Will the cat eat my eyes? And other questions about corpses – Books and Literature

Review of the book “Will the cat eat my eyes?” And Other Questions About Dead Bodies” by Caitlin Doughty

We all know that death is usually an uncomfortable topic, but we also know that there are people who are fascinated by it. This is the case of Caitlin Doughty. Currently, she owns a funeral home, but she has worked in a crematorium, taken embalming classes, traveled the world researching funeral rites, and talks about it all on American radio. In Will the cat eat my eyes? And other questions about corpsesbrings together the most curious questions about death that children have asked.

And why questions asked by children? Because precisely they still do not have so many qualms about talking about this topic and are capable of asking what many of us may have thought about, but we have not dared to say out loud for fear of being called strange or disrespectful. .

Will the cat eat my eyes? And other questions about corpses It offers us just what the title announces: first, it resolves the question of whether our cat (or dog) will eat our eyes if one day we decide to die next to it without having filled its food bowl, and then it answers the rest of the questions. the questions. For example: nowadays can we be buried alive by mistake? What happens when a cemetery is full? Can we donate blood after dying? What is the appropriate depth for a grave? If we die putting Silly face, does it stay like this forever? Is it true that Siamese brothers die at the same time? What happens if we die on a plane? Is there a light at the end of the tunnel when we die? Or can we keep our parents’ skulls when they die? (Perplexing question, yes, but, according to Caitlin Doughty, children ask it often.)

He answers all these questions with a great sense of humor, providing very curious data that, to tell the truth, sometimes he would have preferred not to know (for example, the one that talks about cell implants from corpse asses…). And the dead are more present in our lives than it seems at first glance. It should be noted that each answer is accompanied by a very illustrative and disturbingly tender drawing.

Apart from learning with the explanations, at the end of Will the cat eat my eyes? And other questions about corpses There is a section where a psychologist talks about how to explain death and the grieving process to children, information that, unfortunately, will be useful to practically all of us at some point.

As Caitlin Doughty says to close the book, “We can’t make death fun, but we can make learning about death fun. Death is science and history, art and literature. It is a bridge that unites all civilizations and humanity completely! And that is what he shows us in the pages of Will the cat eat my eyes? And other questions about corpses. A highly recommended reading for all audiences, because of how entertaining and educational it is, and necessary to lose the fear of death.