Just got my copy in the mail and was up 'til 1:30 last night reading. Haven’t finished yet but I have a question.
First, I have to say I hate literary symbolism, I want a good action-packed story and interesting characters. Keep your symbolism. Witness the Razor frak party where Pike had to explain that Kara only had her palm read by a cylon metaphorically. Thanks Pike! I was so lost until that post…
Any who, is the dog “hope”? And would it be too spoilery to talk about this?
Well, I’ll respect your opinion, of course. Let me just say, though, that if a story is nothing but “action-packed,” then you’ll end up with something like, say, Hitman.
Symbolism (and the allegories, the metaphors, the allusions, references, and all the other literary devices) is a way of deepening the story, and that’s what I want: I’m looking for profound stuff that I can’t just sit through and relax, but that will challenge my belief system, my points of view, that will raise questions and doubts, that will point out to me human fallabilities, frailties, flaws. Symbolism can also be an agent of inter-textuality, an incentive to go look up what it’s referring to, to seek out other texts that will enlighten you further.
Do you merely want a cheap thrill?
< shrinking emotion=“horror” because=“I’m being flip to the guy that started the ‘Ptolemaic concept of the universe?’ thread” >
Hmm. Yeah that’s pretty much it.
< /shrinking >
Tho, I completely concede to your Hitman point.
That’s gonna haunt me for a while, isn’t it? :o
Hmm. Yeah that’s pretty much it.
< /shrinking >
I hadn’t meant to be condescending, I apologize if it sounded like that.
And, for what it’s worth, I’ll come out and admit to have read my share of “cheap thrill” books. The complete Jack Ryan series by Tom Clancy, some of the Midship Man series by David Feintuch, some of the Honor Harrington series by David Weber, The Puppet Masters by RAH, and - the worst Star Trek novels of all time - Ghost Ship and Dreadnought by Diane Carey. I do have skeletons in my scifi closet… :rolleyes:
All the books selected for the GWC book club, however, have so far been magna opera of SciFi history and it’s only natural that these perennial masterworks do have a certain depth - otherwise, the discussions would be pretty short, wouldn’t they?
But your initial question about the dog has still not been adressed. Well, personally, I tend to treat literature with a reader-oriented approach, so there’s no ultimate, unquestionable truth to the dog, whatever it means for you when you read the book is right. And if it means something else to another reader, nobody could say that that was wrong, and if somebody thinks heck, it’s just a dog, it doesn’t have any emblematic meaning beyond that, that’s also fine. I believe that there are as many versions of a certain text as there are readers.
Oh, and by the way: if the book kept you up so long, it can’t have been that bad?^^
As far as the dog goes, I always looked at it just being there to show how lonely Neville is. One aspect I liked about this story, was how Matheson tried to explain vampirism from a scientific point of view. Oh, and the last paragraph—as soon as I got to “I am legend,” I just sort of sat there stunned. Good writing.
Now as far as action vs. the more profound stuff goes, I just want to be entertained. So for me, the authors can throw in that cerebral stuff, but if there’s no action, I am not going to finish the book. I think the better authors mix the two, and the successful ones keep the story well paced. I read this one science fiction book—been a while, and I can’t remember the name—that went into all this incredible detail of how the technology and cultures worked in the story’s world. Never finished it—too slow paced. I think I had a point, but I can’t remember where I was going with this…don’t you hate it when that happens?
oh yeah, his scientific explanations were fun! after I had finished “I am Legend,” I started to read the original Dracula by Bram Stoker, I was so curious.
Oh yeah, so far it’s a great story. Some action-[spoiler]the chase scene after the cemetary visit to his wife’s crypt[/spoiler], introspection-[spoiler]why does he only experiement on women vampires?[/spoiler], and lust & violence. The only thing that would make it better is a couple of explosions.
Update, didn’t get a chance to read more last night as the lack of sleep kicked in and I was catching some Z’s by 10 or so.
I like Matheson’s writing style. He makes his point with just enough detail. How old was Matheson when he wrote this? I bet he was young, I’m envious of his writing skill. A lesser writer would have used more words and I’d have so been annoyed.
I was stricken by Neville’s description of the mind numbing, bone-grinding monotony of his post-apocolyptic existance. Sounds a lot like normal life, I fix the house, find food, listen to music and sometimes wonder why I go on. Of course, my options are vastly different than Neville’s. For some reason I’d never considered that that kind of life could be anything except terrifying. I guess it’s human nature to become innured to even constant danger.
The boredom factor help me make sense of Neville’s scientific study of vampire myths and begin to explore why they did or didn’t work. I’ve always wondered about the cross thing myself.
FWIW, if you haven’t read the book and do much googling (looking for interpretations about the fraking dog, for instance) spoilers abound but there is some good stuff out there. My favorite so far is the I Am Legend Archive at http://www.iamlegendarchive.com/
. This guy loves I Am Legend the way Jerry Fletcher loves Catcher in the Rye. I don’t think he’s passed a copy that he didn’t buy.
There’s an interesting email/mail interview with Matheson at the I Am Legend Archive where the author talks about the story’s origins and subsequent critical interpretations that say it is a metaphor for the spread of cold-war ear communism:
“… I don’t think the book means anything more than it is: the story of a man trying to survive in a world of vampires. If people want to assume it later, that’s up to them. It has been said that a writer is entitled to an interpretation of his work that people choose to give it.”
