broken abbey One writer's thoughts…

“I Am Legend” (Ch. 17 – 21)

These are the final chapters.  Matheson does a great job of continuing to create change in Neville.  He's encountered another human who is apparently immune as well, Ruth.  He's cold and distrustful at first, now having been in isolation for about 3 years.

He suddenly realized that he had become an ill-tempered and inveterate bachelor again.  He no longer thought about his wife, his child, his past life.  The present was enough.

But one night, he wakes to see Ruth standing in the shadows, and confuses her with his long dead wife.  It breaks him, and he is reduced to tears, embracing Ruth in a moment of common comfort.

I have one issue with how Matheson starts Chapter 17.  It may seem small, but it pulled me out of the story.  Neville wakes, crying out "Virge!".  So far as I can tell, unless I missed something, this is the first instance we have of Neville referring to his wife this way.  Prior, it was always Virginia.  As a reader, I was confused, as I've never heard Virge used as a nickname for Virginia, although I've heard it used for Virgil.  It was only a page or so later that I made the connection.  As a writer, this is something I try to avoid.  I believe firmly that names need to be consistent throughout, and that any nicknames for characters must be established as early as possible.  Okay - enough about that.

The rest of the piece was a surprise for me.  I have to admit, I saw the movie, and so I think my expectations were tainted.  Sure, there's similarities, but they are different stories.  I wasn't surprised by Neville's resistance to moving out of the house, even after Ruth's stark warning.  It fit perfectly with what I expected of a hermit who's so settled in his ways.

I was, however, surprised that he had resigned not to fight when they came for him.  But, it wasn't enough to distract me from the story.  Neville is captured and held prisoner.  Even in the face of certain death, even after all he's been through, Neville has retained core human characteristics:

In spite of having lived with death all these years, in spite of having walked a tightrope of bare existence across an endless may of death -- in spite of that he couldn't understand it.  Personal death still was a thing beyond comprehension.

What I find most interesting about how this ends is the parrallel Matheson draws between that last piece of humanity as it was (Neville) and the first establishment of humanity as it will be (the "Vampire" society).  The interaction between Neville and Ruth at the end, the dialog, her assistance in his suicide, the kiss between them show there's a common thread that persists even though the biology has changed.

The realization at the end is powerful as well.  Matheson has set things up very well to pull of what happens to Neville and what he thinks as he stares out the window at the new society, preparing to kill himself:

Then sudden silence, as though a heavy blanket had fallen over their heads.  They all stood looking up at him with their white faces.  He stared back.  And suddenly he thought, I'm the abnormal one now.

It is the stake in his heart, so to speak.  A deep understanding that his fight for survival was a key part in the transition of the human race, and that his part was at an end.  I can't imagine a more appropriate way to end this story, nor a more appropriate title:

I am legend.

“I Am Legend” (Ch. 12 – 16)

Here we find Neville hitting another brick wall.  He thinks he's figured out what's causing the vampires - a Bacilli (germ) - but he can't attribute all the vampire behaviors to it.  So, what's he do?  Well, by this point we know Neville pretty well - a man who, although he's survived some pretty extreme circumstances, falls back to the drink when things get too challenging.

Man, it's time this guy get a new tune.

Matheson must have felt so, too.  Because in the next few chapters, he introduces two significant new elements that further serve to change Neville.

The first of these is a dog.  Just a dog.  But this guy's been on his own so long, that the dog is a huge impact:

He stayed drunk for two days and planned on staying drunk till the end of time or the world's whiskey supply, whichever came first.

And he might have done it, too, if it hadn't been for a miracle.

It happened on the third morning, when he stumbled out onto the porch to see if the world was still there.

There was a dog roving about on the lawn.

This dog is renewed hope for Neville.  It gives him something aside from himself to care for, to look after, to give purpose to what has become a repeatitive and almost meaningless existence.  So the next few chapters are about Neville winning the dog's trust, him realizing the dog is infected, and trying to cure it.  Chapter 14 ends with the dog dying.

So, I expected Neville to fall back to his old routine - get drunk, feel sorry for himself, beat stuff up, kill some vampires.  But, Matheson makes the change in him permenant.  Chapter 14 actually begins by saying as much:

There was no debauch of drinking.  Far from it.  He found that he actually drank less.  Something had changed.

So now we have a new, improved Neville, one who attackes the problem of the Vampire Bacilli with a fresh perspective.  His initial attempt at the solution relied solely on him learning biology.  Matheson has an extremely creative solution here - he now has Neville teach himself psychology, and Neville is able to provide rational explanations for ALL the vampire symptoms by being either the Bacilli, or the result of hysteria.  And this resolution brings closure for Neville, sealing the change in personality to that of a strong hermit.

Chapter 15 & 16 deal with Neville's next encounter with another living being.  A woman - Ruth.  I don't have much to comment on here yet, other than - either I'm an idiot or Neville is.  She's pregnant.  I guess I'll find out soon.  The distrust that plays out from Neville is interesting, and I'm curious to see where this all leads.

“I Am Legend” (Ch. 9 – 11)

So here we get more of Neville's back story, the death of his wife, his determination to bury her instead of burn her, and the horror of her return as a vampire.  It's interesting, but what really interested me more in these chapters is how Matheson shows us real change in Neville.

Neville has continued sobering himself up, tackling his situation like a real problem solver.  He refers a few time to his father's belief in the scientific method as inspiration.  It's an interesting character development, so see Neville set upon the library, reading and learning everything he can, teaching himself to use a microscope, learning to understand what he's looking at, and ultimately coming to the conclusion that this is a virus.

