Customer Reviews

Woman

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Without question, Richard Matheson is one of the greatest American writers who ever lived, particularly in the genre of horror. Matheson was so ingenious and original that he is sorely responsible for reshaping many elements of horror as we know it, so much so that certain horror themes which we now think of as standard and cliché were actually created by Matheson fifty years ago and have just been ripped-off to the tenth power by others.

With books like I AM LEGEND, WHAT DREAMS MAY COME, HELL HOUSE, SOMEWHERE IN TIME and many others, including numerous scripts for the original TWILIGHT ZONE series, Matheson reserved a throne in the hall of fame of horror and supernatural fiction. I AM LEGEND is so good that I think it should even be considered literature rather than fiction.

With all this said, his new book is terrible.

The first of many disappointments in this novel is it's length. Let the buyer beware, it's just slightly over 100 pages. It's more like a novella, and, if you read it you'll see that the first half is more like an essay or a transcript from a debate class, and then the other half is a weak and even tired horror concept thrown together for a totally unsatisfying short story experience.

The tag-line on the cover of this "novel" is ominous and promising. It says : men and women can no longer coexist. This makes one primed for a good battle of the sexes in the literal sense. Something like Jack Ketchum's gore-splattered LADIES NIGHT only with a more complex and purposeful cause behind the ensuing chaos. But Matheson's novel does not delve into such exciting territory. And while this book is supposed to be Matheson's first real horror novel since HELL HOUSE, it doesn't manage to be even half as suspenseful or frightening as his last novel, HUNTED PAST REASON.

Two thirds of this book consists of the main characters sitting around an apartment discussing the feminist movements, women's role in society throughout the ages, male oppression and prejudice and so on. Each character in the book is totally not likable, from the lead character David who comes off like a more educated Dr. Phil, to his snotty, self-centered wife Liz, to their many obnoxious guests. We have Charlie the big fat cornball, Max the cold-hearted writer, his wife Barbara who hates him but won't leave him, a bubbly tramp named Candy, and Val, Liz's brother, who is so over the top in his male chauvinism that it is simply ridiculous. Then, we have Ganine, the weird "Carrie" like character, who is seeking help from Dr. David.

The group argues about men and women for about sixty pages (remember, the book is only slightly over one hundred pages long). Each character in the book shoots off random quotes from everyone to Freud to Esther Harding to Richard Burton. Matheson uses so many other people's words to prove his point here that you almost expect to see a works cited page in the back of the book. And he is trying to make a point here, he really is.

That's one of the biggest problems with the book: it's preachy nature. While Matheson makes great points and while I don't necessarily disagree with his rants in sympathy of the opposite sex's blight, it is nonetheless annoying that he bombards the reader with his pro-feminism throughout the book. The majority of the novel seems like nothing more than a platform for Matheson to kiss up to women upon. In his last few novels Matheson has gotten on a high horse, letting his philosophical notions leak into his fiction, like the unbelievably weak and preachy ending to HUNTED PAST REASON, a book that I liked up until the end. But WOMAN is by far his most preachy piece of fiction, struggling so hard to drive the same point into the reader's skull that it forgets to entertain.

For you see, to top it all off, the story, what little of one there is, is rather boring and contains tired supernatural elements. I won't elaborate on this because I don't won't to spoil it for any potential reader, but anyone who has read even a few horror novels will not be impressed by the bland plot and childish ending this book contains.

I wish I had something good to say about this novel but there simply isn't. I think it is the worst thing I've ever read by Matheson. The story is weak and contrived and seems almost like an afterthought to an essay on feminism. The characters are without depth and are impossible to like so any threat to them is unthreatening to the reader. The "villain" is a worn out stereotype and the other characters' approach to this villain is as cheesy as any up-all-night b-horror flick, spouting such bad lines as "She's evil I tell you, evil ... EVIL!" It's sad when dialogue by Matheson sounds like it came from George Lucas.

Matheson has written some great novels. This just isn't one of them.

Richard Matheson is one of my favorite authors of all time, but I have to say that his last couple books and this one in particular were very disappointing.

I think he has gotten lazy. Richard Matheson has forgotten how to write anything but dialogue and minimal descriptions of what is going on. This is not good writing. This book is very short and very simplistic. Coming from someone who has produced some amazing books in the past, it leaves me wondering what happened?

The overall story could have been great, but no time was taken to develop it. It could have been expanded a lot to make it much more interesting. The parts that were supposed to be scary were not built into at all, leaving absolutely no feeling of suspense or tension whatsoever.

The only way that this book was even worth the time was because it took less than two hours to read...and about that long to write from the looks of it.

Richard Matheson's new novel WOMAN both harkens back to I AM LEGEND and HELL HOUSE and introduces the theme of the failure of the women's movement with a terrifying conclusion. Without giving away the plot, Matheson introduces Ganine a woman who feels she "no longer herself." She also claims she's pregnant, though she hasn't had sex in several years. She's obviously mad, which is why she seeks out a radio psychologist for help. Ganine has had certain destructive powers since she was young, but she can no longer control them. Is something controlling Ganine? That's for the reader to find out. The second half of the novel, in particular, is a page-turner with one surprise after another. The final surprise some might say comes out of the blue. But, just the title and cover blurb "Men and woman can no longer co-exist" actually foreshadows the end. WOMAN will have men quaking in their boots. Some women will love Matheson's solution to the gender problem, though others will feel deeply threatened. At $12.95 the book is well worth the asking price. Richard Matheson, now nearing 80, hasn't lost a step.

