predict, bears an uncanny resemblance to the obsessive Victor Frankenstein racing
to the denouement of the Creature's birth in Ingolstadt (I:3:8). The difference, and
it is one maintained throughout the novel's self-reflexive mirroring of its own operations,
is that writing has no effect in the world until it is read. The writer's obsession
with the text may seem both narcissistic and solipsistic, but this antisocial dimension
is confined to a conceptual plane. Still, Walton's unselfconscious acquiescence in
the claims of what seems to him irresistable reinforces our sense that what drives
Victor is little different from the passions we all share as human beings.