I Am Legend
Nov 8, 2010 9:22:47 GMT -8
Post by ~vola! on Nov 8, 2010 9:22:47 GMT -8
So, I just finished reading Richard Matheson's I Am Legend for a class. On the cover of the copy I have, there's a quote of praise from Dean Koontz, calling it "the most riveting and clever vampire novel since Dracula" or something along those lines. Funny thing, I didn't find Dracula to be either of those things. Bram Stoker was actually kind of like the Stephenie Meyer of the Victorian age, in terms of what he did for the vampire-horror genre--he made up a TON of shit that we take for granted as part of the vampire canon today. He was just less fucking obnoxious about it, and he didn't make the Count sparkle. Also, he wasn't morally opposed to giving his concept of the sexy vampire a couple of really erotic scenes, an aspect of the book that Smeyer has expressly said she didn't like, because Mormons are anti-fun.
So, you know, I went into I Am Legend with more than a little apprehension.
Fucking awesome novel, I have to say. The vampires are...well, they're interesting. In the three film adaptations that most people are aware of (The Last Man On Earth with Vincent Price, Omega Man with Charlton Heston and I Am Legend with Will Smith, but fuck that last one, the similarity ends with the title), the vampires are more like zombies. Zompires. Vambies.
In the novel, they're a lot more developed as characters, with a lot more potential to get way too philosophical. The vampires in the novel retain many human characteristics but twist and exaggerate them--the vampire women, for instance, spend much of the novel trying to convince Robert Neville to come out of his house and have sex with them. The characteristic of sexuality is twisted and exaggerated until all trace of humanity is erased. Even though having sexual intercourse purely for pleasure as opposed to procreation is something that very few species besides humans do (dolphins and bonobo monkeys are the only ones that come to mind), the exaggeration of the sex drive in the female vampires results in the abjection of the very idea of sex and the repression of such desires on the part of Neville.
Yeah, I'll stop now before I get way too deep. I have to write a paper on this, so if anyone else has read I Am Legend and has any sort of interpretive insight, I'd love to read it.[/font][/color]
So, you know, I went into I Am Legend with more than a little apprehension.
Fucking awesome novel, I have to say. The vampires are...well, they're interesting. In the three film adaptations that most people are aware of (The Last Man On Earth with Vincent Price, Omega Man with Charlton Heston and I Am Legend with Will Smith, but fuck that last one, the similarity ends with the title), the vampires are more like zombies. Zompires. Vambies.
In the novel, they're a lot more developed as characters, with a lot more potential to get way too philosophical. The vampires in the novel retain many human characteristics but twist and exaggerate them--the vampire women, for instance, spend much of the novel trying to convince Robert Neville to come out of his house and have sex with them. The characteristic of sexuality is twisted and exaggerated until all trace of humanity is erased. Even though having sexual intercourse purely for pleasure as opposed to procreation is something that very few species besides humans do (dolphins and bonobo monkeys are the only ones that come to mind), the exaggeration of the sex drive in the female vampires results in the abjection of the very idea of sex and the repression of such desires on the part of Neville.
Yeah, I'll stop now before I get way too deep. I have to write a paper on this, so if anyone else has read I Am Legend and has any sort of interpretive insight, I'd love to read it.[/font][/color]