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Editorial Review Product Description
Set in an apocalyptic future ending in the year 2100, Shelley's 1826 novel concerns a plague that destroys almost all of humankind.
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The Last Man - A Futuristic Apocalyptic Vision
Many readers of Frankenstein are not aware that Mary Shelley wrote other novels. The Last Man is the first novel written about an apocalyptic future. In The Last Man, which takes place is the year 2073, everyone has died of a plague, resulting from a deadly gas released during a war, expect for one man, who is the narrator of the story.
The plague first strikes in Africa and other countries other than England, where most of the novel takes place and the main characters live. The people of England believe they are immune and develop a fear of foreigners and outsiders; anyone who is different. This theme resonates today in the age of AIDS, a disease that has the potential to kill many people. AIDS, similar to the plague in the novel, affects certain group more than others, and creates fear and hatred of different cultural and racial groups. In writing this novel, it seems as if Mary Shelley had a prophetic vision of what may hold true for the future of humanity.
Tedious
This work by Frankenstein's author was accepted poorly when it first came out (1826), then remained out of print for over 130 years. I certainly see why that is, and feel that another few decades would have been to the good.
Despite its alleged topic, this actually presents a study in class consciousness from the dawn of the Victorian era. It spends the first half-hundred pages establishing the bona fides of the indigent protagonist. We very nearly approach p.130 before the word "plague" even appears, but spend all that time working out an elaborate and interlocked set of romantic interests. About mid-point in this book the pestilence makes a real appearance - except that we remain in the dark about its symptoms until seemingly healthy people drop from it at dramaturgically convenient moments, for no apparent reason.
That's when the alleged hero (a commoner) punts and genuine royalty shows its colors: an ineffectual blueblood, once declared insane by his own family, takes the reins and presides over humanity's implosion - against which, of course, the inherently noble Britons are the last to be affected, since something as low-class as a mere pathogen would necessarily infect lesser breeds of humanity first. In the end, the genetically royal leader dies of much more heroic causes than a plebian case of the whatevers, since that wouldn't be dignified enough.
If you want a classic study in class weirdness, this might be as good as it gets. The science fiction aspects falter, though, since Shelley couldn't imagine a twenty-first century without horse travel and long-hand communication technology. Then, I was baffled by her alternation between legible prose and spasms of flowery language that very nearly sank under the weight of their adjectives. I actually dragged myself to the last page of this woofer. On the whole, I found the effort quite free of literary reward.
-- wiredweird
I so disagree with all of you
I guess I can understand how a rare few might like this book, but all these reviews are glowing.I loved Frankenstein.Shelley's over-the-top romantic style meshed well with the weight of her subject matter and the driving force of her narrative. She told that story efficiently.The Last Man is completely different.It's way too long.The prelude to the beginning of the plague takes up more than half the book. Though it takes place hundreds of years ahead of Shelley's time there is no speculation (other than the abdication of the British throne) about future societies, culture, or technology. The plague itself is poorly described and there are no attempts to explain why suddenly there is plague which is 99.99999999% fatal. Even in Shelley's time, a century before germ theory was beginning to be understood, public health and sanitation were advanced enough so pandemics were not nearly as bad as they had been just 400 to 500 hundred years previous, when the black death wiped out half of Europe.
On top of this Shelley's writing is flowery, excessive and romanticised to the point of ridiculousness.She manages somehow to be melodramatic and excruciatingly boring at the same time.
Verney's complete isolation at end of the book lasted for about 15 pages. This was the closest thing in the book to interesting. The fascination in the post-apocalyptic is the idea of the experience of the lone survivor or small group remaining alive, concept presented beautifully in books such as I am Legend, Earth Abides, On the Beach, and, of course, The Road.
Mary Shelley deserves credit for writing one of the first or perhaps even inventing the post-apocalyptic novel, which is not simply version of the Biblical Revelations.This book may have been terrifying in it's day, but now it pales in comparison to the many other volumes in it's genre.
