I don’t know what the deal is, I have been reading a lot of books lately about the destruction of mankind. I Am Legend and The Stand is about diseases that destroy civilization. A Canticle for Leibowitz is about nuclear destruction. Judgement of Nuremberg was about men who wished to destroy civilization as we knew it. It seems a little morbid. I also just bought another copy of I Am Adolf Hitler, since my first copy was stolen by my friend Tony. I plan to read it when I finish Canticle. I think I need some lighter reading material.
Archive for the 'Literary Analysis' Category
One set of books I have enjoyed over the years are the Drizzt novels by R.A. Salvatore. He is good at description of battles but he also brings into it a psychological aspect as he delves into the minds of his characters, particularly Drizzt. I highly recommend the read there are a lot of books though as he has been writing them for twenty years and has published one every year or so. here is a guide
The Dark Elf Trilogy Homeland, Exile and Sojourn are the story of Drizzt early life in his world of the dark elves. They are probably the best of all he has written, though they are the second trilogy he wrote. He wrote these partly to explain Drizzt’s heritage but also to introduce the dark elves that would cause so much trouble in later novels.
The first trilogy The Icewind Dale trilogy includes The Crystal Shard, Streams of Silver and The Halfling’s Gem. This trilogy establishes Drizzt and his companions for many novels to come Bruenor Battlehammer, the king of the Icewind Dale dwarfs and later Mithril Hall, Cattie-Brie, Bruenor’s adopted human daughter, Wulfgar, the barbarian that becomes Bruenor’s adopted son, and Regis, the half-ling thief. These also introduce Drizzt’s nemesis Artemis Entereri and Jaraxle, two characters that later get their own trilogy (See currently reading Road of the Patriarch)
Next comes The Legacy of the Drow series The Legacy, Starless Night, Siege of Darkness, and Passage to Dawn. The Drow come to to the surface and Drizzt and company must stop them.
The fourth series The Paths of Darkness includes The Silent Blade, The Spine of the World, Servant of the Shard and Sea of Swords. The companions, for various reasons detailed in the previous books, make their way in the world alone and must find themselves to be able to come back together as a group. He spun off a series with Artemis and Jaraxle from Servant of the Shard, these don’t include Drizzt and his friends directly. Servant is considered the first in the Sellswords series. The next two are Promis of the Witch-King and Road of the Patriarch.
The last full trilogy was The Hunter’s Blade Trilogy of The Thousand Orcs, The Lone Drow and The Two Swords. A war has come between Mithril Hall and the orcs of the Spine of the World Mountains. It nearly destroys the dwarfs sending the region into darkness.
The next trilogy has begun in the new book The Orc King. This is a continuation of the fall-out from the war just ended.
I finished reading the story and it isn’t a horror story. It is also short, only about 160 pages. The book I have also has many short stories. They were pretty interesting. The following is my analysis of the story and it discusses the ending so if you haven’t read the story and want to don’t read any further.
About I Am Legend, though, it is more a psychological look at a man who must live with himself, and how he copes. Also, the ending is a surprise. My understanding is it isn’t anything like the movie ending, but I have not seen the movie yet. The story was the kind I like, it delves into the psyche of the character. I am always a little suspicious of novelists that use graphic descriptions in the their stories. Matheson doesn’t do that. This is more a look at a man who is living in isolation and the effects it has on him. He has to find something to keep his mind occupied so he doesn’t just give up. His solution is to learn science and try to find a cure for the plague. The ending though is a little short. It is almost like he realized he needed and ending and this one sounded good. I would have liked it if he had delved deeper into the processes of the new society that was on the rise and who Neville was such a threat to them. He only skims the surface though. There is only one character he introduces from the new society and she is only there to explain that some of the victims have found a way to contain the virus and they have to kill Neville because he is not like them. I think my problem is the new society is supposed to not be unthinking like those that have fully gotten the plague so they should have more enlightenment then to just indiscriminately kill Neville. They could have taught him their ways and how to spot a real plague victim and those that could be saved with the new drug. He would have been a powerful ally to them. Maybe Matheson is trying to go for a Frankenstein ending, society shuns and tries to destroy those that are too radically different from the norm. I don’t know.
p.s. I also noticed that Matheson wrote the classic Twilight episode Nightmare at 20,000 feet and also the stories that later became the movies Stir of Echoes and What Dreams May Come.