Woof…at some 400+ pages and written in early 1800’s English this one was a bit of a struggle.
It was worthwhile however. It definitely has its drawbacks as not only is it written in a language/spelling that is often not aligned with our modern speech and structure causing the reader to interpret what the actual words are or a rereading various passages, but Shelley is extremely verbose and overly flowery. A laundry list of adjectives, similes, and metaphors accompany even the simplest of events and items. Shelley was in desperate need of an editor with a sharp pen and to encourage a much more direct approach from her.
I did find the effort rewarding however. Really the book breaks down into two parts, or two stories. The first being the growth of Verney the narrator from castoff youth to an educated and worldly second fiddle to his eventual Brothers-in-Law Adrian and Raymond. It is through him that the romantic and political machinations are viewed and are the primary topics of this first half. Expecting the work to devolve into a zombie apocalypse in the first 200 pages will bring disappointment when you are instead read of loves won and lost, descriptions of differences between England’s benefits gained by a “republican” form of government vs. one of royal bequeathed power, battles between Greeks and Turks, suicides, infidelity, and so on. Its here where Shelley establishes the personalities and orbits of each of the main characters as a proxy for herself and her friends in real life. I’ll leave description of the linkages between each character and their real life compatriots for elsewhere but leave it as Verney equating to Mary Shelley, Adrian to her husband Percy, and Raymond to Lord Byron, as just some examples. Written after the death of her husband, Byron, and her own children there is a lot to be interpreted here as a reflection of her own views of her compatriots after their passing.
The second half of the work is where the undefined “plague” makes its appearance and drives the action after having been near entirely unmentioned in the first half. After depopulating the rest of the globe the plague arrives in England and begins its ravages, forcing all to resign themselves to their early fates. Over 200 pages all individuals and civilizations are stripped away with each loss weighing on the reader as Shelley keeps the descriptions of the lose the most succinct part of the work. Children and spouses are lost and moved on from in a matter of a sentence or two whereas prior events (a trip from one town to the next) might take up 5 pages. Shelley’s own frequent interaction with death certainly has an impact here.
I originally picked up this work as a result of some of the attention it received during this Covid pandemic. A scourge unseen and unstoppable driving irrational behavior among a global populace seems relevant, no? Shelley is far ahead of her time in many things including the idea that if you survive a virus driven malady you will have immunity from it going forward, as her character Verney does here even if he is the only one to do so resulting in the titular Last Man. It will leave you feeling more that man is doomed to fail no matter what his efforts, reasoning, or inherent goodness may be. Nothing stands in the way of the plague, not love, not intelligence, not courage, not beauty, wisdom or any admirable characteristics. In the end we all fall before death’s scythe whether by virus, our own hand, or any other myriad happenstance. All that matters then is how we face it and what we do with the limited time we’re given. While not a happy resolution to the work…its one I can be satisfied by.