The Incredible Shrinking Man

I can honestly say I’ve never read a book like this. It’s a very interesting concept and is a fun read. At times it can be a little tiresome reading pages of him climbing a concrete step. Other than that it’s really unique and would definitely recommend it!

On the surface Richard Matheson's "The Incredible Shrinking Man" is about an average man who shrinks one inch every week - and the horrors and challenges he faces as he gets smaller. There are encounters with house cats and spiders, confrontations with angry boys, and the difficulties of feeding and clothing yourself when you're less than two inches tall. But the "shrinking" is a veneer. The reality is that the 1956 novel is a chilling tale of unleashed male anger and the chronicle of a man's descent into sexual perversion. The protagonist, Scott Carey, already an embittered personality before his misfortune, transforms into a raging sexual predator as he gets smaller. The premise is simple: men get their power from their size and without it they are weak and cowardly. This is a radical novel from start to finish. Matheson's genius is that he's able to use the pretense of shrinking to explore issues that would have been taboo in any other format. There are two stories in the book - an adventure story about Carey's struggles surviving in his basement at less than one inch tall and the back story of his psychological breakdown as he fails to cope with his situation. The adventure story has the reader rooting for Carey has he battles a black widow spider with a sewing pin and scales the side of a refrigerator to forage for a few soggy cracker crumbs. Many readers become blinded by Carey's struggle to live that they don't realize the magnitude of his selfishness and perverse character. Carey views his relationship with his wife, Louise, as purely sexual - mourning the not the loss of intimacy with his wife as he shrinks, but the loss of his ability to sexually dominate her. At times "The Incredible Shrinking Man" is shocking in its portrayal of Carey, one of the most finely crafted anti-heroes in science fiction literature. This passage takes place when Carey is about two-feet tall and hiding in his basement: "He stared at the window. Why'd it have to rain? he thought. Oh, why'd it? Why couldn't it be sunny so the pretty girl could lie outside in her bathing suit and he could stare a her and lust in secret, sick vicariousness." After a mist coats his body during a boat trip and he begins to shrink, Carey doesn't courageously vow to fight through his condition. He lapses into a vicious state of self-pity - a state he never leaves throughout the entire book (until, perhaps, the last few pages). By all accounts, Carey's wife is devoted and loving. During his ordeal he lashes out at Louise on several occasions with barbed insults and prolonged sulking. In fact, there are no tender moments between the couple in the novel. Every word from her becomes an imagined wrong. When Carey shrinks to the size of a child, his wife simply becomes an unattainable sexual conquest. He lusts after her, but projects his own disgust at his height onto her, and therefore can't be intimate with her. This, of course, makes him even more furious. When Louise is for

I read this book in 5th grade, and reread it recently on vacation (I'm close to 30 now, uh oh). It's the only Richard Matheson book I read and when I bought it again recently I was struck by the number of famous stories this guy has penned. In this book, for instance, the short stories "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" (a Twilight Zone classic), and "Duel" (an awesome action movie that I believe was one of Steven Spielberg's first movies) are included. This guy also wrote "I Am Legend", which was made into "Omega Man" with Charlon Heston, a sci-fi movie that I also like a lot. I guess what I'm trying to get at here is that this guy is a sci-fi/horror pioneer. This story, although it's quite dated, is very well-written and compelling. When I was younger I was very interested in the protagonist and his trying to survive the world as a steadily shrinking man (the battle with the spider and so forth). As someone slightly older, I was more interested in his steadily deteriorating relationship with his wife, daughter, and coworkers. They shun him, much like a leper or terminally ill person, since they cannot understand the illness he has. The story, if you don't know it, was original at the time but has been copied in several forms. Basically the protagonist is a yuppie who is sprayed with a radioactive mist by accident and begins shrinking 1/7 inch a day. The book switches back and forth between the last days of his shrinking life and flashbacks of his past. If you like sci-fi and horror by all means try it!

Yes, it does sound like a B-movie and the movie that resulted from the book does not even begin to do justice to the intricacies of the book. Matheson did not hold this book in high regards, but Kafka himself asked his closest friend to burn his works after he died, so maybe the work comes to outgrow even the artist. This book appears to be about the external, after all what could be a more external problem than shrinking an inch a week? However, the real story takes place inside the mind of Scott Carey. You see the depression and frustration which Carey has at the reality that he is shrinking. But this story is ultimately redemptive, and once you read the end you will realize why. This book is just an example of how good Matheson really is. Works like I Am Legend, and What Dreams May Come(that rare case where the movie and book are both masterpieces) are other examples of Matheson's skill as a storyteller. The additional stories included in the Tor edition of The Shrinking Man are equally brillant with Mantage and Duel coming to mind immediately. I have read a number of Matheson's short stories, they are what introduced me to this writer in the first place, and so far I have not read a bad short story from this writer. Matheson is one of those rare finds, that of a truly great writer. Don't just read this book, read everything you can find by Matheson. {Buyer Beware: You may want to start with Hell House rather than this work. See my review of Hell House for reasons why.}

Simply one of the best sci-fi horror hybrids I have ever read. The plight of the poor Scott Carey is so moving and disturbing. The book makes you ponder the question, "what makes a man a man". This story will cause you to question your own place in the universe. It is witty, and absolutely addicting. I read it in a day.

What can I say. This is one of the great science fiction books of all time. Not only that, it's scarier than anything Stephen King ever wrote and as exciting an adventure story as anything by Patrick O'Brien. You might remember the movie from your childhood days, but the book is far more inventive and thought provoking.