Onze site gebruikt cookies om diensten te leveren, prestaties te verbeteren, voor analyse en (indien je niet ingelogd bent) voor advertenties. Door LibraryThing te gebruiken erken je dat je onze Servicevoorwaarden en Privacybeleid gelezen en begrepen hebt. Je gebruik van de site en diensten is onderhevig aan dit beleid en deze voorwaarden.
The facts of life and death remain the same. We live and die, we love and grieve, we breed and disappear. And between these existential gravities, we search for meaning, save our memories, leave a record for those who will remember us.'So writes Thomas Lynch in Bodies in Motion and at Rest - the second collection of essays by the award-winning author of The Undertaking.As poet and funeral director, Lynch examines the relations between the literary and the mortuary arts - the connection between obsequies and prosodies; the effort to give voice to unspeakable things: great love, great heartbreak, great wonder, great pain; how icons, metaphors and ritualised speech are engaged in poems and in funerals.The essays assembled here explore a species at the intersection of millennia, beleaguered by choices and changes, encumbered by merger and acquisition, numbed by maths and technologies, in search of the meaning of Life and Time, our lives and times. In an age that seeks to define human experience in retail, high-tech or pop-psyche terms, these wise, exquisite essays explore the distance between birth and death, the condition of the human being and the state of ceasing to be.… (meer)
(48) Now here is a genre I never read, but perhaps I should. A collection of essays from a funeral director who is also a published poet - and frankly, an excellent writer. This book was randomly mentioned in two unrelated recent books I read which inspired me to seek it out. These essays are about death, mourning, regrets, the passage of time, funerals, the ridiculousness of some aspects of life at the dawn of a new millennium. The absolute best was about the pet cat that he hated and there was another one about the funeral industry that was excellent.
This actually took me quite a while to read though. While the writing was empirically beautiful and at times incredibly poignant and insightful - it was just not compelling. I didn't have a burning desire to begin to read the next essay when one ended and they all blend together in my mind now upon reflection. The collection was quiet and intelligent reading, but very putdownable. I also don't particularly care for poetry so all those references left me cold.
Lovely wistful writing about life's difficulties and our final destination. I want someone like Thomas Lynch to bury me. ( )
Perhaps I am biased, as I too was a funeral director and embalmer; I easily understood what the man was speaking of. There is a great chapter concerning the damned cat he despised --- I laughed so hard my sides literally ached and yes, tears came from my eyes. ( )
The facts of life and death remain the same. We live and die, we love and grieve, we breed and disappear. And between these existential gravities, we search for meaning, save our memories, leave a record for those who will remember us.'So writes Thomas Lynch in Bodies in Motion and at Rest - the second collection of essays by the award-winning author of The Undertaking.As poet and funeral director, Lynch examines the relations between the literary and the mortuary arts - the connection between obsequies and prosodies; the effort to give voice to unspeakable things: great love, great heartbreak, great wonder, great pain; how icons, metaphors and ritualised speech are engaged in poems and in funerals.The essays assembled here explore a species at the intersection of millennia, beleaguered by choices and changes, encumbered by merger and acquisition, numbed by maths and technologies, in search of the meaning of Life and Time, our lives and times. In an age that seeks to define human experience in retail, high-tech or pop-psyche terms, these wise, exquisite essays explore the distance between birth and death, the condition of the human being and the state of ceasing to be.
This actually took me quite a while to read though. While the writing was empirically beautiful and at times incredibly poignant and insightful - it was just not compelling. I didn't have a burning desire to begin to read the next essay when one ended and they all blend together in my mind now upon reflection. The collection was quiet and intelligent reading, but very putdownable. I also don't particularly care for poetry so all those references left me cold.
Lovely wistful writing about life's difficulties and our final destination. I want someone like Thomas Lynch to bury me. ( )