I AM LEGEND by RICHARD MATHESON Even though I don’t typically like vampire novels, this is one of my favorite books. I’ve re-read it several times and I enjoy it each time.
What I particularly enjoy about this book is how it raises the question, “Who is the monster?” Typically, the identity of the monster is obvious and it does not change too much throughout the novel. But by the end of I am Legend, the identity of the monster is blurred. You’ve got the Cortmans, the Ruths, and of course the Robert Nevilles. They are all different, but they are all monsters to someone else. I like when this realization becomes apparent: Neville and the vampires share the same vicious approach to each other and they both fear each other and consider the other to be a monster. More than anything else I like how these realizations happen for the reader.
In addition, Matheson uses specific actions to help the reader understand Neville. The scenes with the dog are heart wrenching. Not so much that the dog dies. But that Neville is so desperate for the dog to trust him. Neville spends a lot of time building a “relationship” with the dog and earning its trust. Another example is Cortman. He torments Neville from the beginning of the book and Neville spends a significant amount of time looking for him. However, once the vampires start to hunt for Cortman, Neville becomes very protective of him. All of a sudden, there are standards for how he should die and how he should be treated.
The other thing I like about the book is how much detail goes into explaining things: the biology of the virus, why garlic works, why a cross may or may not work, etc. Even though those aren’t very exciting moments in the text, I still like them because they show how Matheson plays with traditional vampire conventions. He changes things up and has detailed explanations for why things are the way they are. These also seem like sections that are information dumps. The reader gets a lot of information all at once and it is somewhat disconnected from the action of the story. But it seems to work in this case. I enjoyed reading those parts of the text. Which makes me wonder why it works here and not in other novels. It may be that since so much of this novel is Neville’s internal world (because for most of it, he’s the only character). It makes it so that the novel is set up to follow his thoughts. I don’t know what it is, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
I just thought of this, so I’m going to mention it. But for a vampire novel, there is not a lot of blood sucking. In fact, I don’t think there’s any. I guess there does not need to be because the method of transmission is different. Matheson kept so many of the other vampire conventions, it is just interesting that that one was mentioned the least.
On a side note: if your copy of the book has short stories in it, you have to read “The Near Departed.” It’s a great story. Super short, but super good.
It is interesting how Matheson doesn't spend a lot of time talking about the vampires' blood lust. At the beginning, we know that's why they flock to Neville's house, why they want him to come out - they yearn for his blood. Even when he experiments with the female vampire, he's bitten, but Neville doesn't worry that he'll get the "disease". Really, the blood lust is more heavily described when he is doing his scientific research, but it's buried in other terms and explorations with the bacteria feeding and what happens when it doesn't have sustenance.
I think the subtlety of it all was nice, since so many vampire stories out there have the blood lust as a central focus.
To tell the truth, much like history is a story told from the winning side, what determines a monster is majority. I thought it was interesting how he became the boogie man.
I have tried to read this story before and had never finished it. I forced myself to finish it this time and felt disappointed by the overall story. Matheson is one of my favorite writers. But I categorize his writing into two groups: Writing I Like and Writing I Don’t Like. As I thought about those two groups, I realized that they were much more specific than that.
One of the things I like most about Matheson’s writing is that he creates very believable characters in believable settings. Even though there are vampires in I Am Legend, the overall story is believable. Robert Neville and the emotions he goes through are convincing. The biological explanations about the vampires seem legitimate. It feels like something that could really happen.
On the other hand, “The Funeral” is so far-fetched that I just can’t get into it. A group of monsters/creatures gets together for the staged funeral for one member of the group and the event does not go well. I felt blah by the end. I didn’t feel attached to any one particular character and I didn’t care how things worked out by the end. For me, I have to care about how things work out in the end.
One thing that I liked about the story was the description. “The man’s handshake was cool and bone-cracking but Silkline managed to repress reactions to a momentary flicker of agony in his cinnamon eyes.” “And, as a shriveling Silkline watched, the crone slapped on her pointed hat and sprouted minor lightning at the fingertips.” “The crone gestured and all the flowers in the room began exploding like popcorn.” “The Count bicarbonated to a hissing stream of white […].” I was much more interested in reading the descriptions and the word choices than I was in the story itself.
There are two stories that are great. “The Near Departed” and “Prey.” “The Near Departed” is one of my favorite stories and I try to use it in my classes when I can. In a very short number of words, I am interested in the characters, I want to know what is going to happen, and there is a surprise ending. “Prey” is just a fun monster-comes-to-life-and-goes-on-a-rampage story. But again, I care about the characters, I’m willing to believe in the events, and I’m interested in the end.
Even when there are monsters involved, Matheson does the believable well. He can create stories that mimic the real word or that seem so believable that a reader can be convinced that the situation is the real world. Those are the stories that fall into the category of Writing I Like. Matheson also has stories that incorporate characters or situations that are so bizarre that I have a difficult time believing them. Those stories fall into the category of Writing I Don’t Like. “The Funeral” is one of those stories.
I still have not made my mind up about this book. I liked some parts, but disliked others.
Right away, I was hooked and interested. The idea that the women were gaining an incredible amount of weight and that they were transforming into grotesque versions of themselves was awesome. I had a hard time believing that it was mostly unnoticed and unquestioned, but when I learned about the collective consciousness, it made sense. The narration follows Matthew Edge and we watch as he tries to figure out what is happening to his wife, as his wife “gives birth,” and as he wanders around trying to figure out what is going on. The book had me. I was entertained and interested.
Then, the monster appears. “Its bank of pinprick red eyes glowing angrily as it hissed, long spindly legs pawing at the dull carpet, whatever substance that flowed through its veins almost visible through their revolting milky surface. Its mouth, its two mouths, if they could be called that, clacked wetly as the two sets of mandibles mashed into each other.” They were basically giant spiders. The characters even call them widows. That felt lame. I was expecting some cool creature to be causing this. And it was just giant bugs.