I'd actually rate this 3.5 stars. Back in the sixties, Matheson wrote a Star Trek episode where Captain Kirk was split into 2: a strong, aggressive Kirk and a more frail, gentle and weak Kirk. Ultimately, the theme was that each version needed the other. Here, about 40 years later, Matheson writes more about male and feminine natures and how they differ, but the theme is different. Masculine and feminine forces may no longer need each other at this point in human evolution and one force acts on this decision - and it is a horror story. It's a fairly short novel, but it is a page-turner. The characters are realistic and the discussion of masculinity and feminity is intelligent and engaging. I wouldn't call this story preachy - none of the women are portrayed in particularly positive ways, nor are most of the men. The climax might have been a little stronger, but overall this is a fine story from a master storyteller.

Please don't read Richard Matheson's WOMAN. I beg you. It's a truly embarrassing footnote to a stellar career, a book that nearly destroys decades of great writing in one pathetic swoop. After brilliantly capturing the alienation of modern man in his masterpieces, I AM LEGEND, THE SHRINKING MAN, and DUEL, Matheson takes on the subject of modern woman and the failure of feminism. Interesting idea. Terrible execution. WOMAN is a short, simple-minded, toothless novella that, I'm sad to say, reveals the author's age. His dumbed-down debates on "women's lib" (I haven't heard that phrase since the Seventies) are so painfully dated and old fashioned that I can't believe his editor didn't tell him to actually SET the book in the Seventies. Women's issues have changed a lot since then, especially with the rise of "post-feminism," eating disorders, women CEOs, sexual harassment, even "Sex and The City." It's a much different world now than the odd post-Fifties setting Matheson gives us in WOMAN, a world with problems much bigger, deeper, and more complicated than he's able to address. (I have to wonder if WOMAN was an old manuscript that Matheson had buried at the bottom of his desk for three decades. It would explain a lot. Either way, I'm going to pretend that he never wrote it -- and that I never read it.)

If this book had been written by a first time author, it would not only not have been published, it would have received a form rejection. It's that laughably bad. Only laughably is the wrong word. Because it's not funny.

One almost gets the idea that Matheson, rather than sticking up for feminism, hates it. Rather than liking women, despises them. And his idea to destroy the last vestiges of feminism and revenge himself upon women is to rant stupidly at the reader in the worst effort of his long career.

I'm a huge Matheson fan, having read nearly everything the man has written, and liking almost all of it and hating none of it. That changes upon reading this awful piece of dreck. It's hard to imagine a writer blowing a lifetime of good literary karma on one short book, but Matheson has managed to do so with this diatribe.

Listen, if you've never read anything by Matheson, read I Am Legend. Or The Incredible Shrinking Man. Or any of the short story collections. Or even the corny New Age books. You'll be treated to a master craftsman. But don't read this-- or everything else you read will be poisoned by the book. If you even bother to go on to read anything else.

And if you're a lifelong Matheson fan, please skip this one. Either age has addled his mind or he needed the money or something. Because this isn't any better work than a no-talent high school freshman might produce. And you won't just dislike this book, but it will put a pall over everything Matheson's ever written.

And that's a darn shame.

This is more than a book; this is an event! A brand new novel from the legendary Richard Matheson! Did I devour this novel like a starving cur? Yes! Did I love it? YES! YES! YES! And you will love it, too. Mr. Matheson returns to his suspense-terror roots with Woman, a heart-clenching and very adult story about the war between the sexes. When an odd young woman named Ganine Woodbury slips into a television producer's pre-Emmy award party, she effectively pits the men against the women in a deadly war of attrition that culminates in a shocking climax that will leave you slack-jawed and gasping. Written with a brilliance and verisimilitude that places the reader directly into the action, this book is yet another triumph of stylish storytelling and richly imagined plot by my favorite writer, Richard Matheson. Have you clicked on the cover and ordered your copy of Woman yet? Click! Buy! Enough said.

Weak, uninteresting suspense novella that reads more like a long, corny treatment for an episode of NIGHT GALLERY. This author's work is so extensive and groundbreaking that this slim volume can only succeed in disappointing his many old fans...and alienating any new ones.

Avoid this one and look into his classic past work.

I just want to point out that all of the reviewers who are trashing this book are men. The boys' club didn't like a story about the - we'll call it the return of the divine feminine. As with all of Matheson's work, I was impressed. As a woman, I was proud that he wrote it. This is undoubtedly his most under-appreciated work. Read it, it's Matheson, you know it's good!

When I read the dedication and first chapters of this book I was under the impression that it was intended to give women a moral boost. In the end I don't think he accomplished this goal, unless you believe Frankenstein is a treaty on humanities best attributes. Nonetheless it is a very creative novel that keeps readers attention to the very end.