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Suspended Animation: Six Essays on the Preservation of Bodily Parts
Essays discuss the preservation of anatomical specimens, the dissection and study of corpses, human development, and the sanctity of life
- GenresScienceNonfictionDeath
151 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1995
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 13, 2023
I'm a bone and taxidermy collector, and am in fact about to embark on a journey to take taxidermy lessons. If anyone should enjoy reading a book about the preservation of body parts, it's me.
However, this author is a *tool*. Yuck. You know how you sometimes read someone's belief and realize they are exactly what's wrong with this world? Yeah. That's this guy.
In his first essay he discusses with disdain placentophagy, which is the act or practice of eating the placenta. Now, I'm not a placenta-eater. I don't have kids and am not going to have any. I don't care about this practice either way. But read this man's dimwitted statements:
"I suppose advocates of the "back-to-nature" persuasion can draw on plenty of arguments from biology and health sciences to embellish the loathsome practice; placentophagy may yet thrive among the uncritical. But it is likely that fears and anxieties lie at the base of their unconventional ways. Caught up in the life of this century, where nothing but an optimistic profession of faith in the good of science and technology deserves approbation, people are prone to disguise their irrational longings with the cloak of psuedo-scientificism."
Let me repeat the part that was the most stupid: "Caught up in the life of this century, where nothing but an optimistic profession of faith in the good of science and technology deserves approbation..."
It is possible to live in the world and be critical of science. It's also possible to live in the world and be critical of mysticism. It's really best to be critical of both. But anyone who feels comfortable making the above statement is a boring, close-minded, conventional idiot.
Despite the fact that I was already disgusted with this dude 16 pages in, I went ahead and read half the book. This mans ideas are staid, traditional, and boring; besides which his writing style is overly florid (I think he thinks he's poetic? He's just annoying) and he tries to make himself look smart by using "big words".
An impulse buy I sincerely regret, and I only paid $3 for it at a used bookstore.
Update in 2023: In a post-pandemic world, the "skepticism of science" I talked about has a very different meaning than it did when I talked about it in 2014. I no longer remember this book well enough to remember or discuss other things than irked me about this author and his belief system. I wish I had selected other quotes to talk about in my review so I had other context to critique, but I didn't predict corona nearly a decade before it would happen. Fancy that.
I will note that I still don't have kids. And now I am 38--a time when my "biological clock" is supposed to go haywire. It never has, and it never will. I even got a tubal ligation last year! Woot woot! So, when I talk about this topic I want you to know I am still childless. Further, I am not a "crunchy granola liberal hippie". Similarly, I am not a "back to traditional values conservative".
But despite all that I have said: my lack of hippie-woowooness, my lack of conservative "off the grid prepperness", and my lack of children--I reserve the right to loathe any man who would dismiss the practice of eating placenta so completely,
This author, being a man and all, will never produce a placenta. He will never give birth to a child. He cannot understand the desire to eat a placenta, but he shouldn't dismiss it as a "desire rooted in fear". Nor should he say how people need to worship at the alter of science. People should be both critical of the practices of science, and of tradition, and of religion.
But dear reader, please don't come away from my review thinking I am an anti-vaxxer. I'm not.
However, this author is a *tool*. Yuck. You know how you sometimes read someone's belief and realize they are exactly what's wrong with this world? Yeah. That's this guy.
In his first essay he discusses with disdain placentophagy, which is the act or practice of eating the placenta. Now, I'm not a placenta-eater. I don't have kids and am not going to have any. I don't care about this practice either way. But read this man's dimwitted statements:
"I suppose advocates of the "back-to-nature" persuasion can draw on plenty of arguments from biology and health sciences to embellish the loathsome practice; placentophagy may yet thrive among the uncritical. But it is likely that fears and anxieties lie at the base of their unconventional ways. Caught up in the life of this century, where nothing but an optimistic profession of faith in the good of science and technology deserves approbation, people are prone to disguise their irrational longings with the cloak of psuedo-scientificism."
Let me repeat the part that was the most stupid: "Caught up in the life of this century, where nothing but an optimistic profession of faith in the good of science and technology deserves approbation..."
It is possible to live in the world and be critical of science. It's also possible to live in the world and be critical of mysticism. It's really best to be critical of both. But anyone who feels comfortable making the above statement is a boring, close-minded, conventional idiot.
Despite the fact that I was already disgusted with this dude 16 pages in, I went ahead and read half the book. This mans ideas are staid, traditional, and boring; besides which his writing style is overly florid (I think he thinks he's poetic? He's just annoying) and he tries to make himself look smart by using "big words".
An impulse buy I sincerely regret, and I only paid $3 for it at a used bookstore.
Update in 2023: In a post-pandemic world, the "skepticism of science" I talked about has a very different meaning than it did when I talked about it in 2014. I no longer remember this book well enough to remember or discuss other things than irked me about this author and his belief system. I wish I had selected other quotes to talk about in my review so I had other context to critique, but I didn't predict corona nearly a decade before it would happen. Fancy that.
I will note that I still don't have kids. And now I am 38--a time when my "biological clock" is supposed to go haywire. It never has, and it never will. I even got a tubal ligation last year! Woot woot! So, when I talk about this topic I want you to know I am still childless. Further, I am not a "crunchy granola liberal hippie". Similarly, I am not a "back to traditional values conservative".
But despite all that I have said: my lack of hippie-woowooness, my lack of conservative "off the grid prepperness", and my lack of children--I reserve the right to loathe any man who would dismiss the practice of eating placenta so completely,
This author, being a man and all, will never produce a placenta. He will never give birth to a child. He cannot understand the desire to eat a placenta, but he shouldn't dismiss it as a "desire rooted in fear". Nor should he say how people need to worship at the alter of science. People should be both critical of the practices of science, and of tradition, and of religion.
But dear reader, please don't come away from my review thinking I am an anti-vaxxer. I'm not.
April 2, 2012
Enjoyable, Gonzalez-Crussi has an excellent style, very approachable. This should have received 5 stars, but the book was in such desperate need of an editor that I actually found it distracting. Multiple issues on every page, including one point where the same passage was repeated a page later, dropped in the middle of the next paragraph (clearly not the intention of the author). Fantastic writing, horrible presentation on the part of the publisher.
November 24, 2020
Interesting little stories intertwining the modern and ancient medicine and believes.
March 5, 2013
An awe-inspiring word weaver.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews