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Iben Frederiksen's Reviews > From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death
From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death
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This is the second book Caitlin Doughty's published, and it is also my second read of hers.
In this book Caitlin, a writer and mortician, chronicles her meetings with other cultures death and burial traditions, in a very chill and humorous way.
It's interesting to say the least, how very different the ending of someone's life is dealt with around the world.
From Mexico to Japan, the business of death is quite different aross the globe, making the reader aware of practices that are so very unlike their own. Some of these practices and traditions may seem miles apart from what the reader considers "the norm", but Caitlin let's the representatives from burial companies around the word, explain in their own words how their traditions have come to be, making you consider and decide for yourself, which practices you can realate to the most, and which ones you just find too unusual.
Being danish myself, even the practices that are "the norm" to american Caitlin Doughty, are very different from the ones we have here in Denmark. I find things like embalming and open caskets, to be very different (and also slightly creepy) from the burials we have.
A fascinating and humorous read!
In this book Caitlin, a writer and mortician, chronicles her meetings with other cultures death and burial traditions, in a very chill and humorous way.
It's interesting to say the least, how very different the ending of someone's life is dealt with around the world.
From Mexico to Japan, the business of death is quite different aross the globe, making the reader aware of practices that are so very unlike their own. Some of these practices and traditions may seem miles apart from what the reader considers "the norm", but Caitlin let's the representatives from burial companies around the word, explain in their own words how their traditions have come to be, making you consider and decide for yourself, which practices you can realate to the most, and which ones you just find too unusual.
Being danish myself, even the practices that are "the norm" to american Caitlin Doughty, are very different from the ones we have here in Denmark. I find things like embalming and open caskets, to be very different (and also slightly creepy) from the burials we have.
A fascinating and humorous read!
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From Here to Eternity.
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Reading Progress
July 11, 2020
–
Started Reading
July 25, 2020
–
Finished Reading
September 22, 2020
– Shelved
September 22, 2020
– Shelved as:
non-fiction
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rated it 4 stars
Sep 22, 2020 05:12AM
What kind of burials do you have in Denmark?
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Sarina wrote: "What kind of burials do you have in Denmark?"Well, by far most people are cremated. But the people who aren't cremated have, as Doughty calls it in the book "natural burials". We don't really embalm people in Denmark - I think you can get it, but it's not something I've ever heard of anybody getting.
We also don't have open caskets - it's not illegal, but noone does it. I remember as a kid watching american movies where if someone died they had an open viewing, that really freaked me out haha. We kind of say goodbye to the departed where they die? Like if they die at the hospital or at a nursing home, the staff will make the person look nice, open the window and light a candle, and contact the family, so they can come say goodbye :)
Great review. My parent were raised in a tiny southern town where the body, in the open casket, was placed in the home for 24 hours before the church service. People were assigned to sit up with the body while in the home. So when my cousin died, his body laid for 24 hours in the teeny tiny living room of his house. To get from the kitchen to the bathroom to the bedroom you had to pass by the open casket so you were constantly looking at his body. Very upsetting and so strange. I’ve marked this to read.
