Überraschend gut! 4 Sterne, eher etwas mehr als weniger. ( )

Kui ma saaksin, annaksin ma sellele raamatule 6 punkti. Või isegi 7. Üks kõige võimsamaid elamusi viimasel ajal, ja mis kõige hämmastavam -- lugema hakates ei osanud ma seda isegi karta.
On hulk raamatuid, mida lugema hakates kuuled oma tuttavatelt, et jah, see on väga hea. Tegelikult on see siis tavaliselt lihtsalt hea või noh, enam-vähem kõlblik. Ka seekord läks algus suht samamoodi, lisaks ei pakkunud loo algus eriti midagi.
Muidugi olin ma filmi näinud. Muidugi ma arvasin, et ma tean, millest lugu räägib. Aga sittagi. Ja ma olen selle üle nii õnnelik, nagu ma ammu pole olnud :D
Selleks hetkeks, kui asi jõudis koerani, vist umbes loo keskel, olin ma juba kõrvuni sees. See raamat oli nagu vesiliiv -- pealtnäha täiesti mittemidagiütlev, tavaline, lausa igav, aga enne, kui arugi sain, oli õhk otsas ja emotsioonid käisid pea kohal kokku.
Tagantjärele ütleb mingi sisetunne, et see lugu sobib samasse ritta nagu McCarthy "Teel", kuigi otseseid paralleele nende vahel tõmmata ei saa. Ainult elamuse intensiivsus, üllatuse tugevus ja puhas nauding, mille saab tõeliselt heast loost.

PS: Mulle meeldis film ka väga. Ja meeldib ka pärast raamatu lugemist. Ja mul on hea meel, et neil kahel pole muud ühist, kui peategelse nimi. Pealkirjade sarnasus on puhas juhus :) ( )

