Cornelius Agrippa

"A new light seemed to dawn upon my mind, and, bounding with joy, I communicated my discovery to my father. My father looked carelessly at the title-page of my book and said, "Ah! Cornelius Agrippa! My dear Victor, do not waste your time upon this; it is sad trash" (pg 20). Victor's father goes as far as to use the metaphor of this book being trash, yet Victor still decides to read it and become fascinated by it. I was surprised that Victor called his father's response a "cursory glance," because, if my father said that to me, I would definitely think twice about becoming so intrigued by it. I feel like Victor is somewhat blaming his father for his later disaster. He says that if his father would have gone into more detail, then maybe Victor would not have made the big mistake that he did. I'm sure that his father would have been more thorough if he knew his response would have been disregarded and later been the cause of creating a monster. I also think that it is very interesting that this book of some sort of magic was the catalyst of his curiosity in science. Victor said that as soon as he returned home from the baths near Thonon, the place where he had found the book, he began putting Agrippa's words into actions. I wonder what these books said exactly to make him act the way that he did.