The true monster is Robert Neville, a fact which of course is his final revelation before death.Įven in flashback, as kind as Neville appears to be to his wife (though not particularly his daughter, who is an absent, fleeting thought to him both in life and death), he’s not necessarily the most likable hero. The creatures assaulting his home every night–vampire, zombie…it almost doesn’t matter what they are so much as that they are, to him, inhuman, and therefore to be avoided in the nighttime and slain in the daytime–aren’t the true monster. The horror of I Am Legend is the horror of a man left alone with his own thoughts.

As a piece of modern horror, I enjoyed it, but I had serious issues with the protagonist. In fact, none of the many adaptations of this book are even remotely faithful to this piece, which is actually chilling in its subtlety.

This week it’s Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, which if you’ve only seen the Will Smith film is worth a read. I’m taking a course on monsters in horror fiction, and over the next few months will be blogging about responses to some classic and contemporary works.

I am legend monsters in book