Mary Shelley
The Last Man by Mary Shelley
If you are a fan of Mary Shelley, then you will definetely enjoy this novel. Awesome ebook!
A Visionary Work
I recall seeing a "Twilight Zone" episode close to fifty years ago, about a man who really wanted to be alone. He got his wish when a nuclear war wiped out everyone else. He was quite happy at this state of affairs, migrating to the New York library to spend the rest of his life reading all the books. Unfortunately, he tripped on the steps and broke his thick reading glasses. So much for solitary bliss.
Being the last man on earth is once again a hot topic, with two recent movies addressing the issue. I Am Legend is set to enter theatres on Dec. 14, and as of Late November of 2007, a movie based upon The Last Man is in Post Production. The movie updates the setting of The Last Man to take into consideration the technology advances of the past two centuries plus the seventy-odd years that will take place before the novel's action begins. Looking at the trailer, however, it appears that technological accuracy is the only improvement made to Ms. Shelley's novel. For those interested, information on the movie can be viewed at their website.
Reading Mary Shelley's The Last Man will, if nothing else, send you running to your history books to find out, among other things, when Napoleon waged his wars for world domination (the battle of Waterloo took place in 1815-eleven years before The Last Man was published), when English Monarchs became more of a figurehead than a ruler (1867), and when Jules Verne first wrote about traveling in a balloon (Five Weeks in a Balloon in 1863, Around the World in Eighty Days in 1872), and what type of plague would kill a person before the sun goes down on his first sick day.
As in Frankenstein Mary Shelley shows herself as a sci-fi pioneer and visionary with enough political savvy to know that the strife between Christian and Muslim would not be resolved even two hundred years into the future. She also envisioned that in this distant future, we would not be safe from disastrous epidemics, although she did not suggest that germ warfare (rather than a natural spread of disease) might be the culprit. Her visions of balloon travel as a means of rapid transit predates Jules Verne by forty years, which helps us forgive the fact that in her story ground transport, even for kings, consisted of horseback or carriage.
The Last Man was published about four years after the death of Mary's husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley drowned when his boat sank, a boat that Mary claims was not seaworthy, although a sudden squall might have caused the boat to capsize. Her husband's death in 1822 happened the same year that a miscarriage nearly took her own life and only two years after her half sister and Percy's ex-wife both committed suicide. One can see why Shelley's world-view might have been depressing, and The Last Man reflects this.
The story begins with a visit to a cave in which an unidentified narrator visits Naples in 1818, finding a manuscript in an inaccessible cave. The manuscript appears to be from the future, from the year 2079, and is written by one Lionel Verney, a close friend of the English king and Brother-in-Law to the greatest General since Napoleon. Verney will become the last man to inhabit the earth.
We follow Verney's manuscript from his early roots as a poverty-stricken orphan to his friendship with the heir-apparent to the throne of England and to a military campaign with his Brother-in-Law into plague-stricken Turkey, a campaign which touches off the worldwide plague that wipes out the human population of the Earth.
As much as I like and admire The Last Man as a visionary work, I also found a lot to dislike. I have read several books about real and fictional plagues, and have come to expect that one would at least see a description of what a plague victim experiences when in the throes of the disease. Shelley describes very little beyond a fever and a quick death. I would imagine that she was vaguely describing Pneumonic Plague, a mutation of Bubonic Plague that takes the pathogen airborne and which can kill in a matter of hours.
I also disliked Shelley's annoying habit of describing the outcome before she describes the action. I spent a lot of reading time backtracking because I was certain I missed something, since I seemed to have found out what was going to happen before I was supposed to. Our protagonist beset with grief, but I couldn't figure out why. As I read on, I discovered the reason for the grief, but since I already knew something bad was going to happen, the reading was more depressing than suspenseful.
On the up side, Mary Shelley's gifted use of the English language was perhaps better in this work than in Frankenstein. Also to her credit, Shelley, perhaps because of her many tragic experiences, quite accurately captures and expresses the angst of mourning. The Last Man was not Frankenstein, but if you have the patience to read it, you will find its mysterious makeup rather interesting.
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