Frankissstein

My notes: anaulin.org/blog/book-notes-frankissstein/

Overall I loved reading this book: the essential questions about the future of AI, the fictionalised history of Mary Shelley, the jokes which occasionally made me laugh out loud.
But one thing made me really uncomfortable: can a cis gendered author write a respectful story about a trans person? I can see why Ry is trans, but I can also see his character would be highly offensive for a lot of trans people, including some harmful passages.
Furthermore, it came to my attention that Winterson would prefer trans teens not to get the healthcare they need (www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-lgbt-books/no-rush-to-change-gender-uk-writer-joins-trans-debate-idUSKCN1T028R). Her writing about trans experiences is highly problematic if she has this view.

A playful celebration of Frankenstein and Winterson taking on the past, present and possible future of A.I. There's not much emotional depth here but it's fun and thought engaging.

Winterson has the ability to weave a tapestry of ideas across time and distance wo suffering from an overload of plot points. I'm not sure how she does it but I'm in awe. In the case of this narrative, though the ideas were largely abstract, somehow they took on an emotional weight, which built steadily, so that by the end of the novel I was altered - mostly depressed and sad, honestly.

This book has such a provocative concept it is carried along solely by the power of its ideas in context. I'm not sure it would withstand multiple readings but it's probably well worth finding out.