The Blender Book Club discussion

Our October read is From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by professional mortician, YouTuber, and author Caitlin Doughty. Not to be confused with the 1951 novel or the 1953 film of the same name (safe to assume there's less kissing in the surf here), Doughty's 2017 book is a work of popular nonfiction which examines burial practices from around the world and raises some questions about the ethics and effectiveness of the American funeral industry. Doughty is an engaging personality with a great sense of (morbid) humor, and the book even boasts illustrations by artist Landis Blair. I think it will be a great way to usher in the Spooky Season. 🎃💀

We'll meet at 7 pm on Wednesday, October 20 to discuss From Here to Eternity. The link is the same as it ever was:

meet.google.com/ssk-ywba-syc

Hope to see you then!

The group has been quiet this month (even Lucy hasn't given her standard check-in!), so I just wanted to see how From Here to Eternity is going for everyone and to remind you that we'll be meeting to discuss it a week from today, on October 20.

Personally I'm really enjoying the book and finding it a breeze to read, despite the heavy subject matter. I've already begun to think about death differently and to wonder about alternative end-of-life practices for myself. Anyone else?

Yes, It was fast to read and interesting. A lot of people in the US have already rejected a lot of the once standard death procedures - such as embalming.

I finished it Monday. I appreciated Doughty's honest picture of America's greedy funeral industry which has enabled our near-complete alienation from the process of caring for our dead. This book woke painful memories of my mother, whose body was taken away from us only hours after dying at home, and of my husband, who died in a hospital after an accident at home, without my daughter or I being able to spend his last moments with him or with his body after his death. Reading this book gave me the courage to talk with my daughter about my wishes re my own eventual passing, and I'm grateful for that.
Honestly, though, as light as the author kept the tone, the accounts of [to my Western eyes at least] strange death customs of various world cultures was not all that engaging, resembling a college prof trying to shake up her ethnography class. I did enjoy the chapter on Japan very much, but my general impression on finishing the book was "Meh..."
Sorry, but you did ask.

Lucy wrote: "I finished it Monday. I appreciated Doughty's honest picture of America's greedy funeral industry which has enabled our near-complete alienation from the process of caring for our dead. This book w..."

I think that's a fair perspective, Lucy. The parts that are sticking most with me are definitely the ones which confront our alienating death practices at home, though I do think the descriptions of other rituals around the world help to make the contrast more clear. I wonder if you'd have like her first book, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory , a little better. I haven't read it, but from what I understand the focus is mainly on the American funeral industry, though with the same general message about the need for reform.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1) Which of the death-care rituals discussed in the book did you find most interesting or moving? Why?

2) Do you find it disturbing to read about the treatment of dead bodies in such detail? Is Doughty's investment in the subject infectious, or off-putting?

3) What do you think we can learn about a culture from its death practices that may not be evident in other areas? What do you think U.S. death practices might say about us, to an outsider?

4) What was the most surprising fact you learned in From Here to Eternity?

5) Would you ever be interested in witnessing the death practices of another culture (with an invitation, of course)? Why or why not?

6) If you were to pick an "alternative" burial method--whether commonly available or not--what would it be? Have you ever considered doing so?

7) In your experience, are Doughty's observations about the sterility and profit-driven nature of the modern funeral industry accurate? Do you agree with her that closer proximity to the dead would be an improvement?

8) Did this book cause you to reflect at all about your own death, or that of a loved one? What sorts of realizations did you come to?

9) This book club tends to focus on novels and memoirs from around the world. How did you like switching it up with a factual nonfiction work?

10) Would you recommend this book? Would you read another book (or watch a YouTube video) by Doughty?

On the bleakness of the British way of death (viewpoint of an Englishwoman who has lived most of her life in Egypt; c. 1900):
...There are no rituals of mourning. In the twenty-odd years I lived in England, I never found out how the English mourn. There seems to be a funeral and then -- nothing. Just an emptiness. No friends and relatives filling the house. No Thursday nights. No Fortieth Day. Nothing. ...
-- The Map of Love, Ahdaf Souief