From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death
'From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death' by Caitlin Doughty is a journey exploring death rituals and customs from various cultures around the world. The author takes the reader on a thought-provoking exploration of how different societies deal with death, shedding light on the funeral industry and the need for more respectful and personal approaches to the end of life. Doughty's writing style combines humor, compassion, and empathy, making the heavy topic of death more approachable and engaging for readers.
The book delves into the author's travels to countries like Mexico, Indonesia, Japan, and the United States, where she uncovers unique funeral practices and traditions. Through poignant stories and vivid descriptions, Doughty challenges the Western perspective on death, urging readers to consider alternative ways of honoring the deceased and coping with mortality. By blending personal anecdotes with cultural insights, the book invites readers to reflect on their own attitudes towards death and contemplate the significance of rituals in the face of loss.
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Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings
Triggers or content warnings include frank discussions of death, decomposition, and the emotional impacts of grief.
From The Publisher:
Fascinated by our pervasive fear of dead bodies, mortician Caitlin Doughty embarks on a global expedition to discover how other cultures care for the dead. From Zoroastrian sky burials to wish-granting Bolivian skulls, she investigates the world's funerary customs and expands our sense of what it means to treat the dead with dignity. Her account questions the rituals of the American funeral industry-especially chemical embalming-and suggests that the most effective traditions are those that allow mourners to personally attend to the body of the deceased. Exquisitely illustrated by artist Landis Blair, From Here to Eternity is an adventure into the morbid unknown, a fascinating tour through the unique ways people everywhere confront mortality.
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2 comment(s)
Death is not something I often think considering that this mean thinking about my morality. After reading this book, I am have decided not to ignore death but rather accept that death is a natural part of life.
Doughty operates a nonprofit funeral home and I would say that the main purpose of this book is to show how other countries (and some American states,) are embracing death and allowing people to choose how they are buried in ways other than burial or cremation.
The book starts by sharing a story how death is something now often discussed in America and how in other countries like Belize, death is a topic that is talked about all the time as a way to be prepared when the person dies.
Throughout the course of the book, Doughty visits a total of eight places (3 US states and five different countries) to see how death is handled and end of life care. Of the eight different places visited by Doughty, I was most intrigued by Japan and their different ways of end of life care such as the buddha cremation temple, robotic funeral home where you scan a key card and a robot retrieves the ashes of your loved one and a virtual grave site visit which allows you the chance to visit the deceased grave without actually going there.
I was most surprised by death care in the US such as a funeral pyre in Colorado and the ability to bury someone in the natural burial section Joshua Tree, California. It’s sad that in America, death is still a taboo subject among most people. Death is something that should be embraced considering that if you’re living, you will one day die.
I enjoyed reading about how families care for their deceased family member even after death and in some cases such as in Indonesia, they regularly visit the deceased and dress them up for the ma’nene’.
Most interesting to me was how much religion plays into funeral arrangements. Members of the Parsis in India engage in a ceremony called dakhma or the tower of silence which involves placing a dead human in a tower which is then eaten by vultures. Although he vulture population in India has severely decreased (from 400 million in 1876 to none,) religious leaders refuse to use alternative means to dispose of the bodies which is leading to anger by those deceased family members.
This book was informative, interesting and insightful and after reading this book, it’s made me rethink how I view death and have inspired me to start planning how I want to be taken care of once I die. Having read this book, it’s comforting to know that I have other choices besides being buried or cremated and that it’s important to ask those I love how they want their end of life wishes to be fulfilled.
respectful cultural observations
What can you read after
From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death?
About the Author:
Caitlin Doughty is a mortician and the New York Times best-selling author of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, From Here to Eternity, and Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? She is the creator of the web series Ask a Mortician, and the founder of The Order of the Good Death. She lives in Los Angeles, California, where she owns a funeral home.
Landis Blair illustrated the prize-winning graphic novel The Hunting Accident and the New York Times bestseller From Here to Eternity, and has published illustrations in the New York Times, Chicago magazine, and Medium. He lives in Chicago, Illinois.
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