Is a Zombie Apocalypse Really Possible?

[zoobyshoe]

Yeah. I've never read the book (obviously), but it's such a popular icon, I figured I had it nailed for scientific reanimation.

Actually, most people who've read the book miss it as well:

In his youth Dr. Frankenstein discovered books on alchemy and the occult. Knowing no better, he thought they were "science", so he studied them. Eventually he met a real scientist who explained all that stuff was superstitious nonsense and put him on to "real" science books. In that literature he found chemistry, such as it was at the time.

When he went on to try his reanimation of a corpse, the whole procedure was chemical, not the spectacular electrical business you see in movies. All he did was inject the corpse with some chemicals he thought might reanimate it. It didn't work. The body lay there completely dead.

In his discouragement, his mind went back to the old occult books he used to read, and he mentally pondered a prayer he'd once read in them for bringing the dead back to life. Behind him, he sudden heard the corpse stir...

 

[turbo]

The legend of the Golem, was, in fact, part of the inspiration for Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. His monster, clearly, was a kind of patchwork zombie.

Readers should be advised that *she* was the wife of Percy (the poet) and that the story was written as an exercise in competition with other authors and their wives. "Just hangin' around with nothing better to do..."

 

[Pythagorean]

Actually, most people who've read the book miss it as well:

In his youth Dr. Frankenstein discovered books on alchemy and the occult. Knowing no better, he thought they were "science", so he studied them. Eventually he met a real scientist who explained all that stuff was superstitious nonsense and put him on to "real" science books. In that literature he found chemistry, such as it was at the time.

When he went on to try his reanimation of a corpse, the whole procedure was chemical, not the spectacular electrical business you see in movies. All he did was inject the corpse with some chemicals he thought might reanimate it. It didn't work. The body lay there completely dead.

In his discouragement, his mind went back to the old occult books he used to read, and he mentally pondered a prayer he'd once read in them for bringing the dead back to life. Behind him, he sudden heard the corpse stir...

Hrm... event-wise it sounds like it's "left to interpretation"... does the author make it more explicit?

 

[zoobyshoe]

Hrm... event-wise it sounds like it's "left to interpretation"... does the author make it more explicit?

Nope. The character, himself, assumes it just took the chemicals more time to work than he anticipated.

Regardless, the Golem is an interesting thing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem

 

[Pythagorean]

yeah, I saw a lot of golems in my rpg days.

 

[PookDo]

with the way most people act or treat other people you would think the zombie apocalypse had already happened

 

[zoobyshoe]

Those who haven't read the novel are probably not aware the monster was, in fact, reanimated inadvertently by a magic spell, not scientifically.

huh, always thought it was supposed to be scientific reanimation.

I just reread the novel and I was wrong!

Frankenstein had previously tried to cast spells:

"...I entered with the greatest diligence into the search for the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life; but the latter soon obtained my undivided attention. Wealth was an inferior object, but what glory would attend the discovery if I could banish disease from the human frame and render any man invulnerable to any but a violent death!
"Nor were these my only visions. The raising of ghosts or devils was a promise liberally accorded by my favourite authors, the fulfillment of which I most eagerly sought; and if my incantations were always unsuccessful, I attributed the failure to my own inexperience and mistake than to a want of skill or fidelity in my instructors."

But there is no mention of these spells running through his mind later as he brought the creation to life. Over time, in the years since I first read it, I created a false memory of the attempts at incantation being linked to the animation of the creature.

Frankenstein refuses to tell his listener how he did it, but he alludes to galvanism and chemistry and secrets he, himself, discovered by observations of corpses in varying states of decay. It was, in fact, supposed to have been a "scientific" reanimation.