I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This short novel, published in 1954, is another entry in the Richard Matheson collection of grim futures, pasts or presents. In this case the story is set about 20 years in the future, in 1976, although there are no issues with verisimilitude as Matheson largely steers clear of any references that would date the novel as another incorrectly depicted near-future. The main character of Robert Neville drives a car, not a flying car, and he listens to vinyl records, just like hipsters do today.
For those only familiar with the 2007 Will Smith movie, the story is the same only in broad strokes. Neville has survived a virus that has turned most of the world’s population into vampires, and is convinced that he is likely the last human alive. Hiding in his fortified house at night, he tries to stay sane while investigating possible cures for the virus.
Not counting the alternate ending on the DVD release of the movie, both book and 2007 film agree on Neville’s ultimate fate, though they differ significantly in the specifics.
I found the story curious. Matheson does a good job of unspooling Neville mentally, as he pounds back the booze, smokes like crazy, rages, then goes quiet and back to the work of surviving. He reminisces about his wife and daughter, both years dead as the story opens. He gets sloppy at times and nearly pays with his life as he scavenges the landscape under the safety of daylight. All of this is good stuff, but the relentlessly grim and humorless tone started to wear on me about halfway through. The occasional melodramatic flourishes don’t help, either.
Matheson does mix things up a bit, but the inevitable march toward what one surmises will have to be a tragic ending, seems more about Matheson making some clever, Twilight Zone-style reflection on how WE are the monsters, not the vampires. Well, they’re monsters, too, but MAN is the real monster. Admittedly, this may have been more a more radical statement for a science fiction novel in the mid 1950s than it is in 2021 (and especially as the world slowly pulls out of an actual global pandemic), but still, it left me unsatisfied. I almost felt like this was a first pass at what could have been a deeper, richer story.
It’s a quick read, though, and anyone who’s seen the 2007 movie may be interested in comparing how much it diverged from its source material.
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