★★★★★ 5
Dude, it's not just a horror novel
Format: Paperback
This is to the previous reviewer (C. Scanlan). If this is just a horror novel, it failed miserably. It is not exactly a blood ’n gore thriller. Compared to Stephen King, it is pretty tame.
What puts the horror in this book is that it is social commentary. Mary Shelly is not just trying to scare us. It is more than just a “Friday the 13th” movie. Mary Shelly is delivering a message. It seems that everyone understands this except this reviewer. There have been several different interpretations of the novel (see [...] for 10 different meanings of the novel). ICE takes the interpretation that Shelly is saying science can go too far. This is a perfectly valid interpretation. One can disagree with this interpretation but let’s not resort to name calling and personal attacks – that those who hold such an interpretation are doing a “low level attempt to cash in on home schooling Christian paranoia and fear of health care” or believe that “AIDS [is] the fruit of sin”. My wife and I are Catholic parents and we sent our children to public schools
He mocks the idea of a secular fundamentalist but then demonstrates what that is. A religious fundamentalist sees anyone who disagrees with him as being of the devil. A secular fundamentalist sees anyone who disagrees with him as guilty of “brainwashing” others. In both cases, true dialogue is impossible.
Another thing that a fundamentalist does is that he sees things in opposite extremes. If you are warning of the dangers of trusting too much in science then you must be against science. There is no middle ground for the fundamentalist. If you see that science can sometimes go too far then that means you are against health care. But this is a non-sequitur.
Nielson writes “Frankenstein’s placing of the creation of life within the scientific method first destroys the unrepeatability and systematically eliminates the other elements [of hope, love, beauty, creativity and sacrifice]”. Nielson is not criticizing the scientific method in total. He is only criticizing it in the creation of life. The reviewer writes “He thereby easily and explicitly condemns the whole process and philosophy of the scientific method”. But Nielson is not condemning the whole process of the scientific method. He is only condemning it in the creation of life.
The reviewer then mocks the credentials of the critics in the book - “So who are these essayists superior to Norton's and Oxfords and free of deconstructionist feminist secular fundamentalism, experts so august Ignatius should want them mentioned on their product page yet are nowhere to be seen?” But this game can be played both ways. What are the credentials of this reviewer? Is this reviewer so august as to challenge these essayists? Again, this is merely an ad-hominem attack. I really do not care who has the best credentials. What matters is who makes sense. Sometimes intellectuals can make the dumbest claims. Read Paul Johnson’s book, “Intellectuals” (http://www.amazon.com/Intellectuals-Marx-Tolstoy-Sartre-Chomsky/dp/0061253170/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421862888&sr=8-1&keywords=intellectuals). He compares the essayists unfavorably to “good solid Roman Catholic moral theology” from the likes of Richard A. McCormick S.J., who “is the renowned leader of Roman Catholic Moral Theology in the field of bioethics in the USA.” He overlooks the fact that A. McCormick S.J. has dissented from teachings of the Popes Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI over contraception. The “renowned leader” in the Catholic Church in morality is first and foremost the pope. Since Richard A. McCormick has contradicted the popes, he cannot be a good solid Catholic theologian.
Mary Shelly lived right after the Enlightenment – man is the measure of all things. She lived at a time when people believed that science will solve all our problems. This is called scientism. ICE contends that Shelly is saying that we may be expecting too much from science. It does not mean that Shelly was saying that we should reject science. And it does not mean that Shelly believes that we should go back to the Catholic faith. In fact, ICE acknowledges that Shelly was an anti-Catholic. But the Church believes that the kernel of truth can be found in others, even in anti-Catholics. This is part of the Catholic tradition. St Augustine learned from Plato and St Aquinas learned from Aristotle. ICE would take that kernel of truth and expound that with the fullness of the Catholic faith.
You may disagree with the Catholic faith, or with ICE looking at Shelly’s book from a Catholic perspective. But this is at least as a legitimate an interpretation as any other. In fact, this interpretation seems closer to the truth than the others. This interpretation is the traditional interpretation, which means that it goes back further to Shelly’s time than the modern interpretations, and is therefore less likely to be in error.
BTW, the reviewer wrote that “Opus Dei right wing publishing (or reprint) house is selling this novel is to milk the home school market and to support its own bizarre bio-ethical ideology”. This is factually wrong. The company that publishes Opus Dei’s books is Sceptre. But the publisher of ICE is Ignatius Press.
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Reviewed in the United States on January 22, 2015
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