Title: The Last Man
Genre: Novel
Year: 1826
Pages: 400
Origin: read on a Kindle
Nod Rating: 2 nods out of 5
Some books are read in a day. Some are read in a flash, in a frenzied, captivating experience. Mary Shelley’s The Last Man is not one of those books. Having come across it via a reference in Vaughan’s and Guerra’s graphic novel series Y The Last Man, the Worm thought he would take a gander and enter a new world. It was a decision he would come to regret.
Now, such regret is not pinned on the writing talent of Shelley herself. This is the same author of Frankenstein and whose stock has only risen in recent decades. The regret has more to do with the book’s themes and purpose: a trumpeting of the triumvirate that was Shelly, her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley and their mutual friend Lord Byron. Rather than the expectant apocalyptic Sci-Fi offering that was originally imagined, the Worm was given a story that could have been better served as a memoir.
The novel follows the life and adventures of Lionel Verney (Shelley herself in disguise): a man who wishes to do right in this world of the future. He befriends the son of the last king of England (yes, how we wish the monarchy of Britain may be extinguished by the late twenty-first century!) named Adrian, and together the pair discuss many philosophical matters across many years; and many pages of text for the frustrated reader. This couple – and indeed, that is what they are, the two Shelleys together – are joined by the Lord Byron a-like character, Lord Raymond.
Years pass with this friendship cemented, alongside wives and growing families – but yet, nothing of actual consequence actually happens. Rather than action, the reader is unwittingly treated to discussions on the nature of man, of monarchy and of society: all of which gets rather tedious. Especially when awaiting the climatic apocalypse and the coming forth of ‘the last man’. Eventually, even Lord Raymond tires of the domestic life and goes off in search of fame and glory in the Greek wars. Perhaps Mary Shelley herself tires of the plot and these characters, with each one snuffed out during the second and third volumes of the text. Yes, one man does survive at the book’s end: Lionel Verney.
The book is Shelley’s attempt to make sense of her own life and the untimely deaths of her husband and Byron. These biographical elements overpower any hope the novel has of standing alone and forging its own identity, unlike earlier works such as Frankenstein. Shelley remains the last man – not of a fixed gender – but rather of her generation and romantic ties. The world, as ever, is in change: the 1820s would give way to the reforming 1830s and the new Reform Act and Poor Laws, which in turn would make room for the revolutionary 1840s with the rise of the Chartists and the rebellions across Europe. Liberalism clashed with autocracy, which in turn fought hard with the rising manifestos from communists and socialists. There was little hope for earlier notions of the ideals held in such high esteem by the French revolutionists of the late eighteenth century. The ending plague that wipes out mankind is Shelley’s attempt to convey this sense of loss of the former world; with Europe standing still, ‘a monument of antique barbarism.’
The Worm’s frustration with the plot and overall context subtracts from Shelley’s talent at writing in descriptive flourishes. For example, take the opening of Verney’s story:
‘I am the native of a sea-surrounded nook, a cloud-enshadowed land, which, when the surface of the globe, with its shoreless ocean and trackless continents, presents itself to my mind, appears only as an inconsiderable speck in the immense whole; and yet, when balanced in the scale of mental power, far outweighed countries of larger extent and more numerous population. So true it is, that man’s mind alone was the creator of all that was good or great to man, and that Nature herself was only his first minister.’However, the problem with such prose is that no matter how well constructed it is, given too large a helping with soon burst the belly of the reader.
The Last Man is a haunting novel, on what Shelley deems ‘the end of Love’. The end of her former life and the ideas once valued. But, as she also comments: ‘Yet not the end.’ Lionel Verney remains as the last character and person, but somewhat teasingly, survives and lives to tell the tale. Unfortunately, the novel is not one of Shelley’s finest. The Worm was tempted and, like Verney, lived to tell the story; but at what cost of wasted hours of joyful reading of other texts!
Further Reading
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