"I Am Legend" by Richard Matheson

Time spent reading:
6/8: 9:45pm-10:05pm
6/9: 11:15am-1:40pm

Total time: 2 hrs 45 min

151 pages

Nelson Doubleday edition

This is not the first time I have read I Am Legend, though it is the first time I have read it since that atrocity of a movie came out in 2007. What most people hardly realize is that it was a book published in 1954, long before the Will Smith movie. We all know it to be a sad fact of modern society to take amazing pillars of science fiction literature and convert them to overblown action flicks (see: War of the Worlds, I, Robot, Journey to the Center of the Earth, etc...), but let us not spend more time on the downcast state of modern movie-making.

The protagonist, Robert Neville, is a hero in his own right. He is the hero we should all want to be, not the buffed up machismo of "I can kill anything with my bare hands", but rather the broken, constantly questioning, suffering, succeeding, and failing of a man trying to survive a bacterial pandemic that has (as far as we know) left him the last man on earth. Neville must literally battle his way through hordes of vampires, though he uses his intellect far more than his brawn. After all, he was a 36-year old blue collar worker with a wife and child when the outbreak began. He was not prepared for this, and this is where Matheson picks up the journey of this solitary remnant of mankind.

Matheson creates such a beautifully dynamic individual; one who has lost everything, struggles with the mundaneness of his constant preparatory work, and worries constantly about the past and how it affects him in the present. Being surrounded by vampires, one might be driven to insanity, and in some incredibly touching moments, Neville loses his grasp on reality, the reality that has been thrust upon him. But he is not without hope. His hope lies in surviving, and not necessarily hunting the undead. He has stocked frozen foods, maintains a generator, keeps a Willys station wagon in near-perfect upkeep, and works on soundproofing the house from the hordes that come out at night. Matheson's attention to detail near rivals Henry David Thoreau's Walden in the constant lists and everyday chores that Neville must keep.

Lathe at Sears
Water
Check generator
Doweling (?)
Usual

Throughout the novella, Neville's insatiable thirst for knowledge drives him to research fields of study of which he had no previous knowledge, including biology, anatomy, bacteriology, and even delving into ancient myths and legends. A deviation from this latest film, Matheson's Neville was without military or scientific training; he was just a guy down at the plant trying to make a living. He had to research, obtain, and study how to use a microscope for days before he even attempted to study the biological structure of the vampiric blood cells. The great methodology and determination of Matheson's Neville far surpasses what most of us might try and do in a similar situation,

But then the morning came when, casually, as if it were only of minor import, he put his thirty-seventh slide of blood under the lens, turned on the spotlight, adjusted the draw tube and mirror, racked down and adjusted the diaphragm and condenser.

He had to continue. He had to improve to better himself and overcome what was waiting for him.

While Smith's Neville is a pompous ex-militant who lives on the edge, Matheson's finds solace in the simplest of things: drink, classical music, and even a surprising visit from a dog. It is this constant reinforcement of worldly systems that keeps Neville progressing. When a system is interrupted (i.e. the dog appearing), either the daily continuum sucks in this new element and welcomes it warmly, or the entire system is in upheaval.

By the end of the novella, Neville has conducted numerous tests against the typical mythology of vampires: crosses, stakes through the heart, garlic, and more. While Matheson had to twist the legends so they would fit his story of an airborn germ, he does so in such a way to make the reader question as to why Bram Stoker became so popular. My favorite explanation is why the cross does not always drive away vampires,

"Why should a Jew fear a cross?" he said. "Why should a vampire who had been a Jew fear it...But as far as the cross goes-well, neither a Jew, nor a Hindu nor a Mohammedan nor an atheist, for that matter, would fear the cross."

By the end, Matheson creates an exceptionally unique subcivilization in Neville's society. And he is the counter-culture.

Full circle.
A new terror born in death, a new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever.
I am legend.