The reason for this happening all boils down to GM foods. “As far as I can see, it’s a mixture of everybodies mistakes.” “[…] but a lot of people messed with a lot of genes. And then the crosspollination started, creating new genetic hybrids. But the worst were the modifications that weren’t advertised to the public. I know that we started to play with hormones in plants and animals. To make them more productive, larger, tastier.” “Some of that work was made public, but not all of it. The ordinary man on the street definitely didn’t know just how much tampering was going on.” “And then there was a Scottish research centre that started to think about how they could make plants repellent to insect life, so farmers could cut down on insecticides.” “A little bit of the experiment floats away on the wind, which meets up with a little bit of another experiment and then who knows what could happen.”
Bah. That was my least favorite part of the novel. That explanation. It is too much detail and then I started questioning if that is even a legitimate explanation. But it all just boils down to a fear of genetically modified foods. Leave the explanation at the fear…we’ve messed with food and animals and now look what happened. Kind of like with zombie movies. What causes the dead to come back to life? Radiation. A mystery barrel leaked some mystery chemical or gas. Infection. Experiments gone wrong. Sometimes the reason is general or vague and that works because it plays on our larger fears. GM foods could work, but then it gets specific and I start wondering what little bit floats and finds what other little bit and how does that combination result in giant spiders with a collective consciousness? And when I can’t see or understand the answer, I get frustrated. Books that play on our fears are fun. But I think that those explanations are better left vague because the reader’s imagination can still run away with those fears.
Regardless, I still liked the story. I was truly interested in how it was going to end. It kept me turning the pages. It kind of felt like a B movie, but those can be pretty damn entertaining. And this book was.
Stephanie, I faltered a lot on the explanation, too. The prologue mentions chemicals in food, so I wondered if more info isn't released in later books. Either way, with the geneticist's explanation, I kept wondering how in the hell this was even possible. Granted, I'm not a microbiologist, but the explanation had what looked like gaping holes to me, so I kept second-guessing the characters. Still, at the end of the book, I was convinced there must be more to the story than GMO, and the lingering questions make me want to read Feeding Ground.
Stephanie, you made a good point about the benefits of just relaxing and enjoying a B movie. I think I could have done that, could have ignored the bits that had holes in them, if I had liked Matthew better. There definitely was some pure fun to be had here, except Matthew made me too grouchy to find it.
I had problems with the explanation of how the widows came about as well. It seemed a bit far fetched, and I wondered how the geneticist even was directed to that, out of innumerable possibilities, in the first place. I was truly hoping it was just a guess and there was another REAL reason on why these spiders started growing inside humans.
I liked the opening pages of the story. We get the guy (Garrow) in the field trying to move that big rock. After working at it all day, he finally makes some progress with the task. But instead of just having him be gobbled up by the monster, the story shows Rawhead’s point of view. “Beneath the thin crust of earth, Rawhead smelt the sky.” I liked seeing the monster’s point of view as it enters (or re-enters) the world.
I really liked the description of the monster. Within a few lines, I had a distinct image of Rawhead. “His head was breaking the surface now, his black hair wreathed with worms, his scalp seething with tiny red spiders. They’d irritated him a hundred years, those spiders burrowing in to his marrow, and he longed to crush them out. Pull, pull, he willed the human, and Thomas Garrow pulled until his pitiful body had no strength left, and inch by inch Rawhead was hoisted out of his grave in a shroud of prayers.” That tells a lot of information. He’s been buried for a long time. Seemingly against his will. His head and scalp are wormy and buggy. He is able to will people to do things. Add to this that he has been buried under a big, heavy rock and this whole situation just seems like it is going to be bad. The simple, yet precise description is great. Rawhead’s scary presence is obvious, but I’m still curious about his history. Why was he buried? What happened?
The idea that Rawhead was defeated and buried by previous generations adds to his character. It makes him a bit scarier, a bit more intimidating. He was clearly a problem for the earlier generations (which is why they buried him under a rock and avoided that field). But he’s been waiting underground all this time, just waiting for someone to make that mistake and dig him up. So not only is he going to want revenge, but he’s had time to let his feelings fester for a bit.
I don’t know whether or not Rawhead is a monster we’re ever supposed to feel sorry for. He’s bad news from the start and kills anyone or anything he wants. But at the same time, there is the idea that he’s been displaced. “This place was his. Just because they’d tamed the wilderness for a while didn’t meant they owned the earth.” I almost got the feeling that this should have been one of those I Am Legend moments where everybody is a monster depending on the perspective.
I went into this story right after having read the chapter on humor and horror. There seem to be several of examples of that in this selection, and it was interesting noticing those places in the text. One example: When Rawhead kills Gwen’s child (Amelia), Gwen falls down the steps. “Then her head hit the banister, and her neck broke. She bounced down the last six steps a corpse.” It’s not laugh out loud funny, but the wording is light and comical. In addition, it’s at the end of a serious scene where a kid gets killed and eaten. This definitely seems like an attempt to lighten the mood.
Barker, Clive. Books of Blood: Volumes One to Three. New York: Berkley Books, 1998.
I had no idea that this was going to be Silver Bullet. There are a few things that I want to address.
I like the monster’s true identity. It is Reverend Lowe. I know it’s not a new concept, but I like the idea of a character who is supposed to help or protect others having this darker, murderous side. It’s just fun and suspenseful…especially if the readers suspect it and the townspeople don’t.
