Review: The Funeral

If there's one thing "The Funeral" made clear, it's that Richard Matheson does know how to write a good vampire story. This realization came first as a relief and then as a disappointment, as I realized that I Am Legend could have been a good book, after all. Still, I was glad for the pleasant surprise, though I'm grateful to have read "The Funeral" second so that the surprise was of a good story after a bad, and not the other way around.

Even considering the markedly improved vampire portrayals, the best part of this story by far is the character of Morton Silkline. Drawing his strength from the prospect of piles of gold, this obsequious funeral salesman is willing to accommodate the most unusual clientele—including a vampire looking to arrange his own memorial service.

While the service itself offers moments of humor—the ongoing feud between the old witch Jenny and the ghostly Count, the werewolf Ullgate's sudden departure at moon-rise for his dinner appointment—it is Morton Silkline's cringing toleration for the motley crew overtaking his parlor that makes "The Funeral" a great story. Matheson does an excellent job of painting the reader an unflattering picture of Silkline: shivering, babbling, practically drooling over the cash he'll rake in for selling his best gold-trimmed casket. Silkline is clearly a character for whom the reader is meant to have little sympathy—yet how many of us would turn away such a lucrative opportunity when the danger in accepting seemed so absurdly unreal?

I say this with a little humor, of course. But the point remains that Silkline isn't entirely unrelatable as a character. He's not selling off his mother's best jewels or putting anyone but himself in harm's way. He's foolish, and greedy, and too cowardly to resist being sat next to a creature clearly preoccupied with taking a nibble of his "tasty" flesh, but we can't hate him for it (Matheson 267). We can't really pity him either. He's too loathsome for our pity, and too pitiable for our hatred. We're trapped somewhere in the middle, and our only option left is to laugh at him—so maybe that's one of the sweet spots where humor lies. We know he got himself into this mess, but we also hope he manages to get himself out—with little more than a bruised ego and some bad memories to show for it.

I've dwelled on Silkline because he's (arguably) the protagonist of the story, but a few other humorous highlights deserve note, too. In particular, the Count's high-blown speech commemorating the vampire Ludwig, who becomes increasingly distraught at all the interruptions to his funeral service. There's something wonderfully funny about people who take themselves too seriously—especially when what they're doing is patently absurd. The Count's preposterously pontifical presentation (as he might say) is exaggerated enough to be humorous in its own right, but it becomes even funnier when set against the grouchy old crone's carping asides. Add in Ludwig popping up periodically from his coffin to plead for decorum and Matheson's own use of absurdly out-of-place terms (such as "bicarbonated" to describe the Count's dissolution, calling to mind an Alka-Seltzer dissolving in grandpa's water glass), and you have a recipe for a truly enjoyable work of dark humor.

Well done, Matheson. If only you were alive to give I Am Legend a final rewrite so you could given—even, please God, just for a scene—Robert Neville a sense of humor.


Citations: Matheson, Richard. "The Funeral." I Am Legend. Orb, 1995.