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Book Description
'One of the most important writers of the twentieth century' Ray Bradbury
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While on a boating holiday, Scott Carey is exposed to a cloud of radioactive spray. A few weeks later, following a series of medical examinations, he can no longer deny the extraordinary truth. Not only is he losing weight, he is also shorter than he was. Scott Carey has begun to shrink. Richard Matheson's novel follows through its premise with remorseless logic, with Carey first attempting to continue some kind of normal life and later having left human contact behind, having to survive in a world where insects and spiders are giant adversaries. And even that is only a stage on his journey into the unknown.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A few years ago I read Matheson's 'I Am Legend' and loved it. Recently I was looking in a charity shop for a book to read whilst waiting for the train and after nearly giving up found this Matheson book. The illustration of a man being chased by a giant spider on the cover nearly put me off but when I saw that the story was written by Matheson I snapped it up. The story has many similarities to I Am Legend; the main character is a thirty-something year old virile male with a head for science and practicality. In both stories he is thrown into an untenable situation where the difficulty of survival stops his philosphising from being self-destructive as he must keep thinking practically. The main characters are almost hyperbolically masculine, and although I haven't read much sci-fi, I can see a similarity with Clarke's 2001 Space Odyssey character here. In "The Shrinking Man", (note: not 'The Incredible Shrinking Man'; that was the name of the movie, which incidentally I haven't seen), the main character survives so many injuries and such hardships that it is hard to believe really, and Matheson seems to have supermen as his characters in the two stories mentioned. The main character, Scott Carey, is infected by a gas at sea and he finds that he has started shrinking 1/7th of an inch per day. This is a very neat amount, meaning 1 inch per week. Perhaps that implies that the gas was an experiment? But that [mythos-like] question is another story. The chapters cleverly alternate between Scott's current situation and the times in the recent past as he became gradually more effected by his 'illness'; i.e. shrinking first from a 6 foot 2 guy to the height of his 5 foot 8 wife, to the height of a midget. These are really the most intriguing chapters, as I found myself with a morbid curiosity to see how his life would change as his position became more and more absurd. The psychological effects of Scott's transformation are given throughout: "Poets and philosophers could talk all they wanted about a man's being more than fleshly form, about his essential worth, about the immeasurable stature of his soul. It was rubbish. Had they ever tried to hold a woman with arms that couldn't reach around her? Had they ever told another man they were as good as he - and said it to his belt buckle?" The story is really two stories in one with chapters alternating, though with everything focussed around the main subject, and this makes it a rich read. The only subplots are the recountings of Scott as he thinks back to situations in the past whilst he was still 'macro'-scale. It was the first time in months that I've been compelled to read fiction above doing anything else rather than as just a thing to do whilst on the train for example.
This story is original, sensitively and intelligently written, and quite poignant. A nice work, probably on a par with I Am Legend.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
‘The Shrinking Man’ can be seen superficially as the very basic tale of a man who shrinks one seventh of an inch a day, with all that may entail. The novel, however is far more than it may at first appear.
What makes this novel more than a sensationalist pulp-fiction work is that Matheson concentrates on the psychological and social implications which first make themselves felt when Scott realises that his wife is taller than he is.
We then embarks on a gradual process of emasculation, exploring not only Scott’s reactions to the shrinking of his body but the changing attitudes of his wife, daughter and the outside world.
Matheson cleverly exploits symbolically and metaphorically issues central to male pride and the integrity of one’s masculinity. His wife unconsciously begins treating him as a child, and even driving a car (another benchmark of American masculinity) becomes difficult. Scott’s physical impotence in these situations is paralleled by his inability to make love to his wife.
Scott briefly regains a degree of self-esteem when he meets a female midget at a local circus, but this hiatus is short-lived.
The redemption, if we can call it such, comes in the intervening ‘final week’ sections, in which Scott, having been accidentally locked out of the house and fallen into a cellar from which he cannot escape, is forced to find ways to survive with minimal food and water. Tellingly, Scott also has to do daily battle with a Black Widow spider which - we are reminded in the text – is female; the males of the species being consumed by their partners after mating.
The novel is only slightly let-down by the science involved, the explanation for Scott’s condition being that exposure to a combination of radioactive sprays was causing his body to expel nitrogen at a constant rate.
But then this was the Nineteen-Fifties, and it was America, so any explanation regarding radioactivity was guaranteed to add an additional frisson of paranoia.
It is undoubtedly a minor classic and deserves to be re-filmed by a director who can concentrate on the issues that Matheson was actually writing about.
What makes this novel more than a sensationalist pulp-fiction work is that Matheson concentrates on the psychological and social implications which first make themselves felt when Scott realises that his wife is taller than he is.
