An Incomplete History of the Art of Funerary Violin

A brilliant and witty piece of pseudo-history that includes some profound thoughts on death, consumerism, and music.

Well, I'd thought to cease Reviewing at an even four-hundred, but when I saw that nobody else had written about this book on LT, I had to offer a few words. If memory serves, this strange little opus had its twenty minutes of fame some years ago, even to the extent of being mentioned on National Public Radio. But then it lapsed back into comparative obscurity. Perhaps that was inevitable, considering that it is an elaborate hoax. Is there any body who doesn't get that?
This book purports to describe a semi-secret society of fiddlers who, as the name suggests, practiced a specialized form of graveside music, until the group and its art was supressed in the Nineteenth Century. OK, there actually ARE traditions of funerary violin music -- show more but they're not even remotely what's represented here. Perhaps some people have been intimidated by the tone and jargon of the book into accepting it at its face-value, musiciology being entirely too often among the most pompous and poorly written prose offered to an unsuspecting world. But even a brief attempt to cross-check the few genuine names and incidents described reveals that it's all fluff. For those who can read music, the abundant examples prove to be arrant foolishness.
OK, so it's a joke. But is it funny? Well, it's entertaining up to a point. The concept has a certain goofy charm, like the fantastic stories John Fahey liked to wrap aound himseld, first in album-notes, later in his two books of stories. But it goes on way too long. Doubtless the Author enjoyed himself so much that he couldn't stop. But just as we can't possibly like all children (no matter how much we like their parents), so I suspect that most readers will not, perhaps even should not, follow him very along his goofy way. show less