From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death

　　凱特琳．道堤Caitlin Doughty在《煙霧迷漫你的眼》以幽默的口吻讓讀者進入禮儀師的世界，在死亡的千萬種面貌之前，邀請所有人思索生命的意義。她所主持的youtube頻道「請問禮儀師Ask a Mortician」(暫譯)，也因為以幽默卻又不失正面的態度討論死亡，在美國掀起一陣旋風。



　　本次她走出每日的禮儀師日常，前往世界各地，探索不同的喪葬文化，展開一場找尋何謂「好死」的驚奇之旅。她前往日本，了解日本人如何使用筷子進行kotsuage（骨揚げ，即撿骨）儀式；也到了印尼的偏遠地帶，在那裡的居民，會將亡者製作成木乃伊，並為它穿上衣服，甚至與之一同飲食起居。Caitlin幽默的寫到「在Tana Toraja看到的第一個木乃伊，戴著80年代黃色邊框的飛行員墨鏡，長得跟我中學時的代數老師超像！」。書中從墨西哥的亡靈節寫到祆教的天葬，Caitlin不僅關注各種奇異的儀式細節，將其毫無保留地記錄下來，更挖掘了儀式背後的歷史與死亡觀，當然，也沒有缺少介紹當今最前沿的環保綠葬及研究。



　　在Caitlin眼裡，關於死亡的一切並不可怕，她成功地以趣味詼諧的口吻，邀請讀者放下對於死亡的恐懼一同與她歷險。除了讓我們驚奇以及反思文化儀式架構出所謂有尊嚴的死亡，究竟是什麼意義，更讓我們直面如何面對逝去之人，這最困難卻也重要的一課。（文／博客來編譯）



　　本書包含45張插圖

Fascinated by our pervasive fear of dead bodies, mortician Caitlin Doughty set out to discover how other cultures care for the dead. From Here to Eternity is an immersive global journey that introduces compelling, powerful rituals almost entirely unknown in America.

In rural Indonesia, she watches a man clean and dress his grandfather’s mummified body, which has resided in the family home for two years. In La Paz, she meets Bolivian natitas (cigarette-smoking, wish-granting human skulls), and in Tokyo she encounters the Japanese kotsuage ceremony, in which relatives use chopsticks to pluck their loved-ones’ bones from cremation ashes.

With boundless curiosity and gallows humor, Doughty vividly describes decomposed bodies and investigates the world’s funerary history. She introduces deathcare innovators researching body composting and green burial, and examines how varied traditions, from Mexico’s Días de los Muertos to Zoroastrian sky burial help us see our own death customs in a new light.

Doughty contends that the American funeral industry sells a particular--and, upon close inspection, peculiar--set of ＂respectful＂ rites: bodies are whisked to a mortuary, pumped full of chemicals, and entombed in concrete. She argues that our expensive, impersonal system fosters a corrosive fear of death that hinders our ability to cope and mourn. By comparing customs, she demonstrates that mourners everywhere respond best when they help care for the deceased, and have space to participate in the process.

Exquisitely illustrated by artist Landis Blair, From Here to Eternity is an adventure into the morbid unknown, a story about the many fascinating ways people everywhere have confronted the very human challenge of mortality.