readingroom

Usually it’s not the case that I enjoy a movie better than a book. But strangely enough, the past two books-into-movies I read defied the norm. Though Becoming Jane Austen (2003) was filled with biographical information about Austen and her family, it seemed tedious and dry at times, yet was incredibly well-written. The movie focuses on Austen’s relationship with the mysterious Tom LeFroy and the book focuses on Austen’s entire life but Jon Spence traces LeFroy’s influence throughout all of Austen’s novels.

Then last night I read I Am Legend (1954). Frankly, I was bored. Vampires. They’re vampires. And the novella? short story? is set in Los Angeles in the late 1970s, not in Manhattan/Long Island in the twenty-first century like in the Will Smith movie. Matheson’s novel was bare bones and the Neville character was focused on vampires and their mythology. The 2007 movie is loosely based on the novel and takes Matheson’s theme further into the future than perhaps he could have envisioned it. Neville visits the Los Angeles Public Library to research biology and hemoglobin in his quest to understand and cure all the vampires in the world. So there was that library bit that perked up the slightest bit.