Diabetes is Legend... I Dream

Last night I finished reading Richard Matheson's I Am Legend, the book on which the recent film of the same name was based. Based, it turned out, in a very loose way.

It is unusual for me to read a book after seeing the film. I have seen enough books made into films to know that I usually enjoy the book more. If I've enjoyed a book, I won't normally see a film (or TV) show based on it, for fear of it ruining my visual and emotional perceptions of the story. (The Golden Compass, based on Phillip Pullman's Northern Lights, was a recent exception.) And if a book isn't any good... well then why would I bother seeing a film based on it?!

The film was certainly poorer for abandoning the original vampire concept. In the book, the theme of legend is revisited throughout through discussion of the legend of vampires. Oh, and Robert Neville is a very different man.

I don't want to spoil either film or book for those who haven't seen or read (and I highly recommend that you do read the book) but something that did strike me was the difference in the endings. I'm certainly not the only person in the world who was disappointed by the "Hollywood" ending of the film and I also know I'm not alone in having been more satisfied by what Matheson had to offer. Crucially though, Matheson's Neville was not a legend for the reasons given in the voice over at the end of the film. The legend instead relates to the assumed  end of the human race, and the fact that in turn humans could pass over to become the same kind of legend as vampires hitherto had been.

As I finished the book, then immediately had to turn my attention to changing out my reservoir and infusion set and dealing with a lingering stubborn high blood sugar, I couldn't help but feel a fleeting wish for the day when the eradication of diabetes would be so complete that it would become the stuff of legend.

And as if that wasn't enough, the idea haunted my dreams too.