the noble Greeks trying
to gain their independence from the evil Turks.  The war is fought in the
same way, with the families of the officers following the troops to Greece
and then staying at nearby villages while the troops marched off to formal
battles.

     Much of the first two-thirds of the novel is a study of the social
structure and attitudes of Shelley's own time, and works only if one reads
it as a historical novel set in Shelley's time rather than a novel set in
our future.  But when the plague arrives, the novel becomes as convincing as
a futuristic tale as such other "disaster" novels as EARTH ABIDES and ON THE
BEACH.  The style is still that of the early nineteenth century, of course,
but the images of death and the decline of civilization are as vivid and
enthralling as in any modern novel.

     Is THE LAST MAN as good as FRANKENSTEIN?  In the sense that the latter
has been continuously in print in inexpensive editions for as long as I can
remember -- and quite possibly for over a hundred years before that -- and
has had an inestimable effect on science fiction and horror, while the
former has been almost inaccessible for much of that time and has had no
identifiable effect, the answer has to be no.  But if read without
considering the context of subsequent authors, and considering the books as
mainstream fiction rather than science fiction per se, THE LAST MAN is
certainly a more polished, more considered, and more mature work than
FRANKENSTEIN, and well worth the reading.  I have to wonder what Shelley's
other novels (VALPERGA, LODORE, and FALKNER) are like, but since they are
not science fiction, they are probably totally unavailable.

%T      The Last Man
%A      Mary Shelley
%C      New York
%D      1826
%I      Bantam Classic
%O      paperback, US$5.50 [1994]
%G      ISBN 0-553-21436-5
%P      499pp

Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | [email-masked]
"There isn't a limited amount of love in Iowa.  It isn't a non-renewable
resource.  If Amy and Barbara or Mike or Steve love each other, it
doesn't mean that John and Mary can't."  -Rep. Ed Fallon, Iowa