From Here to Eternity

I had more fun with this than the topic would suggest. From Here to Eternity is cathartic. Doughty's tone is both conversational and nonjudgmental. She takes us through her research into different rituals of death practiced throughout the world. Doughty argues that industrializing and commercializing funerals—as the US has done—deepens fear of death. The process becomes increasingly clinical, as if grief can be expedited. People are shielded from realities of death even in making arrangements for recently deceased loved ones. This makes it that much harder to heal. This book is critical of Western culture, past and present. I don't think this is a shortcoming. From Here to Eternity is a response to ethnocentric assumptions about how to properly mourn. Doughty shows how being repulsed by unfamiliar memorial rituals is often just a facade for one's unaddressed fear of mortality—in other words, a case of “it's not you, it's me.”I learned a lot, but I would have liked to explore more of the world, especially outside the Western hemisphere. I'd recommend this for fans of the memoir [b:I Am, I Am, I Am 35137915 I Am, I Am, I Am Seventeen Brushes with Death Maggie O'Farrell https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1517352695s/35137915.jpg 55835303].