MsJenniferK reviewed From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death on + 28 more book reviews
This book explores the manner in which different cultures have handled the bodies of their deceased loved ones from the beginning of time until the present.
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Even though I am NOT generally a lover of non-fiction, I thought this book was excellent!
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It is fascinating and will definitely challenge your beliefs surrounding death!
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As a bonus, it's an easy and smooth read. Large print, with good spacing, plus the wonderful addition of fascinatingly beautiful pen-and-ink drawings throughout that form a cohesive visual to what you are reading.
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The author is concise, yet thorough, in her writing. She also throws in some wit along the way!
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Chapters are organized by US states and countries, and include Colorado, Indonesia, Mexico, North Carolina, Spain, Japan, Bolivia, and California.
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Even though I am NOT generally a lover of non-fiction, I thought this book was excellent!
-
It is fascinating and will definitely challenge your beliefs surrounding death!
-
As a bonus, it's an easy and smooth read. Large print, with good spacing, plus the wonderful addition of fascinatingly beautiful pen-and-ink drawings throughout that form a cohesive visual to what you are reading.
-
The author is concise, yet thorough, in her writing. She also throws in some wit along the way!
-
Chapters are organized by US states and countries, and include Colorado, Indonesia, Mexico, North Carolina, Spain, Japan, Bolivia, and California.
T.E. W. (terez93) reviewed From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death on + 323 more book reviews
I just randomly came across Caitlin's YouTube channel one day, and I've been an avid viewer ever since. Confession: as someone who has had something of a fixation with or morbid curiosity of death since childhood, her whole being really resonates with me. A medieval historian, an author a mortician and an internet celebrity seem rather odd bedfellows on a good day, but in this case, they're embodied (get it?) in one Caitlin Doughty. Dual career, indeed! I'm happy to see such a capable individual taking on the subject, actually, as Caitlin competently and introspectively explores the multiplicity of facets we humans construct around the concept of mortality and the inevitability of death.
Her first book, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, explored more of her own story and provided an inside look at the death industry, but this was more of a personal account, part anthropological study and part travel journal shared with the rest of us. It focuses on some of the more ecclectic death rituals from around the world (but, owing to the sheer variety of them, is far from comprehensive), from funeral pyre purveyors in Colorado to the annual festival for magic-imbued severed heads/skulls in Bolivia, to a community in Indonesia, where the dead continue to "live" in the homes of relatives for years, until the slaughter of a buffalo finally lays them to rest during an elaborate, if infrequent, mass funeral service. One of the most shocking stories in the whole book was the account of a young man who revealed that as children, he and his brother slept in the same bed with their deceased grandfather, FOR SEVEN YEARS! Grandpa was treated like any other member of the family; he was moved, dressed and cared for, until the community funeral service years later.
The book would be interesting were it just centered on the death rituals, but it's even more fascinating, and moving, as the focus isn't really the ritual: it's the people involved. Caitlin talks about a friend who had suffered the loss of a pregnancy, and was having great difficulty working through her grief (if that's ever even possible) until she was able to reconnect with the rituals, old and new, which took place during celebrations for the famous Dia de los Muertos, and in a visit to the Casa Azul, Frida Kahlo's former home, where paintings of Frida's own attempts at coming to terms with a miscarriage were displayed. There are thus moments of great poignancy, which connect readers with the people who are courageous enough to share their stories and lives, but there are also many humorous moments, perhaps where one wouldn't generally expect to find them. I would personally like to have read a bit more about the history and background of many of the rituals described herein, as a fellow (ancient) historian, but overall, I found this volume very enlightening.
Caitlin's depth and breadth of knowledge is impressive: she can discourse intelligently on a multiplicity of subjects ranging from ocean ecosystems (revolving around dead whales, of course), to history, science and anthropology. Perhaps the most valuable aspect of the book is that it offers something of an invitation to readers to ponder their own mortality (and, perhaps, by extension, the disposition of their remains) by witnessing and experiencing the mortality of others from a safe place afar. This is especially vital for death-phobic Americans, who typically view the process of death and grieving as a communicable disease, in my experience, something that should be isolated and quarantined and dealt with by professionals, who largely divorce survivors from their deceased loved ones.
I think the moral of this story is that there's really NO right or wrong way to mourn a death, and then go on living, in the wake of the loss. Most often, elsewhere in the world, the grieving process in particular involves an entire community, and occurs not just at the level of the individual or family, where death and the obsequies surrounding it occur, but at the level of the entire culture, which shapes them, and, they, in turn, inform and give the culture meaning, a deeply vital element at the end of life. The focus is, and should be, on the survivors, and doing whatever is needed to reconcile them to the loss of a deeply-loved decedant, in additition to offering us a way to come to grips with our own mortality, and to decide how we would like to be cared for, when we have at last met our day.
I haven't included as many passages as I have from other books, most notably the classics, whose lines are immortal, but there are a couple that I thought were definitely worth sharing, and which really go to the heart of the message of the book overall.
"One of the chief questions in my work has always been why my own culture is so squeamish around death. Why do we refuse to have these conversations, asking our family and friends what they want done with their body when they die? Our avoidance is self-defeating. By dodging the talk about our inevitable end, we put both our pocketbooks and our ability to mourn at risk."
"The Western funeral home loves the word 'dignity.' The largest American funeral corpration has even trademarked the word. What dignity translates to, more often than not, is silence, a forced poise, a rigid formality. Wakes last exactly two hours. Processions lead to the cemetery. The family leaves the cemetery before the casket is even lowered into the ground."