So, Galaxy Ranger, it looks like this is way my kind of book! And, FWIW, I now think the dog is just a dog.
Lucky this happens to me all the time! Welcome to the club.
I’m not sure, but I think the book belongs to his “early period.”^^
The thing about the cross is very interesting indeed. Bram Stoker didn’t actually invent vampire legends, it was more like he collected different bits and pieces and but them together, hence inventing the vampire genre and in his “Dracula,” Van Helsing says that vampires are truly, inherently evil, they’re incarnations of the devil and so they would naturally fear the cross. I enjoyed Matheson’s scientific approach, but on the other hand, it took away a little but of the mystique, I mean vampires belong more to the genre of fantasy than “science” fiction, but once in a while, I’m okay with a nice crossover, and I am Legend certainly is good one.
I’ve been thinking about the dog. It’s his companion and it becomes an ersatz family for him … [spoiler]and then he has to kill it off just like he lost the other members of his real family as well, so the dog could well be a symbol of eventual loss?[/spoiler]
Never been part of a book club. And I don’t think I can stay faithful here let alone read a whole book in a month, not that I physically can’t I just have so many other hobbies that I don’t have time to devour a book like I use to
Still I finally finished this book. I have a rule. No seeing the movie until i read the original book.
That said I was disappointed by the book. The book had a flair of the truly unbeliveable…but that was only because I have read Wolrd War Z. You want a zombie Apocalyse book…thats THE book!
I couldn’t for the life of me get into how the vampires came about. It was ripped right from some pulp story, very cliche in many parts…though the ending was…WOW. Haven’t seen the movie yet. Probably not likely too until the DVD. My life just doesn’t get me to the theater much any more.
Still it was entertaining and got me to thinking.
… as I’m sure the movie character is only “inspired by” the character in the book. Matheson seems way over Hollywood’s interest in the story and they way they keep going back to the I am Legend well.
‘Academy’ Award for Will Smith
Compiled by LAWRENCE VAN GELDER
Published: February 25, 2008
Will Smith has won an academy award — the first Cadet Choice Movie Award, bestowed by the cadets of the United States Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. The accolade honors a fictional screen character who best personifies West Point leadership qualities. Mr. Smith, who received 27 percent of 2,200 online votes, was chosen for his portrayal of the Army virologist Robert Neville in “I Am Legend,” about a zombie-making virus that devastates Manhattan.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/25/movies/25arts-ACADEMYAWARD_BRF.html?ref=arts
Book club reading update: I lost steam on the book after getting spoiled on the ending while researching Matheson and the dog thing. 
Be careful out there.
Looks like I am Legend was published when Matheson was 28 years old (based on Wikepedia’s assertion that he was born in '26 and the book came out in '54.) And apparently it’s his third novel. Wow! I can’t imagine how he must have felt when he finished it, the ending is so powerful.
But, [spoiler]did he kill the dog or did it just die? It seems to me a lot of the narrative went to pointing out that Neville never would have laid a hand on the dog if it wasn’t already sick.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler] I don’t really remember, the book and the movie are pretty mingled in my head right now. Anyway, it doesn’t matter if the disease killed the dog or he killed the dog before the disease would have killed it. What’s important is that the disease got the dog, the same disease that had also killed his family some time earlier. With the dog taking the place of a sort of surrogate family, the virus killed his family twice - kind of. It’s even more powerful a theme if he really killed the dog, because then the virus MADE him do that. And he can’t even avenge himself on somebody or something because the virus is just that, a virus, it’s not even alive (I think I remember that one distinction between viruses and bacteria was that bacteria are real living cells whereas a virus always needs a host, but I could be wrong, it’s been a long time since biology class.)[/spoiler]
I guess I can see how if you were expecting a zombie or vampire novel you might be disappointed, but for me the draw was how Neville acts in this world where he is the last human alive and is being hunted by this new species. Now the species could be aliens, zombies, vampires, demons, or whatever, but the basic premise is still the same: what happens when you are the last man alive?
Now as far as the vampires being cliché, I don’t know, but I think this book came out in the early 50s, so the book might be more of a trend setter, but I don’t know.
By the way, it sounds like your job keeps you pretty busy, so you likely don’t have time for video games, but there is an awesome game out there called Dead Rising you might like (for Xbox 360). It’s a take on night of the living dead with the main character stuck in a mall of zombies. Pretty much anything you would find in a mall is in the game, and all the objects can be used as a weapon. My favorite ones have been a guitar and a lawnmower.
Its not the job so much as the cost. I mean…I have a couple expensive hobbies already. Not only that but I was shocked when I went to buy a new PC this year. It only took a few hours to figure out most of the cost was going into the high end graphics and such for gaming. Once I decided to stop PC and video games my other geeky hobbies got an influx of cash.
Yeah, I’m that way too, I stopped keeping up with the development in computer technology years ago, you basically have to buy some piece of new equipment every other month in order to be able to play the latest games and for me, it’s just not worth it, it’s money better spent on books or other neat things.
I finally saw the movie version, and I would just say its version of “I am legend,” at the end left me pretty underwhelmed.