Discussion: Stiff by Mary Roach
 

Time to chat about Stiff... a MRBC selection for March.

BOb

Man! This month went way too fast! I just started this today, thinking I had plenty of time before the discussion started! I should finish it this weekend.

I really liked the book, and I hardly ever read non-fiction, except for reference stuff...

I wasn't too keen of the chapter with the shooting (fortunately, it's illegal to shoot dead people here in Australia), but the rest of the book was extremely interesting... Fancy all the ways you can be useful after you're dead... Even get a face lift... :rofl:

No doubt Ms Roach has a great sense of humour as well as a healthy sense of the ridiculous.

I'm currently reading 'Stiff', and enjoying it. But I'm puzzled by a passage in Chapter 4, "Dead Man Driving":

"In 1916, a group of animal rights activists successfully petitoned the British Undertakers Association on behalf of the horses that pulled their hearses, urging members to stop making the horses wear plumes on their heads."

Roach describes this as 'nonsensical', it doesn't seem to have occurred to her that the objection may have been against the suffering of birds that supplied the plumes, rather than the horses that wore them - similar to the way hat feathers were often campaigned against. :smack:
And that is assuming her story is correct in the first place, she doesn't cite a source. But in "The Much Chosen Race" (1922) by Sidney A. Moseley there is a passage that sheds a different light on what may have actually happened:

I observe, in this connection, some pointed comments which were made by the Vicar of Chiswick in a lecture to members of the Ealing Centre of the British Undertakers' Association. ...
He expressed a desire to help undertakers to "abolish some of the gloominess of funerals and to make them the triumphant and beautiful affairs they were down to the 16th century."
"I am grateful to you," he added, "for having used your influence to abolish those appalling plumes which were a feature of funerals not many years ago and those long, dreary, hatbands, too. ..."

I shall be reading the rest of the book with a rather more wary assumption of its accuracy from here on in. ;)

Well, given that it states that the activists did that 'on behalf of the horses' , it would appear that the objection was against some perceived suffering of the horses.

Good find with that second quote! Always best to read any book with a critical eye, as you say.

Yes, that's true; but it may be that Roach is assuming that the objection was on behalf of horses - if that was really the case, I'd agree with her about it being nonsensical. :)

I wasn't expecting there to be quite so much content about stuff done to living people and other animals. I was hoping for a book about research done with dead human bodies (which would not have upset me) but there was a lot of stuff about live human and non-human animal testing (which was upsetting). It seemed like a bait-and-switch.

I'm nearly halfway through and loving it. I keep laughing out loud (I particularly liked the Rice Krispies reference).

...and don't forget the chicken soup.

Since the dead doesn't do much, there would have to be living people involved... :)

Animal testing has been used by scientists since they evolved... It is/was necessary - unfortunately.. A lot of previous testing on animals has ceased...

I find myself agreeing; I haven't finished the book yet, but Roach explained early on that she wasn't being disrepectful to the dead humans - yet she seems unnecessarily flippant about the suffering of live non-humans in research.

lene1949 says testing on non-humans is necessary; without wishing to turn this discussion into a debate on that thorny issue - I'd just like to say I disagree with that view. :)

Added: Finished the book and found it a very interesting read. I was surprised that the section on cannibalism implied it was a practice remote from us, Christian communion rituals (consuming the body and blood of Christ) are a normal part of many people's lives. Also, Roach's slightly sniffy attitude to environmental issues has dated horribly in the relatively few years since publication. But overall I thought it a good read; even though I have a different outlook to the author's in many respects.
It was a shame she didn't like the idea of being eaten by crabs; I think I'd quite like to end up as a meal for fellow creatures - Tibetan sky burials seem quite appealing.

I've recently finished it - I enjoyed it overall, although there were some chapters in the middle that I didn't enjoy reading while eating. I thought that the end was well done - it was good to pay tribute to UM006 and co.

The bit that I found most horrifying was the Chinese daughters-in-law cutting off bits of themselves to feed ailing parents (an eye!?).

It made me think about what I might want to have done with my corpse once I'm dead. Composting sounds a pretty good option to me. What's your preference?

All in all, an interesting read about something which I'd not read much about.

I won't be buying rice krispies for a while.

I finished mine the other day as well. I can see where some of you felt cheated with all of the discussions on animals, but it didn't really bother me. Overall I enjoyed it, but I felt she gave her best effort in the beginning of the book. After about halfway it started to drag a little.

Has anyone read Bonk or Spook by the same author? How would you compare the books to each other?

I have read all three. I liked Stiff the best but Bonk and Spook were both very readable and enjoyable and still rank up there among my non-fiction faves.

Mel

I have all three in paperback..

The best is Stiff, but Bonk is highly amusing and Spook places a near third.

I would have to say over all I enjoyed it. I don't think it has changed my mind about my body after my demise. I don't want to be buried and I would prefer to be cremated. But if I go before my wife she will have the final say... Oh Well.