We then embarks on a gradual process of emasculation, exploring not only Scott’s reactions to the shrinking of his body but the changing attitudes of his wife, daughter and the outside world.
Matheson cleverly exploits symbolically and metaphorically issues central to male pride and the integrity of one’s masculinity. His wife unconsciously begins treating him as a child, and even driving a car (another benchmark of American masculinity) becomes difficult. Scott’s physical impotence in these situations is paralleled by his inability to make love to his wife.
Scott briefly regains a degree of self-esteem when he meets a female midget at a local circus, but this hiatus is short-lived.
The redemption, if we can call it such, comes in the intervening ‘final week’ sections, in which Scott, having been accidentally locked out of the house and fallen into a cellar from which he cannot escape, is forced to find ways to survive with minimal food and water. Tellingly, Scott also has to do daily battle with a Black Widow spider which - we are reminded in the text – is female; the males of the species being consumed by their partners after mating.
The novel is only slightly let-down by the science involved, the explanation for Scott’s condition being that exposure to a combination of radioactive sprays was causing his body to expel nitrogen at a constant rate.
But then this was the Nineteen-Fifties, and it was America, so any explanation regarding radioactivity was guaranteed to add an additional frisson of paranoia.
It is undoubtedly a minor classic and deserves to be re-filmed by a director who can concentrate on the issues that Matheson was actually writing about.
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
OK, I'm assuming that everyone's seen the film here, not too unlikely as it was made over 40 years ago. Films made from books can either ignore the book almost completely and usually end up being terrible (a la 'Damnation Alley') though ocasionally this produces a good film (cf 'Blade Runner' - very different from the book 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep', but still a good film.) Or they can actually try to be faithful to the book, which usually produces a good film, but can fail (cf 'Dune' - but that book was pretty unfilmable, at least in 3 hours. I understand the mini-series was better.) In this case, the film was reasonably faithful to the book and was quite good for a 50s SciFi movie.
The book differs in some ways, of course, for example it's primarily concerned with the mental state of the Shrinking Man, something films can't examine too easily, being a visual medium. And it's got sex in it! Not the heaving and thrusting sort you get in Jackie Collins and suchlike but, in keeping with examining the mental state of the Shrinking Man, he does encounter problems in that area, as you would. This surprised me, coming from a book from 1956 - I didn't think they had sex in the 50s! And they cut a lot of this out of the film. You might remember the scene in the film where he meets and has a conversation with a circus midget? Well, it's more than a conversation he has with her in the book. I find this refreshingly honest, that Matheson didn't shy away from examining this particular aspect of the Shrinking man's problem. I'm guessing that there must have been pressure on him to do so - witness the near contemporary 'Lensman' series, whose main character seems to be completely lacking in genitalia. But Matheson's character isn't and so is far more realistic.
As I've said, the book is more than the horror story of Shrinking-Man-fights-Giant-Spider and suchlike that the film is. It's an examination of a man who is, literally, diminishing and becoming lesser as each day goes past. It can serve as an analogy for people with terminal illnesses and similar, or people who find that, in other ways, their influence in the world is diminishing. Or it can just be read as a simple Sci-Fi cum horror story. Either way, it's well worth reading.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A Classic Science Fiction Novel
If you are a fan of the book I AM LEGEND.[GOLLANCZ 50 TOP TEN]by the same author, then this classic science fiction tale is one for you. Read more
Published 7 days ago by Sean T. Page
Speaks on many levels
Matheson's novel is a scary, moving, bleak and altogether angry account of a man who has to face the impossible.... That he is shrinking into oblivion. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Mr. D. J. Walford
Do spiders eat cheese?
At some point in the 1980s, I debated this question with friends over a pint. We'd just seen the old black and white film The Incredible Shrinking Man, in which the hero, reduced... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Adam Eterno
Good
I bought this book after reading (and loving) I am Legend.
This book is not anywhere near the quality of 'Legend' but is still a good and fun read.
This book is not anywhere near the quality of 'Legend' but is still a good and fun read.
Published 12 months ago by Mr. Scott Thomas
Scott Carey Needs to See a Shrink
What would you think about if you started to shrink inch by inch; a cure, your oncoming death? According to Richard Matheson's 1956 `The Shrinking Man' you would think about your... Read more
Published 12 months ago by Sam
A stimulating book
A stimulating book. Very entertaining at times but it also seemed tedious to me. I wouldn't say it was a masterpiece but it has some good parts that makes you apprciate it. Read more
Published on 27 Mar 2007 by Mr. C. M. Owen
Size isn't Everything
Scott Carey had been living out on the West Coast but it was time to move East where his brother had some work for him. Read more
Published on 9 Jan 2005 by JA Fairhurst
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