I also like how the ultimate battle is between the werewolf and a boy in a wheelchair. Super strong, vicious monster versus a crippled kid. I like when a hero has a pretty big weakness. It makes the character easier to relate to because they’re not some perfect ideal. And it makes the overall conflict seem more believable because the monster can be defeated…by someone who has their own set of challenges to overcome. For me, it makes me feel like I might have a chance in a similar situation.
I think a part of Mayberry’s chapter on fight scenes might apply here. He writes that the experience and intent of the characters matters. I think it is fair to say that Marty does not have a lot of experience with fights or defeating werewolves. But his situation puts him in the right mental mindset. Kind of like with Ralphie from A Christmas Story. Again, not another fighter. But he gets pushed to the point where he snaps and takes down the bully. That’s believable. It’s the same with Marty. He’s got to have a lot of pent up frustration and anger about not being able to walk. He’s pissed about fireworks being cancelled; it’s one thing he really looked forward to and that werewolf went and messed that up for him. And when Marty gets a chance to set off a few fireworks in secret, here comes the werewolf to mess it up again. The kid has to snap sometime. He starts with anonymous letters. Then, he reveals his identity. At the end, there is the final fight scene where the boy wins. Even though it seems unlikely to have a child in a wheelchair defeat a monster, I’m willing to believe it in this case.
I have a bit of an issue with how Rev. Lowe became a monster. “This – whatever it is – is nothing I asked for. I wasn’t bitten by a wolf or cursed by a gypsy. It just…happened. I picked some flowers for the vases in the church vestry one day last November. […] I never saw such flowers before…and they were dead before I could get back to town. They turned black, every one.” Rev. Lowe also points out, “They are the animals, not me.” On one hand, I want more information. On the other, I don’t want to know more. This is a neat explanation for how someone turns into a werewolf. It’s all about these flowers. More explanation might be too much and it could kill some of the mystery here. But the important thing is that it was an accident and Rev. Lowe had no idea what was happening. I started feeling a little bad for him. Especially when he thinks that the townspeople are behaving like animals as they hunt him down. This scene just seems to effectively create a moment where he doesn’t seem all that bad.
I'm having trouble commenting directly under your individual posts, so I apologize if this shows up in a weird location. In regards to I AM LEGEND...I thought the lack of bloodlust in the novel was refreshing. Too much gore would detract from the focus on Neville, and since vampires are so heavily ingrained into mythology, it is already understood tha vampires have bloodlust--to touch on it would be superfluous, I think.
In response to Matheson's THE FUNERAL...I woudl agree with you that in terms of story, this woudldn't be memorable or laudable if it was conveyed as a serious work of fiction. When you get down to it, it's a fluff piece...I thought the humor lay in how many words and descriptions Matheson could throw into a single sentence. It made me think of the stereotypical pompous Victorian narratives that were produced by novices who tried to emulate authors like Dickens.
In response to BREEDING GROUND...I wasn't particularly excited about this novel. The beginning held my fascination, because I think Pinborough taps into a primal fear that soon-to-be mothers experience: what is happening to my baby? will he/she be normal? What is this baby doing to my body? Not just in this novel, but in other works I have read, there is a psychological examination of the thoughts that feed a pregnant woman's fears--an initial sense of an alien body, something that needs to be expelled...it's an interesting opposition to the idea that mothers feel an instant, loving bond to their unborn babies. I was hooked by what was happening to Chloe, and though I knew in the back of my mind there would be some sort of monster in her womb, it didn't turn out quite as I expected. The "birth" of the half-eaten child was horrifying and emotionally devastating. The rest of the novel unraveled at that point for me, falling into, as you suggested, the realm of B-movies.
I really liked this story. I don’t know what I was expecting here, but I was pleasantly surprised.
It’s easy to relate to the monster right away because he’s stuck doing a job he doesn’t want to do. The Yattering is sent to drive Jack crazy. But for as much effort as the monster puts into it, Jack seems unaffected. Even after three of his cats are killed, he still seems unaffected. At that point, I kind of felt like I was cheering on the Yattering. Not just so that he could accomplish his task. But so that the Yattering could get some sort of reaction out of the guy. Nothing seemed to bother him and I wanted to see what would get to him and finally break him.
“It was deeply embarrassing, and it was gradually destroying the demon’s self-confidence, seeing this bland victim survive every trial and trick attempted upon him. The Yattering wept. The Yattering screamed.” I think it is easy to relate to this monster because it has very human emotions. Not only is it unable to complete its job, but it is experiencing a range of emotions that we can relate to. And because I can relate to that range of emotions, I almost feel like a part of me supported the monster and I wanted to see it not suffer as much.
But then it becomes clear that Jack has been aware of the Yattering the whole time and has been messing with it. Jack has been faking his responses to everything the Yattering did to him. I started feeling bad for wanting the Yattering to do something worse because Jack had to hide his emotions every time. So, I changed my mind and started feeling bad for Jack. Whatever his plan was, I wanted it to work. I felt really bad for him when he has to ignore Amanda and continue this game with the Yattering. “That was hard. That was almost unforgiveable. […] No, he mustn’t look at Mandy. If he looked at Mandy he might weep, he might break down as the thing wanted him to, then everything would be lost.”
Finally, Jack gets the Yattering to break two of its own rules. He got it to cross the threshold and touch him. I was so happy for Jack. He won! He doesn’t have to worry about his thing tormenting him anymore. He doesn’t have to keep pretending that things don’t bother him. I was relieved. However, I felt bad for the Yattering again. I kind of thought that Jack would just be glad to get rid of the thing and not be bothered by it anymore. Instead, Jack’s evil side surfaces. The Yattering tells Jack that he may not be able to get into heaven if he has contact with the Yattering. Jack thinks about it, but is not concerned at all. As Jack closes the door at the end, it’s almost sad to think that the Yattering is trapped with him.