(1954) Novella. Classic SF horror where the world has been overrun by vampires caused by some mysterious bacteria. The lone surviving human tries to understand what has caused this, looking for a cure. He fights a losing battle when Ruth comes into his life only to reveal she is a spy for a new form of life that wants to eliminate not only the vampires but the remaining unaffected humans. Wikipedia: Robert Neville appears to be the sole survivor of a pandemic that has killed most of the human population and turned the remainder into "vampires" that largely conform to their stereotypes in fiction and folklore: they are blood-sucking, pale-skinned, and nocturnal, though otherwise indistinguishable from normal humans. Like traditional vampires, they also have an aversion to garlic and sunlight.Implicitly set on Cimarron Street in Los Angeles during 1976, the novel details Neville's life in the months and eventually years after the outbreak as he attempts to comprehend, research, and possibly cure the disease. Swarms of vampires surround his house nightly and try to find ways to get inside, which includes the females exposing themselves and his vampire neighbor, Ben Cortman, relentlessly shouting for him to come out. Neville survives by barricading himself inside his house every night; he is further protected by the traditional vampire repellents of garlic, mirrors, and crucifixes. Weekly dust storms ravage the city, and during the day, when the vampires are inactive, Neville drives around to search them out in order to kill them with wooden stakes (since they seem impervious to his guns' bullets) and to scavenge for supplies. Neville's past is occasionally revealed through flashbacks; the disease claimed his daughter, whose body the government forced him to burn, as well as his wife, whose body he secretly buried but then had to kill after she rose from the dead as a vampire.After bouts of depression and alcoholism, Neville finally determines there must be some scientific reasons behind the vampires' origins, behaviors, and aversions, so he sets out to investigate. He obtains books and other research materials from a library and through gradual research discovers the root of the disease is probably a Bacillus strain of bacteria capable of infecting both deceased and living hosts. His experiments with microscopes also reveal that the bacteria are deadly sensitive to garlic and sunlight. One day, a stray, injured dog finds its way to his street, filling Neville with amazed joy. Desperate for company, Neville painstakingly earns the nervous dog's trust with food and brings it into the home. Despite his efforts, the sickly dog dies a week later, and Neville, robbed of all hope, resignedly returns to learning more about the vampires.Neville's continued readings and experiments on incapacitated vampires help him create new theories. He believes vampires are affected by mirrors and crosses because of "hysterical blindness", the result of previous psychological conditioning of the infected. Driven insane by the disease, the infected now react as they believe they should when confronted with these items. Even then, their reaction is constrained to the beliefs of the particular person; for example, a Christian vampire would fear the cross, but a Jewish vampire would not. Neville additionally discovers more efficient means of killing the vampires, other than just driving a stake into their hearts. This includes exposing vampires to direct sunlight or inflicting wide, oxygen-exposing wounds anywhere on their bodies so that the bacteria switch from being anaerobic symbionts to aerobic parasites, rapidly consuming their hosts when exposed to air, which gives the appearance of the vampires instantly liquefying. However, the bacteria also produce resilient "body glue" that instantly seals blunt or narrow wounds, making the vampires bulletproof. With his new knowledge, Neville is killing such large numbers of vampires in his daily forays that his nightly visitors have diminished significantly. Neville further believes the pandemic was spread not so much by direct vampire bites as by bacteria-bearing mosquitos and dust storms in the cities following a recent war. The inconsistency of Neville's results in handling vampires also leads him to realize that there are in fact two differently-reacting types of vampires: those conscious and living with a worsening infection and those who have died but been reanimated by the bacteria (i.e. undead).After three years, Neville sees a terrified woman in broad daylight. Neville is immediately suspicious after she recoils violently in the presence of garlic, but they slowly win each other's trust. Eventually, the two comfort each other romantically and he explains some of his findings, including his theory that he developed immunity against the infection after being bitten by an infected vampire bat years ago. He wants to know if the woman, named Ruth, is infected or immune, vowing to treat her if she is infected, and she reluctantly allows him to take a blood sample but suddenly knocks him unconscious as he views the results. When Neville wakes, he discovers a note from Ruth confessing that she is indeed a vampire sent to spy on him and that he was responsible for the death of her husband, another vampire. The note further suggests that only the undead vampires are pathologically violent but not those who were alive at the time of infection and who still survive due to chance mutations in their bacteria. These living-infected have slowly overcome their disease and are attempting to build a new society. They have developed medication that diminishes the worst of their symptoms. Ruth warns Neville that her feelings for him are true but that her people will attempt to capture him and that he should try to escape the city.However, Neville stays at his house, assuming he will be treated fairly by the new society of living-infected. However, he suddenly watches a group of living-infected violently murder the undead vampires outside his house with fiendish glee. Frightened that the infected attackers may intend to kill him after all, Neville fires on them and in turn is shot and subdued. Fatally wounded, he is placed in a barred cell where he is visited by Ruth, who informs him that she is a senior member of the new society but, unlike the others, does not resent him. After discussing the effects of Neville's vampire-killing activities on the new society, she acknowledges the public need for Neville's execution but, out of mercy, gives him a packet of fast-acting suicide pills. Neville accepts his fate and asks Ruth not to let this society become too heartless. Ruth promises to try, kisses him, and leaves. Neville goes to his prison window and sees the infected staring back at him with the same hatred and fear that he once felt for them; he realizes that he, a remnant of old humanity, is now a legend to the new race born of the infection. He recognizes that their desire to kill him, after he has killed so many of their loved ones, is not something he can condemn. As the pills take effect, he is amused by the thought that he will become their new superstition and legend, just as vampires once were to hu

I read this for class and my expectations were WAY exceeded. The brilliance of this book makes that movie with Will Smith seem horribly butchered. It doesn't really have anything to do with the book anymore.

In the book, Robert Neville tries to come to terms with his fate as the last man on earth which makes the book quite philosophical. But there are also some fun occurrences of intertextuality, for example when he rants about Bram Stoker's Dracula. Unlike in a lot of vampire stories, Neville even tries to explain the existence of vampires by scientific means, by reading up on microbiology and experimenting on vampires during the day.

It's a very compelling read, one of the few books I've read within such a short period of time. It's a very impressive book for its time (1954). ( )

Definitely an interesting take on the genre though it did not really work for me in any way. Even the prose was a bit too obscure, which is the one attribute that authors usually get right. Nevertheless, it was still a decent read.
The movie was significantly better... ( )