I Am Legend

Things were different before the Internet. We sat down to do computer work…and actually did computer work rather than follow Internet links into oblivion. We never crawled into a corner, hugged our knees and lamented, “Why, oh, why did I send that email?” We were blissfully unaware that we would someday devote hours of our life to funny cat videos. It was also a lot harder to learn about and track down unheard of books due to no oblivion-leading links.

I first came across the wonderfully epic title I Am Legend while reading Danse Macabre by Stephen King. I had never even heard of Richard Matheson at that point. The premise of the book sank a fishhook in my brain — the last man on earth struggles against a world filled with vampires…and loneliness.

Eureka! I had to read that. Without the Internet the only way to do that was to go to the library. What were the odds my local library would have I Am Legend on the shelf? Pretty much zero, which was the case. Nevertheless, the librarian said she would try to track it down.

I finally got the call about a year later — “Your book is in…”

My dad drove me to the library. I remember clutching the book in my hands on the way home. The cover was not what I expected. It looked like something someone whipped up in 10th grade study hall, perhaps while wearing a jean jacket with a Megadeth patch on it (I knew a guy with a jacket like that in high school; he looked like he started shaving in the fourth grade, and I was pretty sure that he could shoot fire from his eyes, if so inclined).

As soon as I got home, I rushed to my room and experienced one of the best reading experiences of a boy’s golden age of reading experiences — that time between ages 12-20 when every book is a new and awesome discovery. At that time, cynicism and familiarity of tropes have yet to rear their ugly heads.

I can still recall the first sentence of I Am Legend with no effort at all.

On those cloudy days, Robert Neville was never sure when sunset came, and sometimes they were in the streets before he could get back.

Simple and workman-like prose, but it lives on its premise. That sentence always seemed “gray” to me, and when I read I Am Legend, I imagined the story in black and white. It helps that the book was written in 1954, plus imagery like undead-former-friend Cortman standing before a barricaded suburban house at night crying, “Come out, Neville!” is dark social expressionism.

In addition to imagining the story in black and white, I always saw its themes in black and white. I never viewed Neville as a bad guy. He was trying to survive a hopeless, horrifying situation and deal with crushing loneliness. Even as it is revealed that Neville is killing “vampires” that turn out to be still somewhat human, I never considered him a bad guy. Again, he was trying to survive. Circumstances he was unaware of happened to align against him.

But then something was brought to my attention that brought gray to the book’s perceived black and white themes. It’s a throwaway sentence that I never gave much thought to, but it has a lot of implication. During Neville’s isolation, he struggles to deal with celibacy, and the vampire women that stand on his lawn every night take advantage of that struggle to entice him to come out.

At one point Neville captures a female vampire to experiment on. He is attempting to find out what causes the vampire disease. During interrogation, Neville is tempted to rape her and loses his temper as she injures him. Cut to the throwaway line: “Ten minutes later he threw her body out the front door and slammed it again in their faces.”

I always assumed Neville killed the female vampire, like he had done to so many others, and was simply getting rid of the body. But that ten minute gap…a lot can happen in ten minutes.

Did something worse happen?

Matheson never goes into it, and that’s probably for the best. Writing is usually showing, not telling, but not showing can also be an important tool that lets parts of the story be a Rorschach ink blot. I like to think Neville fought the good fight and did nothing more than stake the vampire. But if one is so inclined to think of Neville as a monster, room exists for Neville to become a monster within that sentence.

When I finished reading I Am Legend, I turned back to the first page and started over again. I eventually learned two film versions of I Am Legend were floating around out there. The first, The Last Man On Earth, with Vincent Price was on one night around 3 a.m. Did I get up to watch it? You bet I did! It was okay, fairly faithful if a little clunky.

The second filmed version of I Am Legend was The Omega Man with Charlton Heston. That one came on in the afternoon one day, and I had to finagle myself out of work to watch it. Charlton automatically gives The Omega Man a degree of cool just on strength of charisma, but I found the film to be a little bit too much a product of its times. It feels like it is dragging an anchor made of hippies.

Then came the Will Smith version of I Am Legend, where the last man on earth battles crazed cartoons. It’s a decent movie, except that it is kind of like Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, just without establishing a world where cartoons exist alongside humans. The cartoons in I Am Legend are just there, new eyesores born in CGI, glaring distractions assaulting the fortress of the suspension of disbelief.

I Am Rendered.

Poorly.

Makeup tests had been done to use real actors for the creatures, but the studio went in the CGI direction. Ah, what could have been. At one time, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ridley Scott were also attached to the film. Ah, what could have been…again. Oh well, given enough time, I’m sure another film version of I Am Legend will pop up. Until then, we’ve still got the book, just not with as good of covers.