"In our Western culture, where are we held in our grief? Perhaps religious spaces, churches, temples-for those who have faith. But for everyone else, the most vulnerable time in our lives is a gauntlet of awkward obstacles."
"Death avoidance is not an individual failing: it's a cultural one. Facing death is not for the faint-hearted. It is far too challenging to expect that each citizen will do on his or her own. Death acceptance is the responsibility of all death professionals-funeral directors, cemetery managers, hospital workers. It is the responsibility of those who have been tasked with creating physical and emotional environments where safe, open interaction with death and dead bodies is possible."
And, I'll include the Edward Abbey quote here, which she cites as well:
"The fire. The odor of burning juniper is the sweetest fragrance on the face of the earth, in my honest judgment; I doubt if all the smoking censers of Dante's paradise could equal it. One breath of juniper smoke, like the perfume of sagebrush after rain, evokes in magical catalyis, like certain music, the space and light and clarity and piercing strangeness of the American West. Long may it burn."
Her first book, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, explored more of her own story and provided an inside look at the death industry, but this was more of a personal account, part anthropological study and part travel journal shared with the rest of us. It focuses on some of the more ecclectic death rituals from around the world (but, owing to the sheer variety of them, is far from comprehensive), from funeral pyre purveyors in Colorado to the annual festival for magic-imbued severed heads/skulls in Bolivia, to a community in Indonesia, where the dead continue to "live" in the homes of relatives for years, until the slaughter of a buffalo finally lays them to rest during an elaborate, if infrequent, mass funeral service. One of the most shocking stories in the whole book was the account of a young man who revealed that as children, he and his brother slept in the same bed with their deceased grandfather, FOR SEVEN YEARS! Grandpa was treated like any other member of the family; he was moved, dressed and cared for, until the community funeral service years later.
The book would be interesting were it just centered on the death rituals, but it's even more fascinating, and moving, as the focus isn't really the ritual: it's the people involved. Caitlin talks about a friend who had suffered the loss of a pregnancy, and was having great difficulty working through her grief (if that's ever even possible) until she was able to reconnect with the rituals, old and new, which took place during celebrations for the famous Dia de los Muertos, and in a visit to the Casa Azul, Frida Kahlo's former home, where paintings of Frida's own attempts at coming to terms with a miscarriage were displayed. There are thus moments of great poignancy, which connect readers with the people who are courageous enough to share their stories and lives, but there are also many humorous moments, perhaps where one wouldn't generally expect to find them. I would personally like to have read a bit more about the history and background of many of the rituals described herein, as a fellow (ancient) historian, but overall, I found this volume very enlightening.
Caitlin's depth and breadth of knowledge is impressive: she can discourse intelligently on a multiplicity of subjects ranging from ocean ecosystems (revolving around dead whales, of course), to history, science and anthropology. Perhaps the most valuable aspect of the book is that it offers something of an invitation to readers to ponder their own mortality (and, perhaps, by extension, the disposition of their remains) by witnessing and experiencing the mortality of others from a safe place afar. This is especially vital for death-phobic Americans, who typically view the process of death and grieving as a communicable disease, in my experience, something that should be isolated and quarantined and dealt with by professionals, who largely divorce survivors from their deceased loved ones.
I think the moral of this story is that there's really NO right or wrong way to mourn a death, and then go on living, in the wake of the loss. Most often, elsewhere in the world, the grieving process in particular involves an entire community, and occurs not just at the level of the individual or family, where death and the obsequies surrounding it occur, but at the level of the entire culture, which shapes them, and, they, in turn, inform and give the culture meaning, a deeply vital element at the end of life. The focus is, and should be, on the survivors, and doing whatever is needed to reconcile them to the loss of a deeply-loved decedant, in additition to offering us a way to come to grips with our own mortality, and to decide how we would like to be cared for, when we have at last met our day.
I haven't included as many passages as I have from other books, most notably the classics, whose lines are immortal, but there are a couple that I thought were definitely worth sharing, and which really go to the heart of the message of the book overall.
"One of the chief questions in my work has always been why my own culture is so squeamish around death. Why do we refuse to have these conversations, asking our family and friends what they want done with their body when they die? Our avoidance is self-defeating. By dodging the talk about our inevitable end, we put both our pocketbooks and our ability to mourn at risk."
"The Western funeral home loves the word 'dignity.' The largest American funeral corpration has even trademarked the word. What dignity translates to, more often than not, is silence, a forced poise, a rigid formality. Wakes last exactly two hours. Processions lead to the cemetery. The family leaves the cemetery before the casket is even lowered into the ground."
"In our Western culture, where are we held in our grief? Perhaps religious spaces, churches, temples-for those who have faith. But for everyone else, the most vulnerable time in our lives is a gauntlet of awkward obstacles."
"Death avoidance is not an individual failing: it's a cultural one. Facing death is not for the faint-hearted. It is far too challenging to expect that each citizen will do on his or her own. Death acceptance is the responsibility of all death professionals-funeral directors, cemetery managers, hospital workers. It is the responsibility of those who have been tasked with creating physical and emotional environments where safe, open interaction with death and dead bodies is possible."
And, I'll include the Edward Abbey quote here, which she cites as well:
"The fire. The odor of burning juniper is the sweetest fragrance on the face of the earth, in my honest judgment; I doubt if all the smoking censers of Dante's paradise could equal it. One breath of juniper smoke, like the perfume of sagebrush after rain, evokes in magical catalyis, like certain music, the space and light and clarity and piercing strangeness of the American West. Long may it burn."
