The Funeral by Richard Matheson

The Funeral is one of those short stories that are just fun to read, because you can tell the writer had fun writing it. There’s no real message here, no lessons to be learned. It’s just a short story that was written because… Because it could. I can almost imagine Matheson writing it while attending a wedding or family reunion. Because that’s really what this story is about: a family gathering that includes all the embarrassing kin you hope to not see again for a decade or more.

 The story revolves around Asper, who the audience is led to believe is a vampire out to have a second chance at a funeral. He enlists the aid of Morton Silkline, a proprietor of final farewells. In Mr. Silkline’s case, money talks and he provides Asper with a funeral, even though he thinks it’s just a joke. On the appointed day, Mr. Asper and all his ghoulish buddies arrive. We get everything from famed hunchback Ygor to pointy-hatted witches, and all manner of monster in between.

And just like our family gatherings, there’s always that one person who ruins everything. In the case of Mr. Asper’s funeral, it’s a mouth witch. Just like that crazy aunt. Without a blow-by-blow rundown of the plot, I’ll say that the event goes downhill quickly.

The Funeral is just one of many short stories included in the paperback version I Am Legend. My theory is that Tor included the shorts as a way to make readers feel like they’re getting their money’s worth when by the extremely short novel. But while the main event is somber and carries a deep message, the short stories offer lighter fare. The Funeral shows that a serious novelist can get the sillies out without compromising the integrity of his/her other works.

Matheson writes good novels, and he writes good short stories. His style doesn’t change greatly from one to the other. He has the same expansive vocabulary and artistic narrative that was popular in its day. It’s a narrative that harkens back to a day when it was okay to have a formal vocabulary and people still dressed up to take a flight. So many novels today are written at what seems to be a fifth grade level to attract the most amount of readers. They’re the equivalent of wearing sweatpants and flip-flops on a trans-continental flight.

I really tried to find a deeper meaning in this piece, but each “message” I came up with seemed stretched, as if I was attempting to read more into it than was actually there. Maybe Matheson didn’t have a message, but a couple hours to kill. Maybe he was up at midnight working on some great masterpiece and decided he needed something silly to counteract the seriousness of the work in front of him.

If there is a pre-conceived message here, I think it’s that every family has that one relative you just wish wouldn’t show up, but you invite them anyway because they’re family and it wouldn’t be the same without them.

I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson

I’ll admit that I’m one of those guys that once they see the movie, the book version goes to the bottom of my reading list. This book made me rethink that policy. First off, aside from sharing a title, this book and the motion picture starring Will Smith have little in common. Secondly, the story-telling of Richard Matheson has consistently failed to translate to the big screen*. Not that he’s incredibly nuanced or that his stories can’t be translated, but there hasn’t been the right direction to capture his character-based stories.

This is especially true with a character like Robert Neville, the self-proclaimed Legend. For much of the book (I’d call it a novella), he is our sole window into the world. There is limited dialogue for the first two-thirds, with the exception of some fantastic back-and-forth with a dog (okay, the dog wasn’t a very a good conversationalist). I actually found that once there was a two-person dialogue, the story lost some of its luster.

That’s because Matheson does such a great job with Neville’s characterization. We know Robert Neville. We laugh with him, and we feel his frustration. We hope to have it together as much as he does when the vampire apocalypse comes. Because he does come off as fallible. He has his meltdowns and his tantrums, and they are well-deserved. But he has some successes and we are thrilled when he does.

Speaking of failures and successes, I can’t help but think that Andy Weir was a little bit inspired by this story. First off, alone in a strange world, Neville is forced to do what is necessary for his immediate survival, which he does admirably. Then, he becomes a self-taught geneticist and is able to “science the shit out of it.” He walks us through his experiments and gives us just enough information to keep it plausible, without boring the hell out of us. I appreciate a book that doesn’t treat me like an idiot, but also doesn’t treat me like a scientist. Matheson maintains a good balance. Better, in many ways, than Weir.

I want you to read this book, so I’m not going to go blow-by-blow with the plot. What I will tell you, is that this story is fundamentally a survival story—but not Neville’s. Imagine the world as you know it ends, and you’re the sole remaining human. But there’s a more advance species in man’s place. Would you fight that species? Would you hide or try to make peace with them? If they’re truly terrifying, and you’re prejudiced against them for something people similar to them did, would you allow yourself the dignity of going peacefully into the night? These are questions Legend asks. At what point do you give up, and if you don’t, can you expect the other side to? The last Neanderthals didn’t stand up against the homo sapiens and destroy them. No, he bred with them or died alone.

Matheson’s stories are often philosophical, and he does what a writer should: makes the reader think long after the story is told. When does the hero become the villain, and can we cheer his success when that success costs innocent lives?

I spent the entire book asking myself why he’s Legend, and finally found out on the last page. And it’s an answer worth working toward.

*The exception that proves the rule is Stir of Echoes. Kevin Bacon’s descent into madness is pure Matheson, and is as faithful adaption of one of his novel’s I’ve found.