I am Legend

Hello,

For this blog, I will be talking about the novel “I am Legend” By Richard Matheson. “I am Legend” is about a man named Robert Neville who lives in a world full of bloodthirsty creatures who only come out at night. He hopes that he is not the only surviver and tries to find more uninfected people. To start off this blog, I am going to talk about the author, Richard Matheson, what happened so far up to page 183, then go on about how the previous books we read were from supernatural points of view, yet in this story, it is more biological then supernatural.

Richard Matheson was born in New Jersey on February, 20, 1926 and is still living. Richard is of Norwegian decent and graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School in 1943. He went into the military and was in World War II. After the war ended, in 1949 he earned his bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri. Richard Matheson got married to Ruth Ann Woodson in 1952 and has four children.

Richard Matheson made his first short story in 1950 named “Born of Man and Woman”. This story is about a child being beaten and neglected and finally taking up for himself. Richard Matheson published his first novel in 1953 called “Someone is Bleeding”. Richard Matheson also wrote several scripts for the hit TV show “The Twilight Zone”.

During the beginning of the book, we get a basic overview of Richard Neville's day. Working, eating, whatever else, then sleeping, during the night. During these pages, a multitude of things happen. Richard is planning on soundproofing his house from these nocturnal creatures, growing of the garlic, etc. This all seems to go well until he goes to his wife's (virginia) burial ground and after visiting her crypt, realizes that it is only three o'clock in the afternoon, yet he soon realizes that his watch is actually broken and that he left the garage door open. When he gets home he arrives to an angry mob of bloodsucking creatures waiting for him and he manages to beat them off and safely gets back into his house. After time passes, he gets his house back in order.

During the reading pages, One question that he had on his mind was the effects of certain things to these vampires. One good example is that Richard was wondering why does garlic, sunlight, and crosses effect zombies and why do you have to stake them in the heart to kill them. He conducted many experiments on how this works and is still baffled.

In the previous stories, Vampires were more magical and supernatural. Yet, in this story, these creatures developed from bombings that happened. Richard's wife and kids became infected and now Richard lives alone. During the story, they say that the United States have won the war yet his family thinks that the United States haven't won the war, the insects have. Insects were carrying diseases from the dust that was in the air and were infecting people with contagious diseases.

Overall, this part of the book is very good and I am ready to write my next blog about the ending of this book. This book is also very unpredictable. It does not give off as much foreshadowing so you would have an idea of what is going to happen next and that is what I like about the book so far. This book is not like any book that I have heard of before because when I think of vampires, I think of Legends, yet in this book this “new age” is kind of taking over and I believe that they are going to eventually get Richard.