By the end of the story, I’m not sure which character to feel sorry for. It also kind of feels like I am Legend because I’m not sure who the real monster is. Of course, the Yattering is a monster. But Jack also seems to be a monster by the end of the story. In a way, the two deserve each other and I think the ending is great.
If it were okay to opt out of a book so that I wouldn’t have had to read it or write about it, this one would be it. I expected one thing and got something very different.
Let’s start with some positives though. I liked the structure of the interview. I liked that so many different points of view are used. I also liked the zombies that were under water. That was pretty creepy. Zombies just walking around, lurking under the surface. A slimy hand that brushes your foot or leg before it tries to pull you under. I liked that.
And here we go with the dislikes.
This felt like I Am Legend. But on a global scale. An infection/disease is causing people to become zombies. The non-zombie humans are just as much monsters as the zombies (because they’re not helping each other, they ignore the struggles of others, and they almost kill off other species). Those two things (it’s a disease and the humans are monstrous too) make this very similar to the ideas from I Am Legend. Which is not a bad thing, because that’s a great book. But I think I may have just been looking for something a little different than that.
I wasn’t particularly impressed with the zombies. Overall, that part was kind of blah for me. Instead, my focus seemed to be on how people were reacting to the zombies. I felt frustration for what the people were doing or how they were treating each other. I think the book is an interesting view of how individuals and governments would react to such a situation. But that is exactly what made it a bit boring. The points of view jump around a lot to people in very different geographic locations. The responses of different governments are talked about AND the interactions between those governments were explored. Ugh! While reading, all I could think was “I don’t care!” I wanted to see zombie attacks, not read about how governments responded. I wanted to see how people struggled daily – hourly – with living with zombies.
Even though I liked the numerous points of view, I think I would have liked the novel better had the focus been on a few characters. That way I could experience the day to day struggle of dealing with the zombies. I think that’s what’s really scary. That the zombies are there every day and that you need to deal with that every day. You need to survive, every day. With such a broad look at things, it is hard to see that perspective. I got little pieces from different characters; not an in depth look at a few.
I think this novel could be used for a great discussion about how it functions as a social commentary and what it says about us. I think its strength is in its commentary…not in its ability to be a scary zombie novel.
I agree with your take on the zombies and the still-living monsters. The zombies weren't scary, and the humans were typically monstrous (though the Redeker plan was a bit beyond the worst I might have imagined). I actually liked this book the first time I read it. This time, not so much, and for some of the same reasons you had.
The Yattering and Jack comment: Yes, I do think the lines of who was truly the monster in this story was blurred. The Yattering is just following orders, but Jack consciously makes the decision to bring cats into the house he know will die and subject his daughter's to torment without explanation.
World War Z comment: I agree with you about the jumping around. There were far too many interviewees for me. Some of them refer back to things we hear from previous people, but since there were so many, I couldn't remember where and I found myself paging back just to straighten things out in my head. As the narrator states at the beginning, it's supposed to be about the human element, but with so many short glimpses into their minds, I just didn't connect enough to most of their plights.
If you look at a lot of zombie flicks (and we're talking ZOMBIES, not rage-virus or other type things), the zombies aren't hard to get away from and they're not particularly scary. As with most of Romero's work, the living people are the ones to be feared.
First, I’d like to point out that this movie is older than I remember it being. Not that it matters to anyone…it just surprised me. And made me feel a little old.
But anyway.
I think there are several classically scary things about the monster in alien. It gets inside you through this thing that attaches to your face. And then it bursts out of your chest. Any monster that gets into a person’s body and is inside the body is scary. The fact that it can be inside a person AND that person does not notice it is even scarier. Just the thought of being infected with something like that and not knowing about it, not being able to feel it….ugh. The situation is even worse though when the creature bursts from the person’s body, leaving the host for dead. How horrible. To not only be infected with something, but then to have it kill you on its way out. I think this scene is so scary because it’s based on a common human fear. What if it gets in me? What if something else can take control of my body? The only thing that may have made this scene scarier would be if the alien had turned around and eaten the body it had just come out of.
At the beginning of the movie, the crew does not know what this monster is. The audience learns about the monster along with the crew. This adds to the effectiveness or scariness of the monster because it is unknown. It’s hard to fight something or kill it when you don’t even know what will make it die. But this whole concept is made worse when we discover that there is this secret mission to bring the creature back. One of the main ideas that is discussed is that the military/weapons department wants to study the creature because it is this perfect fighting machine that can’t be killed. This adds some intensity to the monster itself because it seems like a creature that can’t be beaten or destroyed. It also adds a level of frustration for the characters. They learn they were intentionally put in this situation and that their lives are disposable. I didn’t remember that part of the movie until I watched it again, but it pissed me off because I couldn’t imagine being in that situation. All of that, though, makes me think of something we read in the Jonathan Maberry chapter about fight scenes. He wrote about intention and how that factors into a fight scene. For example, someone who has no fighting experience but is fighting for his/her own life can still win against an experienced attacker. It’s the same situation here. The crew learns that they are up against a creature that is perfect and can’t be killed. Ridley discovers the true mission of the trip and that keeping the crew alive wasn’t an important part of the mission. So, scary creature plus infuriating news. Even though the monster is described as indestructible, this may be the kind of situation that Maberry was describing where the weaker person could win against the experienced attacker.
I AM LEGEND by RICHARD MATHESON
ReplyDeleteEven though I don’t typically like vampire novels, this is one of my favorite books. I’ve re-read it several times and I enjoy it each time.
