Freak369's Full Review: Penny Colman - Corpses, Coffins and Crypts: A Hist...
Death is an inevitable thing.
You can’t avoid it, you can’t hide from it and until it happens to you, it’s something that remains a mystery. Being someone that has always been a “little” different I read a lot about death, hauntings, the possibility of an afterlife, Egyptian burial processes, sanitariums and sanatoriums. Death is something that has no boundaries, the rich and the poor die the same way, the last breath that passes over the lips, the eyes flutter slightly and signs of life start to fade away. A few weeks ago a book arrived on my doorstep. There was no return address on it, no name or indication of who sent it to me. It was postmarked from a small town in Mexico and from the date on it, it took over a month for it to arrive. From time to time I get these mystery packages from all over the world, friends who come across strange, bizarre or just down right creepy things that they know I’ll love. When I opened the package and saw that it was a book about corpses, coffins and crypts my heart skipped a beat. I’d never known such a book existed and I’d never come across it when looking for these keywords at online book stores. Needless to say, I tore into it right away and didn’t stop reading until I hit the last page.
Needless to say, this isn’t something that is going to appeal to a lot of people; death is a scary thing. No matter who you are, eventually you will die. Sure you can freeze your remains cryogenically in case they come up with a cure for a disease that may have overtaken you or you could have yourself clones but the bottom line is that no matter what you do - death is always there. If you are wondering how morbid this book is, that’s something that I simply can’t answer. As I stated, I consider myself on the weird side so to me the themes, photographs and text in the book aren’t gloomy, morose or depressing to me. If nothing else the book serves as a gentle reminder that life is meant to be lived to the fullest possible, that each minute you have on this earth is precious. With that being said, the book takes you on a fantastic journey through different cultures, how they view death, traditions that they embrace and how they inter their loved ones. You’ll be exposed to a variety of different types of burials, crypts, headstones and how bodies are processed before they are put to rest. Some of the topics might seem harsh or graphics but you are dealing with death here, no matter how eloquent the words, death is death.
Chapter three of the book, “What Happens To Corpses” is the one that I found most interesting to read about. Having studied embalming and various facets of mortuary science I wanted to see how the author, Penny Colman, would present these rather gruesome afterlife events. I was surprised to find that the author cited passages from a book I had read entitled “Death To Dust” by Kenneth Iberson. This details what happens, in detail, to a body once the heart stops working. The tale of what happens after death rolls on for a few pages and helps to dispel the myths that are perpetrated in movies - the biggest one being that a body starts to ‘smell’ almost immediately after death. There are a lot of different circumstances that come into play when it comes to judging when, exactly, someone died and the book covers some of these. The topic of organ donation is also covered but ultimately the goal of this chapter is to simply say this; eventually even bones disintegrate leaving nothing but an empty casket. In chapter three you are also exposed to the learning process that students go through to learn about the body, its composition and decomposition. Since this was one of the early chapters in the book I was completely consumed in it and hoped that the rest of it was as detailed and fact filled as this one. As graphic as some of this may sound it is a most interesting read, even for those who are not normally interested in such subjects. Reading about how other cultures preserve and prepare their dead, which cultures disallow embalming and the little known fact that embalming isn’t a necessity or requirement of law in the United States unless the body is being transported across state lines.
There are eight chapters in the book and they cover almost every aspect of death; from the ornate and beautiful tombstones and crypts that are designs as a final dedication of love and respect to different types of burial arrangements such as urns, mausoleums, types of coffins and caskets, crypts and how these are displayed or buried. One thing that really stuck me hard when I was reading this was in regards to the cemeteries in New Orleans. Since the city is below sea level all caskets are above ground. This reminded me of a few cemeteries in Paris that I was lucky enough to visit but there was no mention of this sort of a tie in within the book. Another thing that really astonished me was the mentioning of Brookwood Cemetery outside of London. If you’ve ever taken the train there you’ll know the name of the station, Necropolis. Through all the chapters there is a distinct balance between life and death as well as the ongoing quest for knowledge about death and dying. The pages that deal with remembrances, memorials and ancient burial sites might be too creepy for some people to read about or view the photographs but it serves to show how far we, as a culture, have come in regards to our thought processes about the dearly departed.
One of the most touching parts of the book is the last section that talks about where to find the remains of famous people. This might sound like something that Elvis fans do but there are a lot of people who belong to tour groups that make regular pilgrimages to centenaries and graveyards that house bodies of famous people. If you think that is all this chapter is about and you opt to skip it you will be missing out on some incredible things. All sorts of little passages about how people find comfort in visiting the graves of loved ones, still preserving that love and bond with them even through they have found the strength to carry on with their own lives. There is a lost of celebrities, a brief recap of their accomplishments and where they are buried but this is a pretty tame, chances are if you are looking to find the resting place of someone famous you will have to go online to find it.
For those looking to find a little humor in death, go to one of the last sections of the book [page 172] and read the humorous epitaphs. One of the funnies is that of an older woman who had a recipe carved on her tombstone, the inscription above it reads, “I always said, the only way you would get this recipe was over my dead body”. Aside from the funny ones there are a lot that really make you reflect on how someone lived, how much they were cherished and even how a few met their maker. These span a long period of time and show how things have changed over the years and some of the elaborate ways people are choosing to commemorate their loved ones. The last section of the book covers some of the most common designs that you see on grave and tombstones. These are just general descriptions, each person or family may have a completely different reasoning of why they chose a certain symbol or image. For those interested in learning the chronology of how death has evolved [all areas of death that is], check out ending of the book before you hit the bibliography to see a tracing from 70,000 BC to 1997. There is also a small glossary but to me it wasn;t as comprehensive as it shoudl have been to cover all the unqiue and onscure things that were covered in the book.
The Bottom Line
It’s hard to sit here and say .. “well, this is a good book for so and so to read” ... because, well, everyone has their own perception of death. To some it is as seen as a stepping stone to heaven, to others just a sand of time through the hourglass of eternity. I did learn a lot from this book and even let out some genuine laughs, one of the biggest when I hit page 155 and saw an odd photograph of a gravestone flanked by two parking meters. I assumed it was the grave of someone that worked for parking enforcement but was dead wrong [no pun intended]. It turns out that it’s the burial site of Clyde A Chamberlin, a man who hated parking meters. In his will he stated that he wanted the two parking meters mounted on opposite sides of the tombstone with the coin clots welded shut so they would forever read “Expired”. It’s this type of light humor that helps keep the balance within the pages of the book for it were all tales of woe and sorrow .. one would not be able to truly appreciate the beauty, love and dedication that these pages hold.
If you want to read about how death is celebrated and embraced every year in Mexico, check out my review of Days of The Dead
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Dedicated to Charlie, Mike and Kellen
at Woodland Cemetery in ‘Da Dronx
and my ‘man of steel’ in Brooklyn ...
forever haunting Greenwood Cemetery.
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This comprehensive volume examines the compelling subjects of death and burial across cultures and societies. Corpses, Coffins, and Crypts includes ph...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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