This was an enjoyable read. It didn't take too long to get to the meat of the story: a sentimental vampire wants the one thing he never had--a funeral. It's a solid idea for a short story, and I think Matheson did a great job with this one. It's a humorous tale, and the very premise of it sets that tone. I guess it is debatable whether he should have qualified for a funeral or not. Vampires are undead. That is the very definition of not dead, and you have to die before you can have a funeral. However, if you were living, and then you are no longer living, then you're dead. Either undead or dead, but some kind of dead. If you look at it from that point a view, it makes sense that the vampire could feel cheated out of getting a funeral like all the other dead people got. I kind of side with the latter view point, and found myself rooting for the vampire to get a nice funeral.
The comedy hit its peak with the cast of characters that were apparently his friends: a witch and her cat, a hunchback, a werewolf, and the white-haired gentleman (not sure what type of monster he was supposed to be). They all had distinctive characters, but the witch really stole the show. They turned what is normally a sad and depressing event into a reality-TV show-like scene of one person who is trying to deal with something serious and meaningful in his life (the vampire and his funeral) and everyone else being so self-absorbed that they getting caught up in their own lives, at the expense of all but ruining the event.
The vampire takes it all in stride though, apparently satisfied enough with the outcome, and recommends the funeral home and its director to his friends, ensuring a new form of regular clientele to Clooney’s Cut-Rate Catafalque.
I thought there were some strong contrasts in this tale. The first is whether or not the vampire deserved to have a funeral in the first place. I could see the argument against it. Vampires generally remember the days they were a live. In many ways, the never did die. That's why they're called undead. But what about a zombie? They're also undead, but I'd think they would probably deserve a funeral. And what about a ghost? They might need a funeral to find eternal peace. Another contrast was the setting versus the characters. A funeral is as solemn an event as they come. It's just not a place for humor. Yet the characters bring such a disregard to the solemness of the funeral, their actions are more out of place and hard to believe than the monsters themselves, given where they are and what the funeral means to their friend. Finally, you could say there were two vampires in the story. The way the funeral director is portrayed, and really, that line of work in general, it was akin to sucking grieving victims dry. That concept is contrasted by the actual vampire, who seemed to have more feeling, sentimentality, and even humanity than the living man did.
The white-haired gentlemen were other vampires. The one Silkline got stuck next to kept telling him he looked tasty, which was absolutely hilarious. I thought Ludwig's pleads for sanity were humorous. Can't a monster have a decent funeral?
ReplyDeleteThe monsters at the funerals were great. The werewolf had to go get dinner so he was rushing things along, the vampire next to Silkline wanted to get him, the witches in the front drank more and more, The Count was cracking puns, and the hunchback was crying too loud for anyone to heart anything.
On the subject of funerals for zombies and ghosts. Zombies do not have much of a connection to who they were before the virus. Ghosts are normally mass-less and would float, or fall, right out of a coffin. The funny thing is that vampires sleep in coffins, and Ludwig wanted a memorial service for his previous life with the new friends he now has.
-Alexis
What I was getting at with whether or not undead deserve funerals... I'd still say yes they do. Even though they are undead, they are no longer living, and should qualify for a funeral. As far as having a funeral long after the transition to undead status, a zombie isn't probably going to care whether or not it had one. But the ghost? True they are insubstantial spirits, but ghosts were people that died, and there is a body, somewhere. Many times, how the person died, and perhaps the fact that they weren't buried, is why the ghost came about in the first place. A lot of the idea of burying people is due to the beliefs that the spirit would not find rest unless the body is properly buried. That is what a funeral is for. Aren't there stories out there about ghosts were the way to remove the ghost is to find and properly bury the body?
DeleteI understand what you are saying. Yes, there is a lot of lore and legends about spirits being stuck until their bodies' are found and buried. I guess I misunderstood your original statement. I thought you were talking about having a random ghost come into his office requesting his spirit self have a funeral rather than finding his/her body and having a burial. So, I apologize for misinterpreting what you were saying.
DeleteI love that you brought up that even though the funeral was for Ludwig, the other monster's kept trying to make it about them. Each one had a different defining characteristic and reason to be remembered, and I felt those things made them far outshine the 'main character' Silkline.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I don't agree that the tale was nicely executed. I think it was definitely executed better than I Am Legend, but I still felt it was a little murky in the middle as to what was going on, because SO MUCH was going on.
Actually, I think you fully understood it. You didn't need to fully understand all that stuff going on. It was supposed to be overwhelming. I thought that was the point. Overwhelming chaos trying to ruin the event that was so important to Ludwig. An event that is usually relatively chaos-free. When you go to a funeral, you pretty much know what to expect. Matheson gave us so much chaos, it felt like it couldn't be a funeral.
DeleteI like the idea of the funeral director being a kind of vampire himself, and one with less humanity than the actual vampire. I think to your point of asking who deserves a funeral, it also raises the question of what qualifies as a "life." Obviously there's the biological definition, which vampires fail because they're dead (or undead)—but they're still walking around on this earth, and if they're doing so with more grace and friendship and sentimentality than a live person, which one of them is really Living?
ReplyDelete– Rebecca
Hey Shoe!
ReplyDeleteGreat comment and insight on the idea that Silkline is as much a vampire in his own way as the actual living dead. I can't say that I loved the story. I actually prefer "serious" Matheson in "I Am Legend" but this was a fun piece overall and really had a "Munsters" vibe to it. The morality tale aspect of the story was, frankly, something I completely missed. I think the uses of the florid language kept me from reading the piece as more then fluff.