I Am Legend Pt 2

After first being assigned this book, I honestly thought it would be fairly similar to the movie. thank god i was wrong. The two are different but i love both. The book was phenomenal in the sense that it really depicted feeling for the vampires. Initially when looking at them, we are grasped with the feelings of disgust, and an almost hatred for the vampires. After reading about Ben Cortman's death however, there was a sense of sympathy for them. I believe it was during that point when the book took two rather large turns.


The first turn being that Robert Neville did not get his last great stand with Ben Cortman. Upon reading this passage, I actually had sympathy for both Ben and Neville. Ben went down in flames so to speak, he was shot on the roof, he died, simply because he was a "dead" vampire. I had sympathy for Neville because the anger that is portrayed at this point on Neville's behalf, is a hard feeling to not side with. He wanted Ben, it was almost like his only friend, acquaintance if you will was being taken down before his eyes.


The second turn the book took was that of Neville being the odd man out. As stated in the other post, he is the one that is feared, he is the one that has something wrong about him. Just because he is "normal" by our comparisons, does not mean so in his world.


This idea is a hard one to ignore, because it is one that everyone can relate to, which is what i think makes the ending so difficult. Everyone has had that feeling of being the odd one out looking in. That's why this ending, the final passage is so gripping. It really makes a point of everyone staring at him, in fear, shock. It finally wasn't Neville looking at them, it was everyone looking at him.


This book was absolutely fantastic in the sense that there weren't many unanswered questions, other than that of "why didn't he kill himself to begin with?" Pushing that notion aside however, it explains a relatively plausible event. A bacteria infecting many people, and one man figuring out how to cure it. Upon this reading, i do feel suicide would be a little much.