Product Details
Day Of The Dead (Harvest/H B J Book)

Day Of The Dead (Harvest/H B J Book)
By F. Gonzalez-Crussi

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Product Description

Collected essays by a noted pathologist that lead the reader into an animated world of cadavers, coroners, graveyards, and death rituals. With keen insight and wicked wit, the author explores the culture of death from the perspective of one who routinely confronts mortality head-on.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #1717377 in Books
  • Published on: 1994-10-14
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 208 pages

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
A leading pathologist ponders the cultural implications of death and mortality in this well-crafted collection of essays.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
These are a moving series of meditative essays occasioned by pathologist Gonzalez-Crussi's collaboration with a BBC documentary film crew in "a stark visual record of mortality." They probe behind the scenes to explore such things as the author's own misgivings in permitting the filming of an autopsy, reflect on death as it is depicted in various forms of art, and reveal Mexico's "Day of the Dead" celebrations and religious syncretism. These beautiful, poetic essays will speak to people of various religious traditions and beliefs. Highly recommended. First serial rights to The New Yorker.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
These six essays grew out of their author's participation in a BBC documentary film. In them, Gonzalez-Crussi, a pathologist with a flowing prose style, describes, not without indulging some perceptive observations on politics and religion en route, the traveling body of Evita Peron, then moves to his native Mexico to immerse himself in the mythology and cruelty surrounding the dramatic monolith symbolizing the Aztec mother of gods, Coatlicue. He considers the various meanings of calaveras--which, basically, denotes skulls--and various celebrations of the Day of the Dead; he speaks of his own first exposure to death at age nine. His account of the filming of an autopsy he performed leads into a commentary on various reactions to death. He draws attention to the profound difference between the words "resuscitation" and "reactivation" in near-death situations. Finally, he writes of the Dance of Death and Mozart's Requiem. There is much here for immediate and future pondering. William Beatty