Reading Richard Matheson's "I Am Legend," I can't help but feel that I found this book at just the right time in my life. Matheson's skillful portrayal of life after all pretense of normality and hope have been obliterated is wrenching stuff: a nightmarish metaphor for isolation if there ever was one. I get the feeling Matheson felt this novel while he was writing it. He'd been there. He knew the territory.
He knew perfectly well that the vampires were real.
5 comments:
Psychic vampires are definitely real. They'll suck the energy right out of you. I had an encounter with one a couple of months ago and for a while, I couldn't realize why I felt so abnormally fatigued. I don't usually fatigue easily and I didn't feel sick. I only realized it must have been this guy I encountered at a store after wondering about it quite a while. There are even books about psychic vampires. I don't know about the actual Lestat/Dracula blood-sucking type, though....
Oh, I wasn't talking about anything so lavish as psychic vampires. Just good old crashing bores do the trick for me.
I came across an interview with Matheson in which he was asked about the "metaphorical" dimensions of I am Legend.
He replied by telling the interviewer to move to a large city, wait for a wide-scale blackout and then to go and stand outside, anywhere, unarmed.
Just wait, Matheson said, and you will see if I am writing metaphor.
this is such a great book. the chapter with the dog was especially heartbreaking.
He replied by telling the interviewer to move to a large city, wait for a wide-scale blackout and then to go and stand outside, anywhere, unarmed.
Indeed!