What I particularly enjoy about this book is how it raises the question, “Who is the monster?” Typically, the identity of the monster is obvious and it does not change too much throughout the novel. But by the end of I am Legend, the identity of the monster is blurred. You’ve got the Cortmans, the Ruths, and of course the Robert Nevilles. They are all different, but they are all monsters to someone else. I like when this realization becomes apparent: Neville and the vampires share the same vicious approach to each other and they both fear each other and consider the other to be a monster. More than anything else I like how these realizations happen for the reader.
In addition, Matheson uses specific actions to help the reader understand Neville. The scenes with the dog are heart wrenching. Not so much that the dog dies. But that Neville is so desperate for the dog to trust him. Neville spends a lot of time building a “relationship” with the dog and earning its trust. Another example is Cortman. He torments Neville from the beginning of the book and Neville spends a significant amount of time looking for him. However, once the vampires start to hunt for Cortman, Neville becomes very protective of him. All of a sudden, there are standards for how he should die and how he should be treated.
The other thing I like about the book is how much detail goes into explaining things: the biology of the virus, why garlic works, why a cross may or may not work, etc. Even though those aren’t very exciting moments in the text, I still like them because they show how Matheson plays with traditional vampire conventions. He changes things up and has detailed explanations for why things are the way they are. These also seem like sections that are information dumps. The reader gets a lot of information all at once and it is somewhat disconnected from the action of the story. But it seems to work in this case. I enjoyed reading those parts of the text. Which makes me wonder why it works here and not in other novels. It may be that since so much of this novel is Neville’s internal world (because for most of it, he’s the only character). It makes it so that the novel is set up to follow his thoughts. I don’t know what it is, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
I just thought of this, so I’m going to mention it. But for a vampire novel, there is not a lot of blood sucking. In fact, I don’t think there’s any. I guess there does not need to be because the method of transmission is different. Matheson kept so many of the other vampire conventions, it is just interesting that that one was mentioned the least.
On a side note: if your copy of the book has short stories in it, you have to read “The Near Departed.” It’s a great story. Super short, but super good.
It is interesting how Matheson doesn't spend a lot of time talking about the vampires' blood lust. At the beginning, we know that's why they flock to Neville's house, why they want him to come out - they yearn for his blood. Even when he experiments with the female vampire, he's bitten, but Neville doesn't worry that he'll get the "disease". Really, the blood lust is more heavily described when he is doing his scientific research, but it's buried in other terms and explorations with the bacteria feeding and what happens when it doesn't have sustenance.
ReplyDeleteI think the subtlety of it all was nice, since so many vampire stories out there have the blood lust as a central focus.
-Lori
To tell the truth, much like history is a story told from the winning side, what determines a monster is majority. I thought it was interesting how he became the boogie man.
ReplyDelete“THE FUNERAL" by RICHARD MATHESON
ReplyDeleteI have tried to read this story before and had never finished it. I forced myself to finish it this time and felt disappointed by the overall story. Matheson is one of my favorite writers. But I categorize his writing into two groups: Writing I Like and Writing I Don’t Like. As I thought about those two groups, I realized that they were much more specific than that.
One of the things I like most about Matheson’s writing is that he creates very believable characters in believable settings. Even though there are vampires in I Am Legend, the overall story is believable. Robert Neville and the emotions he goes through are convincing. The biological explanations about the vampires seem legitimate. It feels like something that could really happen.
On the other hand, “The Funeral” is so far-fetched that I just can’t get into it. A group of monsters/creatures gets together for the staged funeral for one member of the group and the event does not go well. I felt blah by the end. I didn’t feel attached to any one particular character and I didn’t care how things worked out by the end. For me, I have to care about how things work out in the end.
One thing that I liked about the story was the description. “The man’s handshake was cool and bone-cracking but Silkline managed to repress reactions to a momentary flicker of agony in his cinnamon eyes.” “And, as a shriveling Silkline watched, the crone slapped on her pointed hat and sprouted minor lightning at the fingertips.” “The crone gestured and all the flowers in the room began exploding like popcorn.” “The Count bicarbonated to a hissing stream of white […].” I was much more interested in reading the descriptions and the word choices than I was in the story itself.
There are two stories that are great. “The Near Departed” and “Prey.” “The Near Departed” is one of my favorite stories and I try to use it in my classes when I can. In a very short number of words, I am interested in the characters, I want to know what is going to happen, and there is a surprise ending. “Prey” is just a fun monster-comes-to-life-and-goes-on-a-rampage story. But again, I care about the characters, I’m willing to believe in the events, and I’m interested in the end.
Even when there are monsters involved, Matheson does the believable well. He can create stories that mimic the real word or that seem so believable that a reader can be convinced that the situation is the real world. Those are the stories that fall into the category of Writing I Like. Matheson also has stories that incorporate characters or situations that are so bizarre that I have a difficult time believing them. Those stories fall into the category of Writing I Don’t Like. “The Funeral” is one of those stories.
BREEDING GROUND by SARAH PINBOROUGH
ReplyDeleteI still have not made my mind up about this book. I liked some parts, but disliked others.
Right away, I was hooked and interested. The idea that the women were gaining an incredible amount of weight and that they were transforming into grotesque versions of themselves was awesome. I had a hard time believing that it was mostly unnoticed and unquestioned, but when I learned about the collective consciousness, it made sense. The narration follows Matthew Edge and we watch as he tries to figure out what is happening to his wife, as his wife “gives birth,” and as he wanders around trying to figure out what is going on. The book had me. I was entertained and interested.
Then, the monster appears. “Its bank of pinprick red eyes glowing angrily as it hissed, long spindly legs pawing at the dull carpet, whatever substance that flowed through its veins almost visible through their revolting milky surface. Its mouth, its two mouths, if they could be called that, clacked wetly as the two sets of mandibles mashed into each other.” They were basically giant spiders. The characters even call them widows. That felt lame. I was expecting some cool creature to be causing this. And it was just giant bugs.
