I Am Legend - Book Review

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I Am Legend - Richard Matheson

Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend was first brought to the movie screen in the 1964 Vincent Price film The Last Man on Earth, then again with the 1971 Charlton Heston version The Omega Man. Now it's being introduced to a new generation via the 2007 movie starring Will Smith.

Hopefully the new big screen outing will tempt more people to read the original book. Although published over 50 years ago it remains powerful today. (Book review continues below)

 

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Synopsis 

I Am Legend was first published in 1954. It falls somewhere between the horror and the SF genres.

The story is set in the 1970s - which when it was written was "the near future". Following a catastrophic world war, plague and pestilence sweeps America. From the ashes of civilisation emerge the previously undetected vampire race who proceed to kill or turn all humans.

As the story begins, the hero Robert Neville is barely surviving. As far as he knows he is the last human being alive. During the day he roams the local towns staking all the sleeping vampires he can find. At night he cowers in his barricaded and garlic-protected home getting drunk to escape the taunting cries of the undead.

An encounter with a true living creature, a dog, snaps Robert out of this rut. He determines to fight back. To do this he must understand vampirism. Robert is a rational man and is convinced that vampirism must have a "scientific" explanation. Most of the book consists of his studying the subject and exploring hypotheses. Ultimately he has a theory that seems to fit and begins to make use of it

Analysis 

This is a short novel - almost a novella at 160 pages - and easy enough to read in a day. Despite its length it's very powerful. The set-up means that Matheson has only one central character so we get to know him very well. We learn about his past in flashback and feel his pain as his wife first dies then returns.

Robert's fight is as much against himself as against the vampires. A lot of ethical and psychological issues are addressed in this book, fortunately they are woven in to the story with nice subtlety. It's a dark book full of despair - and possibly some hope.

You'd expect a book written in the 50s to be dated, and to some extent this is true. For example, Robert listens to music on a record deck and watches films on a movie projector. Yet these are minor details. The basic post-apocalypse concept and the one-man-against-the-odds story work just as well today. In addition the writing is in keeping with today's sparser style and not bogged down with the purple prose I'd expect from 50s SF.

If there is anything wrong with the novel it is perhaps the level of scientific detail. It's a bit much. One gets the impression that Matheson actually believes his protagonist's theory on vampirism and is trying to persuade the reader. The technical detail will probably appeal to the "hard SF" fans, personally I'm prepared to take some things on trust.

Conclusion 

I Am Legend is a classic tale that can claim to have created much of the modern horror genre. It still works amazingly well nearly half a century after first publication.

The original book is not an action adventure. Personally I like it that way.

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I Am Legend

I Am Legend

by: Richard Matheson

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