Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Review of The Incredible Shrinking Man


Richard Matheson.
Be his memory forever.
I've read only one novel of his before I began this one, but I Am Legend is more than just a story about vampires. It's almost the bible concerning everything bloody and bitey.
But since I've read that one a few miles ago, I'm going to review my current read.

My first thought about The Incredible Shrinking Man was mainly that I thought it would be a ridiculous book. The reason I began reading it is that I'm working on an A-Z challenge and I had nothing else beginning with 'I' on my e-reader.
I'm not sorry I stumbled in such a way onto this novel. Otherwise I probably would have never touched it and would've missed the entire perplexity that's this novel.

The Incredible Shrinking Man tells the story of a man slowly shrinking. It sets out with the main character on a boat being sprayed with a peculiar substance and shortly after he begins to diminish.
You'd think it would be fantastic novel, maybe scoring a few laughs here and there, portraying this particular problem against the funny side of life, but Matheson does nothing of a sort. He portrays a man slowly losing his identity, his sense of pride and lust for life. Someone eager to be the man he always was and being able to further support his wife and daughter but not being able to. He's angry at the world, hoping a cure will be found, hoping the process can be returned.
With every inch he's shrinking he's losing his masculine identity, beginning with a strained relationship with his wife, then the loss of authority over his daughter and ending with trying so survive the mere elements and animals he never thought of being scared of hunted by.

I loved this novel. I guess it's pretty obvious when you've read my review. Despite the title, The Incredible Shrinking Man has so much emotion and contains so much food for thought that I'm definitely going to reread it some point in time. I feel like I didn't get the to the bottom quite yet and I'm still thirsty.

Personal score: 4 stars

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