The reason for this happening all boils down to GM foods. “As far as I can see, it’s a mixture of everybodies mistakes.” “[…] but a lot of people messed with a lot of genes. And then the crosspollination started, creating new genetic hybrids. But the worst were the modifications that weren’t advertised to the public. I know that we started to play with hormones in plants and animals. To make them more productive, larger, tastier.” “Some of that work was made public, but not all of it. The ordinary man on the street definitely didn’t know just how much tampering was going on.” “And then there was a Scottish research centre that started to think about how they could make plants repellent to insect life, so farmers could cut down on insecticides.” “A little bit of the experiment floats away on the wind, which meets up with a little bit of another experiment and then who knows what could happen.”
Bah. That was my least favorite part of the novel. That explanation. It is too much detail and then I started questioning if that is even a legitimate explanation. But it all just boils down to a fear of genetically modified foods. Leave the explanation at the fear…we’ve messed with food and animals and now look what happened. Kind of like with zombie movies. What causes the dead to come back to life? Radiation. A mystery barrel leaked some mystery chemical or gas. Infection. Experiments gone wrong. Sometimes the reason is general or vague and that works because it plays on our larger fears. GM foods could work, but then it gets specific and I start wondering what little bit floats and finds what other little bit and how does that combination result in giant spiders with a collective consciousness? And when I can’t see or understand the answer, I get frustrated. Books that play on our fears are fun. But I think that those explanations are better left vague because the reader’s imagination can still run away with those fears.
Regardless, I still liked the story. I was truly interested in how it was going to end. It kept me turning the pages. It kind of felt like a B movie, but those can be pretty damn entertaining. And this book was.
Stephanie, I faltered a lot on the explanation, too. The prologue mentions chemicals in food, so I wondered if more info isn't released in later books. Either way, with the geneticist's explanation, I kept wondering how in the hell this was even possible. Granted, I'm not a microbiologist, but the explanation had what looked like gaping holes to me, so I kept second-guessing the characters. Still, at the end of the book, I was convinced there must be more to the story than GMO, and the lingering questions make me want to read Feeding Ground.
ReplyDeleteStephanie, you made a good point about the benefits of just relaxing and enjoying a B movie. I think I could have done that, could have ignored the bits that had holes in them, if I had liked Matthew better. There definitely was some pure fun to be had here, except Matthew made me too grouchy to find it.
ReplyDeleteI had problems with the explanation of how the widows came about as well. It seemed a bit far fetched, and I wondered how the geneticist even was directed to that, out of innumerable possibilities, in the first place. I was truly hoping it was just a guess and there was another REAL reason on why these spiders started growing inside humans.
ReplyDelete-Lori
RAWHEAD REX by Clive Barker
ReplyDeleteI liked the opening pages of the story. We get the guy (Garrow) in the field trying to move that big rock. After working at it all day, he finally makes some progress with the task. But instead of just having him be gobbled up by the monster, the story shows Rawhead’s point of view. “Beneath the thin crust of earth, Rawhead smelt the sky.” I liked seeing the monster’s point of view as it enters (or re-enters) the world.
I really liked the description of the monster. Within a few lines, I had a distinct image of Rawhead. “His head was breaking the surface now, his black hair wreathed with worms, his scalp seething with tiny red spiders. They’d irritated him a hundred years, those spiders burrowing in to his marrow, and he longed to crush them out. Pull, pull, he willed the human, and Thomas Garrow pulled until his pitiful body had no strength left, and inch by inch Rawhead was hoisted out of his grave in a shroud of prayers.” That tells a lot of information. He’s been buried for a long time. Seemingly against his will. His head and scalp are wormy and buggy. He is able to will people to do things. Add to this that he has been buried under a big, heavy rock and this whole situation just seems like it is going to be bad. The simple, yet precise description is great. Rawhead’s scary presence is obvious, but I’m still curious about his history. Why was he buried? What happened?
The idea that Rawhead was defeated and buried by previous generations adds to his character. It makes him a bit scarier, a bit more intimidating. He was clearly a problem for the earlier generations (which is why they buried him under a rock and avoided that field). But he’s been waiting underground all this time, just waiting for someone to make that mistake and dig him up. So not only is he going to want revenge, but he’s had time to let his feelings fester for a bit.
I don’t know whether or not Rawhead is a monster we’re ever supposed to feel sorry for. He’s bad news from the start and kills anyone or anything he wants. But at the same time, there is the idea that he’s been displaced. “This place was his. Just because they’d tamed the wilderness for a while didn’t meant they owned the earth.” I almost got the feeling that this should have been one of those I Am Legend moments where everybody is a monster depending on the perspective.
I went into this story right after having read the chapter on humor and horror. There seem to be several of examples of that in this selection, and it was interesting noticing those places in the text. One example: When Rawhead kills Gwen’s child (Amelia), Gwen falls down the steps. “Then her head hit the banister, and her neck broke. She bounced down the last six steps a corpse.” It’s not laugh out loud funny, but the wording is light and comical. In addition, it’s at the end of a serious scene where a kid gets killed and eaten. This definitely seems like an attempt to lighten the mood.
Barker, Clive. Books of Blood: Volumes One to Three. New York: Berkley Books, 1998.
CYCLE OF THE WEREWOLF by STEPHEN KING
ReplyDeleteI had no idea that this was going to be Silver Bullet. There are a few things that I want to address.
I like the monster’s true identity. It is Reverend Lowe. I know it’s not a new concept, but I like the idea of a character who is supposed to help or protect others having this darker, murderous side. It’s just fun and suspenseful…especially if the readers suspect it and the townspeople don’t.
I also like how the ultimate battle is between the werewolf and a boy in a wheelchair. Super strong, vicious monster versus a crippled kid. I like when a hero has a pretty big weakness. It makes the character easier to relate to because they’re not some perfect ideal. And it makes the overall conflict seem more believable because the monster can be defeated…by someone who has their own set of challenges to overcome. For me, it makes me feel like I might have a chance in a similar situation.
I think a part of Mayberry’s chapter on fight scenes might apply here. He writes that the experience and intent of the characters matters. I think it is fair to say that Marty does not have a lot of experience with fights or defeating werewolves. But his situation puts him in the right mental mindset. Kind of like with Ralphie from A Christmas Story. Again, not another fighter. But he gets pushed to the point where he snaps and takes down the bully. That’s believable. It’s the same with Marty. He’s got to have a lot of pent up frustration and anger about not being able to walk. He’s pissed about fireworks being cancelled; it’s one thing he really looked forward to and that werewolf went and messed that up for him. And when Marty gets a chance to set off a few fireworks in secret, here comes the werewolf to mess it up again. The kid has to snap sometime. He starts with anonymous letters. Then, he reveals his identity. At the end, there is the final fight scene where the boy wins. Even though it seems unlikely to have a child in a wheelchair defeat a monster, I’m willing to believe it in this case.
I have a bit of an issue with how Rev. Lowe became a monster. “This – whatever it is – is nothing I asked for. I wasn’t bitten by a wolf or cursed by a gypsy. It just…happened. I picked some flowers for the vases in the church vestry one day last November. […] I never saw such flowers before…and they were dead before I could get back to town. They turned black, every one.” Rev. Lowe also points out, “They are the animals, not me.” On one hand, I want more information. On the other, I don’t want to know more. This is a neat explanation for how someone turns into a werewolf. It’s all about these flowers. More explanation might be too much and it could kill some of the mystery here. But the important thing is that it was an accident and Rev. Lowe had no idea what was happening. I started feeling a little bad for him. Especially when he thinks that the townspeople are behaving like animals as they hunt him down. This scene just seems to effectively create a moment where he doesn’t seem all that bad.
Overall, I really enjoyed this selection.
I'm having trouble commenting directly under your individual posts, so I apologize if this shows up in a weird location. In regards to I AM LEGEND...I thought the lack of bloodlust in the novel was refreshing. Too much gore would detract from the focus on Neville, and since vampires are so heavily ingrained into mythology, it is already understood tha vampires have bloodlust--to touch on it would be superfluous, I think.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Matheson's THE FUNERAL...I woudl agree with you that in terms of story, this woudldn't be memorable or laudable if it was conveyed as a serious work of fiction. When you get down to it, it's a fluff piece...I thought the humor lay in how many words and descriptions Matheson could throw into a single sentence. It made me think of the stereotypical pompous Victorian narratives that were produced by novices who tried to emulate authors like Dickens.
ReplyDeleteIn response to BREEDING GROUND...I wasn't particularly excited about this novel. The beginning held my fascination, because I think Pinborough taps into a primal fear that soon-to-be mothers experience: what is happening to my baby? will he/she be normal? What is this baby doing to my body? Not just in this novel, but in other works I have read, there is a psychological examination of the thoughts that feed a pregnant woman's fears--an initial sense of an alien body, something that needs to be expelled...it's an interesting opposition to the idea that mothers feel an instant, loving bond to their unborn babies. I was hooked by what was happening to Chloe, and though I knew in the back of my mind there would be some sort of monster in her womb, it didn't turn out quite as I expected. The "birth" of the half-eaten child was horrifying and emotionally devastating. The rest of the novel unraveled at that point for me, falling into, as you suggested, the realm of B-movies.
ReplyDeleteTHE YATTERING AND JACK by Clive Barker
ReplyDeleteI really liked this story. I don’t know what I was expecting here, but I was pleasantly surprised.
It’s easy to relate to the monster right away because he’s stuck doing a job he doesn’t want to do. The Yattering is sent to drive Jack crazy. But for as much effort as the monster puts into it, Jack seems unaffected. Even after three of his cats are killed, he still seems unaffected. At that point, I kind of felt like I was cheering on the Yattering. Not just so that he could accomplish his task. But so that the Yattering could get some sort of reaction out of the guy. Nothing seemed to bother him and I wanted to see what would get to him and finally break him.
“It was deeply embarrassing, and it was gradually destroying the demon’s self-confidence, seeing this bland victim survive every trial and trick attempted upon him. The Yattering wept. The Yattering screamed.” I think it is easy to relate to this monster because it has very human emotions. Not only is it unable to complete its job, but it is experiencing a range of emotions that we can relate to. And because I can relate to that range of emotions, I almost feel like a part of me supported the monster and I wanted to see it not suffer as much.
But then it becomes clear that Jack has been aware of the Yattering the whole time and has been messing with it. Jack has been faking his responses to everything the Yattering did to him. I started feeling bad for wanting the Yattering to do something worse because Jack had to hide his emotions every time. So, I changed my mind and started feeling bad for Jack. Whatever his plan was, I wanted it to work. I felt really bad for him when he has to ignore Amanda and continue this game with the Yattering. “That was hard. That was almost unforgiveable. […] No, he mustn’t look at Mandy. If he looked at Mandy he might weep, he might break down as the thing wanted him to, then everything would be lost.”
Finally, Jack gets the Yattering to break two of its own rules. He got it to cross the threshold and touch him. I was so happy for Jack. He won! He doesn’t have to worry about his thing tormenting him anymore. He doesn’t have to keep pretending that things don’t bother him. I was relieved. However, I felt bad for the Yattering again. I kind of thought that Jack would just be glad to get rid of the thing and not be bothered by it anymore. Instead, Jack’s evil side surfaces. The Yattering tells Jack that he may not be able to get into heaven if he has contact with the Yattering. Jack thinks about it, but is not concerned at all. As Jack closes the door at the end, it’s almost sad to think that the Yattering is trapped with him.
