One of the big names in SF/Horror in the 1950's was Richard Matheson. Matheson was pretty clearly a pulp era writer, but he was a bright light of that time. Without Matheson we would likely not have Stephen King, as Matheson not only heavily influenced King's style, but provided him with the genesis for a few of his more important tales. I am Legend is a 1950's vampire tale that takes place in South Central Los Angeles. Four out of five stars.
I am Legend, being a 1950's era tale, does rely on some of the more contrived and classical elements of a vampire tale. The vampires in this story are all driven by a pathological need for blood as food, and they seem demented and evil. They were no stronger than ordinary humans, but bullets did them no harm. They could be killed by staking, they were allergic to garlic, they feared religious icons of their original faiths, and they were repulsed by their reflection. They could not transmorph into other animals (though dogs could be turned into vampires) and they were able to freely cross a running water course. One of the things that I like about more modern vampire stories is that generally they stay away from the contrived notions of vampirism, such as those that are present in this tale. Despite the problems with creating his race of vampires, Matheson did an excellent job with his setting and character. This story is set in a world absolutely empty of humans, save for the protagonist, Robert Neville. Neville is the sole survivor of a bacteriological plague that struck about five months before the action of the story, and either killed everyone in the city and reanimated their corpses as vampires, or just outright changed them into vampires without death. As a result there are two types of vampires out there: The first are those that are still "alive." They are smart and quick and seem to think. The second are those that died. They move and can run to get blood, but are mostly stupid and even if they can talk, they only remember a few words. Neville has barricaded himself in his home and at night waited out uncoordinated attacks from dead vampires, including his old commuting partner, Cortman, who can only now say "Neville! Come out!"
One of the really amazing aspects of this book is the transformation that Neville goes through as the story progresses from five months after the plague to three years after it. Neville is first devastated by the death of his wife and child. He had the good sense to take his child to the municipal fire pits where every dead body had to be burned to prevent reanimation, but when his wife died he decided he could not do it. He buried her and invited her in when she reanimated, and wound up having to stake her when her desire for his blood grew too great. His depression over this loss almost kills him, but instead of killing himself, he turns his home into a fortress. As the months wear on he became quite the drunk, and was racked with lust as he had no female outlet. Neville almost kills himself several times, but before he can succeed he manages to climb out of the bottle and apply his energies to learning the nature of the plague that killed everyone. With this new direction Neville puts his life back together, stops drinking, and begins ruthless Mengele-type experiments on the bodies of vampires he captures during the day. He isolated the pathogen that has turned them. He never learns what to do with his knowledge, but he does keep trying. The end of the story involves movement from the still living vampires that totally turns the tables on your understanding of what the vampires are and what they are capable of.
Most (but certainly not all) of Matheson's other fiction are purely pulp era action stories that partially develop only one story concept, lack serious characterization, and rely on some sort of hook or flip at the end of the story to get a "wow" reaction out of you. In that regard, Matheson was great. But this story and Shrinking Man really do transcend that more basic model, and even though this story does have a hook, the impact of the story does not turn on it alone. I am Legend does contain many of Matheson's trademarks. Neville was at first a young man with serious anger control issues who was being slowly driven mad by lust and guilt. This kind of character turned up frequently in Matheson's stories. Neville, one gathers, is quite capable of rape, and came close to committing it. There were plenty of penetration metaphors in the first several chapters, and Neville's rage pushed the action along quickly. But Neville's near complete transformation really brought the more important and socially worthy themes to the forefront of the story. Those were solipsism and the importance of community and the ways we build it. Told in a vampire/last-man-on-Earth tale as this one is with heavy doses of epidemiology, Matheson tells us about the meaning of life, and contrasts that against how fear drives society to commit brutal acts to preserve itself, especially through genocide. Its also a bit of a reversal, as in the end Neville, the sole human finds peace in enlightened notions of community, while the vampire community which fears him seeks to kill him and be done with him, even though he is the last of his race and they see the moral wrong behind that.
The edition of I am Legend that I have also has ten other Matheson stories in it, of various complexity. Collectively the book gets a three out of five stars from me. The additional stories are:
Buried Talents: A carny barker gets on the bad side of a telekinetic.
The Near Departed: Tongue-in-cheek funeral planning.
Prey: An important Matheson story that was adapted into a Twilight Zone episode, and co-opted by Stephen King and Dean Koontz for various tales. In it a "Zuni fetish doll" manages to slip of the magical chain that keeps it inanimate as its newest owner conveniently prepares to bathe.
Witch War: Seven young virgin witches rain death and destruction down on an advancing column of armor and infantry.
Dance of the Dead: Post WWIII misbegotten youths story, with a lot of slang, and set in a ruined St. Louis that has become a modern day Sodom for rich college kids. A good girl falls in with the wrong crowd and is taken to club where a strange woman does an interpretive dance of death that is light on the "interpretive" and heavy on the "death."
Dress of White Silk: An immature vampire defends her mother's honor from a mouthy kid.
Mad House: The descent into madness of an author with writer's block who has a severe anger management problem and whose house is trying to beat him then kill him.
From Shadowed Places: A shaman shocks a fiancee and her father when she exercises a curse from a game hunter. A titillating and prurient tale of sexual healing.
I consider I am Legend to be one of the more important genre tales of the late pulp era. I don't know any of the back story behind the writing of this tale, so I'm afraid I cant tell you if Matheson was edited by Campbell or any of his contemporaries, but it certainly feels like he was. This novella is very forward looking in the social aspects of the story, and especially in the area of character development. Its not hard to find this book, and not only has it been adapted twice for the screen before (once as the Omega Man, without any of the vampric elements), but is going to be the subject of a late 2007 Will Smith movie, which I can only imagine will be butchered, yet still worthy.
Copyright © 2007, Gregory Tidwell