The novel is actually a short story. I was able to get it in paperback from Amazon, and it is the featured story along with other short stories by Richard Mathison, who in my opinion was a great writer and way ahead of his time.
The movie keeps the general theme, but leaves out the majority of the written story, much of which was way to racy by 1950's standards. In the book, Carey experiences some things that would fit a modern movie setting. As he slowly shrinks, he suffers a series of humiliations that the movie leaves out. The film spends little time on the slow shrinking process, and focuses mostly on his adventures in the basement. The book deals more with the week to week challenges. When he has shrunk to the size of an adolescent boy, he is forced to fend off the advances of a drunken pedophile. Then, he has a run-in with some teenage boys who bully him, slap him around and threaten to forcibly remove his pants to see if "every" part of his body has shrunk. Some young boys playing ball in the street mistake him for a little boy. The book also deals heavily with the gradual loss of his sexual relationship with his wife, as she slowly begins to tower over him physically. The book allows him to engage in a sexual relationship with the female carnival midget, something the movie could never do. But that is short lived, as even she ends up towering over him. By the time he is two feet tall, he ends up satisfying his urges by hiding in the basement and peeping on a teenaged baby sitter, who has an odd habit of removing her clothes while the Carey child naps. The humiliation continues as he is forced to wear baby clothes and use a childs potty seat. The final humiliation happens when his young daughter forcibly picks him up and carries him like a doll, because after all, he is living in a doll house. These are all things the movie could never delve into.
reply
share
ccalderon3
14 years ago
Interesting info about the book. The movie is fantastic also, but the remake is coming in 2012. Perhaps they will add more about the book and make more drama and sadness to it.
reply
share
rricci
14 years ago
Re: The Incredible Shrinking Man (2012 [or whatever year it's supposed to come out])
From what I've seen, it's not a remake, but a completely differnt movie. If I remember correctly, it's supposed to be a comedy, but I can't for the life of me see how a guy shrinking could be funny, but when/if it comes out, I'll check it out. Another thing I'd like to add is that when I first saw this listed in IMDb, I think it was back in 2998 and I remember that it had said that it would come out in 2009.
My $.02 here: I would like to see a remake of the 1957 ISM. I hope they show more of his daily life as he shrinks from adult size to child size to infant size to doll size.
Now back to the subject at hand. The book is a bit confusing (at least to me). It goes back and forth between the present when he's a fraction of an inch tall and the past where he first is 6 feet tall then back to the present then another flashack where he's no taller than his wife, back to the preesnt then the next flashback he's 3 or inches shorter than her then back to the preesnt.....you get the idea. If I had written the story, I probably would have written it linearly where's he's tall then starts shrinking and shrinking. I think it would have been more dramatic that way like the movie does.
One difference between the novel and the movie that stood out for me is that in the novel Scott and Louise have a daughter. In the movie, they are childless.
reply
share
jmsocool
13 years ago
I just re-read the book and re-watched the movie. It's been many years since I originally read/watched them. I think the book is better, though I like the movie. The structure of the book can be a little confusing, but I think Matheson wrote it that way for pacing. Most of the things that happen in the cellar are more action-oriented, the things that happen before he ends up in the cellar tend to be more exposition-oriented. I seem to recall that in an interview Richard Matheson felt that the movie should have followed the structure of the novel more, and he may have had a valid point.
The movie had to condense the material quite a bit, in part because certain elements of the novel were probably too dark or too controversial for a movie of that era, specifically the pedofile who tried to attack Scott, the nature of the sexual relationship between Scott and his wife, and Scott's erotic fixation on the babysitter. If a remake happens, I hope that at least some of those elements are included.
One area where the movie was better than the novel, at least in my opinion, is that Scott is slightly more sympathetic as a character. In the novel it's all Me Me Me, and he has almost no regard at all for how the situatin is affecting his wife and daughter. The self absorption is almost nauseating. In one scene of the movie he snaps at his wife, but at least he acknowledges that the situation is difficult on her as well. I also like how in the movie there are changes such as having access to matches, and the scene with the mouse trap. I felt that those elements, which weren't in the book, added to the story.
"My girlfriend sucked 37 d*cks!"
"In a row?"
reply
share