By the end of the story, I’m not sure which character to feel sorry for. It also kind of feels like I am Legend because I’m not sure who the real monster is. Of course, the Yattering is a monster. But Jack also seems to be a monster by the end of the story. In a way, the two deserve each other and I think the ending is great.
WORLD WAR Z by MAX BROOKS
ReplyDeleteIf it were okay to opt out of a book so that I wouldn’t have had to read it or write about it, this one would be it. I expected one thing and got something very different.
Let’s start with some positives though. I liked the structure of the interview. I liked that so many different points of view are used. I also liked the zombies that were under water. That was pretty creepy. Zombies just walking around, lurking under the surface. A slimy hand that brushes your foot or leg before it tries to pull you under. I liked that.
And here we go with the dislikes.
This felt like I Am Legend. But on a global scale. An infection/disease is causing people to become zombies. The non-zombie humans are just as much monsters as the zombies (because they’re not helping each other, they ignore the struggles of others, and they almost kill off other species). Those two things (it’s a disease and the humans are monstrous too) make this very similar to the ideas from I Am Legend. Which is not a bad thing, because that’s a great book. But I think I may have just been looking for something a little different than that.
I wasn’t particularly impressed with the zombies. Overall, that part was kind of blah for me. Instead, my focus seemed to be on how people were reacting to the zombies. I felt frustration for what the people were doing or how they were treating each other. I think the book is an interesting view of how individuals and governments would react to such a situation. But that is exactly what made it a bit boring. The points of view jump around a lot to people in very different geographic locations. The responses of different governments are talked about AND the interactions between those governments were explored. Ugh! While reading, all I could think was “I don’t care!” I wanted to see zombie attacks, not read about how governments responded. I wanted to see how people struggled daily – hourly – with living with zombies.
Even though I liked the numerous points of view, I think I would have liked the novel better had the focus been on a few characters. That way I could experience the day to day struggle of dealing with the zombies. I think that’s what’s really scary. That the zombies are there every day and that you need to deal with that every day. You need to survive, every day. With such a broad look at things, it is hard to see that perspective. I got little pieces from different characters; not an in depth look at a few.
I think this novel could be used for a great discussion about how it functions as a social commentary and what it says about us. I think its strength is in its commentary…not in its ability to be a scary zombie novel.
I agree with your take on the zombies and the still-living monsters. The zombies weren't scary, and the humans were typically monstrous (though the Redeker plan was a bit beyond the worst I might have imagined). I actually liked this book the first time I read it. This time, not so much, and for some of the same reasons you had.
ReplyDeleteThe Yattering and Jack comment: Yes, I do think the lines of who was truly the monster in this story was blurred. The Yattering is just following orders, but Jack consciously makes the decision to bring cats into the house he know will die and subject his daughter's to torment without explanation.
ReplyDeleteWorld War Z comment: I agree with you about the jumping around. There were far too many interviewees for me. Some of them refer back to things we hear from previous people, but since there were so many, I couldn't remember where and I found myself paging back just to straighten things out in my head. As the narrator states at the beginning, it's supposed to be about the human element, but with so many short glimpses into their minds, I just didn't connect enough to most of their plights.
-Lori
If you look at a lot of zombie flicks (and we're talking ZOMBIES, not rage-virus or other type things), the zombies aren't hard to get away from and they're not particularly scary. As with most of Romero's work, the living people are the ones to be feared.
ReplyDeleteALIEN
ReplyDeleteFirst, I’d like to point out that this movie is older than I remember it being. Not that it matters to anyone…it just surprised me. And made me feel a little old.
But anyway.
I think there are several classically scary things about the monster in alien. It gets inside you through this thing that attaches to your face. And then it bursts out of your chest. Any monster that gets into a person’s body and is inside the body is scary. The fact that it can be inside a person AND that person does not notice it is even scarier. Just the thought of being infected with something like that and not knowing about it, not being able to feel it….ugh. The situation is even worse though when the creature bursts from the person’s body, leaving the host for dead. How horrible. To not only be infected with something, but then to have it kill you on its way out. I think this scene is so scary because it’s based on a common human fear. What if it gets in me? What if something else can take control of my body? The only thing that may have made this scene scarier would be if the alien had turned around and eaten the body it had just come out of.
At the beginning of the movie, the crew does not know what this monster is. The audience learns about the monster along with the crew. This adds to the effectiveness or scariness of the monster because it is unknown. It’s hard to fight something or kill it when you don’t even know what will make it die. But this whole concept is made worse when we discover that there is this secret mission to bring the creature back. One of the main ideas that is discussed is that the military/weapons department wants to study the creature because it is this perfect fighting machine that can’t be killed. This adds some intensity to the monster itself because it seems like a creature that can’t be beaten or destroyed. It also adds a level of frustration for the characters. They learn they were intentionally put in this situation and that their lives are disposable. I didn’t remember that part of the movie until I watched it again, but it pissed me off because I couldn’t imagine being in that situation. All of that, though, makes me think of something we read in the Jonathan Maberry chapter about fight scenes. He wrote about intention and how that factors into a fight scene. For example, someone who has no fighting experience but is fighting for his/her own life can still win against an experienced attacker. It’s the same situation here. The crew learns that they are up against a creature that is perfect and can’t be killed. Ridley discovers the true mission of the trip and that keeping the crew alive wasn’t an important part of the mission. So, scary creature plus infuriating news. Even though the monster is described as indestructible, this may be the kind of situation that Maberry was describing where the weaker person could win against the experienced attacker.
Great movie! I enjoyed watching it again.