For me, it holds the same fascination as CSI or a police procedural.  Matheson does a good job of making the process of discovery itself interesting without doing massive info dumps, giving just the information the reader needs to understand the conclusions.

There was an additional piece in chapter 10 that I found noteworthy.  Neville has entered the library, which is still very neat, with all the chairs pushed in at the tables.  He's imaging the poor librarian who pushed them in the last time:

He thought about that visionary lady.  To die, he thought, never knowing the fierce joy and attendant comfort of a loved one's embrace.  To sink into that hideous coma, to sink then into death and, perhaps, return to sterile, awful wanderings.  All without knowing what it was to love and be loved.

That was a tragedy more terrible than becoming a vampire.

Even in the midst of his situation, Neville can imagine something worse.  It's a clear sign that he's coming to grips with what's happening and is committing himself to doing what he can to fix it.

“I Am Legend” (Ch. 4 – 8)

Matheson turns Neville's character around in these chapters.  At the end of chapter 4, Neville has forgotten to wind his watch and is stuck out after dark, not even sure what time it is.  He survives the attacks, and spends the next couple of months rebuilding his home, getting to things he'd never done (like soundproofing the walls).  He then sets about trying to figure out what he can about the virus or plague or whatever it is that's caused all the people to turn.

So, back to the incident - the watch.  Chapter 4 ends:

He dragged the woman back to the station wagon and tossed her in.  Then he closed the gate and took off the gloves.  He held up the watch and looked at it.  Three o'clock.  Plenty of time to --

He jerked the watch and held it against his ear, his heart suddenly jumping.

The watch had stopped.

It seems like such a small, stupid, neglectful thing.  When you're caught in a post-apocalyptic world populated by vampires, you remember to get home by dark.  You remember to wind your watch.  Normally, something like this would irritate the hell out of me.  Characters who do stupid things like this feel like cardboard to me.

But, it works in this case.  It absolutely works, I didn't hitch on it at all.  Why does it work?

Till this point, Neville has been spending his time in isolation, stuck in a rut that includes blasting music at, sleeping poorly (if at all), eating poorly, and drinking.  A lot of drinking.  While I still feel it's a little contrived, I bought it.

So then we see Neville come around after his attacks.  Why?  He realizes:

They were all in front of his house, waiting.

A sound of helpless terror filled his throat.  He didn't want to die.  He might have thought about it, even contemplated it.  But he didn't want to die.  Not like this.

It wasn't bad enough yet for him.  It's interesting to watch Neville's scientific side come out after he gets back on his feet.  He begins methodically testing the vampire legends, trying to figure out why garlic works, holding one hostage and demanding to know why she's afraid of the cross, as well as trying to capture a memory that would give him some inidication of what has happened.

“I Am Legend” (Ch. 1 – 3)

Matheson's first three chapters do something I always find very difficult to pull off.  He managed to develop a character in isolation, without having any benefit of dialog with another character.  The description and narration combine well to bring out poor Robert Neville's ordinary world.

I think Matheson also does a great job of building up the attackers through their actions (and the one who constantly taunts - "Come out, Neville!").   He makes it through two full chapters before referring to them outright as "vampires", giving the reader plenty of material to work with before falling into stereotypes of the vampire.  By the time we get to the explicit statement, we as readers have been prepared for the idea that these may be vampires, but they're not Vampires.

There's one line that really stood out for me, and I'm not exactly sure why:

He took down a can of tomato juice, then left the room that had once belonged to Kathy and now belonged to his stomach.

I think part of it is the language feels a little strange - his stomach has its own room.  But it's also the larger image.  The world is in such a state now that what once belonged to an entire human being can now be dedicated to a single organ.

“Dance of the Dead”

Richard Matheson's short story, "Dance of the Dead", is a fine example of matching up pacing and action.   The story opens with four college kids racing across the plains in a "Rotor-Motors Covnertible, Model C, 1997".  The kids are engaged in drinking, drugs, and sex as they head to Saint Louis to catch a "loopy" show.

Needle quivering at 130, two 5-mph notches from the gauge's end.  A sudden dip!  Their young frames jolted and the thrown-up laughter of three was windswept into night.  Around a curve, darging up and down a hill, flashing across a leveled plain -- an ebony bullet skimming the earth.

His description is short and quick, fragmentary in spots.  It gives an excellent sense of speeding down an empty road and brings the reader into the car.

In the back seat:

"Have a jab, Bab."

"Thanks, I had one after supper" (pushing away the needle fixed to the eye-dropper).

In the front seat:

"You meana tell me this is the first time you ever been t'Saint Loo!!"

"But I just started school in September."

The dialog is also quick, and punchy.  It's a fair representation of informal exchange.  Both the dialog and description he uses keeps the scene moving quickly, pulling the reader along with the characters to Saint Louis.

Matheson uses an interesting technique to tackle the unique jargon found in the story.  Interspersed among the narration and dialog or quick definitions.  For instance, at once they near the city, the kids put on plastic nose-and-mouth pieces.  It's followed by a quick little nursery rhyme:

ANCE IN YOUR PANTS WOULD BEA PITY!

WEAR YOUR NOSIES IN THE CITY!!

This is followed by a dictionary-style definition:

Ance (anse), n., slang for anticivilian germs; usage evolved during WWIII.

Several other of the definitions also reference WWIII, providing an instance time-period reference without him having to work it in to any of the narration directly.  It's a unique approach to world building that I think works in this piece to keep it fast paced without burdening the reader with a lot of unnecessary background.

All in all, it's a great little story!