Details:
Pages: 305
Edition: Kindle
Publisher/Date: W. W. Norton & Company (May 17, 2004)
Price: $8.53 on Amazon
Reading Challenges: Outside The Box Challenge #3 - Opposites Attract, Women Challenge
★★★★★★★★☆☆
I laughed. I cried. I (almost) puked...a few times.
And I liked it.
Mary Roach’s Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers manages to be both educational and macabrely entertaining as it journeys through the fascinating, offbeat lives of the dead.
With a background in journalism, Roach’s writing style was concise and factual, but written for the average reader, never droning over inundated with overly-technical or scientific terminology. Although she did her share of research, it was her willingness to first-hand experience that made the book. For example, reading about the stages of body decomposition from a scientist or researcher who studies them is one thing, but reading it from your average, everyday reporter (first hand) makes it more shocking and real. Really? People actually do this?
Note: This is the chapter I had to keep taking breaks or risk losing my lunch.
Second Note: Do not read this book while eating lunch.
Although the book as plenty of shocking facts and entertaining tangents, it goes beyond that. It makes readers differentiate between biological death (the body) and the "go into the white light" or
The treatment of the formerly living is a sensitive subject. Most people don’t like to think about death (I know I don’t – and this is why I refrained from reading this book at night where I would have quiet time to obsess). Some cultures and religions have had and continue to have clear rules regarding the treatment and burial of the deceased. For others, it’s a gray area and one that’s often ruled by grief and emotions.
I, for one, am a resident of the Gray Area. Although I chose this book because it seemed offbeat (which I like) and for a reading challenge to pick a book far from what I normally read, I think, subconsciously, I may have been looking for some direction on the “right” decision to prepare for my own corporeal afterlife.
For example, I didn’t even have to think about checking the organ donor box when getting my driver’s license – organs are just there to keep my body alive and, obviously, if I’m at the point where I can donate them, they’ve outlived their usefulness (and me). I know they will help people, so it seems selfish to take them with me to decompose into, basically, icky goo. The book totally confirmed my decision.
On the other hand, I also said I would donate whatever was left to science, because it will also help people. But I never gave much thought to what exactly I would be helping with. From what I know now, I’m not totally sure how altruistic I feel like being. I’m not sure if I’d be cool with my corpse being shot in the face for ballistics tests. The idea of rotting alongside of other bodies so people could understand how I decomposed – where people could smell me – just gives me chills. How is that any different than donating organs? It’s illogical.
Okay, enough morbidity for the night.
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