A hilarious romp through the past, present and future of the funeral, And In the End looks at some of the most bizarre and unusual ways to say goodbye.
Excerpts
Introduction...
Let me reassure you – you are not sick, well not totally anyway. Yes, you have in your hot little hands a book on the subject of funerals, and yes, it’s a book you’re meant to find kind of fun and funny: but that doesn’t make you sick. Seriously, who among us hasn’t at some time laughed, or at least felt like laughing, at a funeral? And when I say laugh I mean anything from that sneaky snigger you try to disguise as a cough or sneeze, to the side-shaking explosion perfected by your Uncle Malcolm with the glass eye who works in litter enforcement. It’s natural, it’s normal; it’s merely a release of tension. Unless, of course, you’re attending the funeral of a total stranger with the express intention of laughing, in which case you are one sick puppy. The book you are clutching is a trawl through the strangely amusing side of life’s final journeys, from the rituals of the ancient world to the idiosyncrasies of modern man. If I were writing a thesis I’d probably be discussing the recent and rapid change in purpose of the modern funeral, from paving the way for the deceased’s journey to the afterworld to becoming more the celebration of a life lived. And in the course of accepting that, I’d ask you to remember that the greatest gift you can give anyone is the gift of laughter – though the gift of your body comes pretty damn close. I would also have to kick off by talking about how the world used to do funerals, from the ancient past to recent history, which strangely enough is exactly how the book begins. After all, if we want to understand how the modern funeral has become the fun fest it has, it’s good to check out what our forefathers did. Besides, it’s easier to laugh at the long dead than the more recently passed. The ancients and not-so ancients did indeed have some strange, sometimes cringeworthy, funeral foibles, but make sure you read on to prevent any possible feeling of superiority – you’ll see that with age there doesn’t always come wisdom. And no matter how much the world of weeping has changed, there will always be certain elements of your average funeral that can be taken as standard. There’s usually a body for a start, some sort of receptacle for it and a place for its final disposition. This book will take you through the multitude of options – from novelty coffins to cryogenic freezing – and will show you all the other essential, and non-essential, elements to the modern funeral. For instance, what used to be called the eulogy could now be classed as anything from a character assassination to a stand-up comedy routine, and the solemnity of the funeral hymn has given way to the happy-clappy harmonies of chart music. Even the final resting place has outgrown the boundaries of the churchyard – venturing as far as outer space. Somewhere in the course of writing this book it occurred to me that it should be entirely up to you, the reader, to decide if what you were reading sounded funny or fun, and that those who wanted to might be inclined to read this volume as a kind of handbook for adding a little lightness into their own funeral or the funeral of someone they love. And you know what, I have no problem at all with that, you just go right ahead. Now read on, because, as George Bernard Shaw said, ‘Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.’
