Book Review: "The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein" by Peter Ackroyd

When it comes to books about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein that either incorporate the main themes or rework the story, there are several that stand out to me as being brilliantly written and those include things like “Frankenstein in Baghdad” and obviously, Peter Ackroyd’s brilliant thriller of “The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein”. When we look at Peter Ackroyd’s writing one of the books we see is the great, dark and terrifying novel “Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem” which is, in my opinion, one of his greatest achievements. About a killing spree done by the infamous ‘Limehouse Golem’ there is a lot of similarities in Peter Ackroyd’s writing style between that book and “The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein”. For example: both books employ a sense of punk violence. Someone is fighting a system of rules and so, the morality question gets underway - is this person in over their head or are they just trying to break the rigid rules of society by any means necessary? When does the reader decide that this has become far too much to handle? When does the character decide that they are going to be persecuted? Peter Ackroyd is the best person at asking these questions in extreme circumstances such as: arrest, isolation and situations in which the main character is running out of options.

“The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein” puts the author, Mary Shelley and her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley - as characters into the novel with Victor and in my own personal opinion, I would argue that this really does help to connect the author with their novel. Here is an idea for anyone studying “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley - read Peter Ackroyd’s novel. There is a ton of atmosphere that I would say that Peter Ackroyd borrows from Mary Shelley but then again, there is a ton of atmosphere that is created by Ackroyd. However, the writing style is almost perfect - he emulates the writing style of Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” amazingly even down to the fact that Victor Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s novel states: “I am by birth Genovese”. In Ackroyd’s novel, he emulates this by having Victor become angry at the suggestion that he is a Genovese citizen because he is only Genovese ‘by birth’. It is amazing the amount of detail that Peter Ackroyd pays attention to in this novel of his. He has proven that he has really studied Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein over and over again in order to create this character of Victor Frankenstein that has a slightly deeper dive, a slightly different perspective, and something definitely less sympathetic than the romantic ramblings of the heavens that Mary Shelley puts in him when he loses the Monster. Peter Ackroyd almost turns him into a self-fulfilling prophecy and a bit of an asshole. Where Mary Shelley tried her best to make us see Victor Frankenstein’s internal thoughts, Peter Ackroyd tries his best to make us compare his thoughts to his actions and I think that this new perspective on Frankenstein as a character is incredible.

Peter Ackroyd’s writing has always been generous when it comes to action vs. Inaction and what inaction could mean in terms of probably letting a lot of people die, but in this book especially, because of the source material, Peter Ackroyd covered a new perspective on the character that I argue has only been touched on academic works. Hardly ever do we directly compare Victor Frankenstein’s thoughts to his actions except for when Justine is on trial, but Peter Ackroyd’s novel does this constantly. We put the character under the microscope and work out that the mad scientist may have had intention after all.