Frankissstein by Jeanette Winterson 2019
Use This Book: The Only Book You'll Ever Need! by Melissa Hecksher 2006
Adult Doodle Book
Very Hungry Caterpillar Coloring Book by Eric Carl 2003
Weight: 3.5 lbs
Method of Disposal: Sterilizing/Sending to a friend
I have a compulsive need to read everything that Jeanette Winterson publishes and have ever since I was 16 years old, working at Waldenbooks, and my coworker/dear friend introduced me to Written on the Body. When I saw it was called Frankissstein in bright pink lettering with a triple x on the cover I did get concerned about if I would enjoy it, but even that title could not put me off reading it.
In true Winterson form, she was fluid about time and gender. Her characters were extreme representations and the writing would sometimes get extra lyrical. I ended up enjoying this book much more than I thought I would, and it made me want to revisit the original Frankenstein and read up on Mary Shelly and her crew. I felt that if I could remember more it might mean more, but I suppose it is possible that it might also take away. I appreciated frankenstein's many reincarnations.
I was surprised by some reviewers outrage at Winterson for the book being transphobic. I am not transgendered, unfortunately, and cannot say that this book should not or could not be offensive to someone else. I am just reading more and grappling with it. I am about to do that here so please feel free to stop reading if you need to.
The number one reason I saw for it was that being transgendered was represented as a choice the trans character made. One person was emphatic that it was no more a choice than being a lesbian woman is a choice. I have always wondered about the choice argument though. Why should I not choose to be a lesbian? Why would I not choose to do so? Isn't it a heightened form of freedom if I could live in a society that allowed me to CHOOSE my sexuality? Now, that being said, I do not feel like I ever did choose it. As young as I can remember (and my mother too, for that point), I have been fascinated with women and have never felt drawn to a boy or a man. I do think many people are "born that way," and I am one of them. Other women I have dated, though, have fallen on a spectrum of sexuality, and the woman I have loved for the last 7 years only recounts being attracted to boys/men, but she was attracted to me and fell in love with me. If there is more than one fish in the sea and if "the one" is not just one person then did she not sort of make a choice? And is that not ok? Many people are born trans and maybe some "would not choose it." If given the choice nowadays, where I live, I would absolutely choose to be queer and not heterosexual.
Given that Winterson seems drawn to the middle, the grey, the ever-changing area no matter what her subject area is, makes me feel this was not an offensive representation of someone choosing their gender. The trans character also describes feeling both masculine and feminine all their life and making different choices at different times given both those gender identities where embodied within them in different capacities. Winterson writes, "I'm a woman. And I'm a man. That's how it is for me. I am in a body that I prefer. But the past, my past, is not subject to surgery. I didn't do it to distance myself from myself. I did it to get nearer to myself." Now, other characters do react in a transphobic way to them. That happens and is representative of the transphobia we see in life.
I also read that the transgender character was overly sexualized, but the transgender character did not come across to me that way. The most hyper-sexualized and potentially offensive character was Ron, the heterosexual male. There was a lot of graphic description about sex bots, but sex bots are real and often advertised much like they were in the book. It may be because I am hyper-sexualized myself, but I just did not see that. There were some seriously grotesque and unappealing descriptions, but they were not geared towards being transgendered.
The sexual assault came out of nowhere, and I was not sure it really added to the book except that it is something that happens and the character it happens to fights there way out with a lot of luck, strength, and fight or flight mode kicking in. If we are supposed to be making a comparison between humans, monsters, robots, time travellers. emotionally wounded and patched up people then the assault does show that the character is not a monster, nor a robot. In my life, sexual assault has felt jarring and contrary to my experience, and I am jarred by depictions of it regularly. I am okay with that. I do not want it to ever feel normal or ordinary.
What did pull me really far out of the book was one word that I believe was maybe used twice to describe the character, Claire. She was a "black" woman. The only character given a racial identity, and I could not find the reason. I do not think we have to ignore race, but it is problematic to only identify one person and no one else. Does that mean I just assume everyone else is....white? Why?
The things that really drew me in were the fluidity of time and humanity repeating and existing in a multitude of forms and environments. The past foreshadowing the present and the future. The present fight to know the future. Broken people being a patchwork piece--regular Frakenstein's monsters. The obsession with mortality taking away life. What is it that scares us about Artificial Intelligence and what should scare us? What does it say about who we are when we say what we really, honestly want about our robots, our relationships with others, our monsters?
I guess there is a lot to think about and unpack here, and I do enjoy thinking and unpacking.
