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Rag and Bone: A Journey Among the World's Holy Dead
By examining relics—the bits and pieces of long-dead saints at the heart of nearly all religious traditions—Peter Manseau delivers a book about life, and about faith and how it is sustained. The result of wide travel and the author’s own deep curiosity, filled with true tales of the living and dubious legends of the dead, Rag and Bone tells of a California seeker who ended up in a Jerusalem convent because of a nun’s disembodied hand; a French forensics expert who travels on the metro with the rib of a saint; two young brothers who collect tickets at a Syrian mosque, studying English beside a hair from the Prophet Muhammad’s beard; and many other stories, myths, and peculiar histories.
243 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 75 reviews
June 28, 2019
I often find myself reading somewhat odd books because I have heard their authors interviewed on CBC radio. This is one of those books. Where else would I have heard about a book featuring the bits and pieces of long dead religious people? Truth be told, I was puzzled last year, when I heard that my city (Calgary) was to receive a visit in the form of the severed arm of St. Francis Xavier. I knew that such things were important in the Middle Ages (read Ellis Peters’ excellent mystery story, A Morbid Taste for Bones, as an illustration of this), but I was unaware that religious relics were still a thing in the 21st century.
In preparation for this odd visitation, the author of this book was interviewed by our public radio station. I don’t remember the details of that interview, but I was intrigued enough to put this book on my TBR list and I’m glad that I read it, even if just for the quirk factor.
Poor old Saint F-X, he wasn’t the most successful proselytizer of the Christian faith, but in death he managed to find more fame and sainthood (he is featured early in the book). It’s these stories of the people behind the relics that are interesting, as well as finding out that Buddhists and Muslims also have treasured relics. It seems to be a bizarre human tendency, perhaps starting when the Neanderthals buried their dead in the caves that they inhabited.
The author is a religion scholar, but this offering is not a scholarly tome. It is sometimes humerous and very informative, without being overwhelming. If you are looking for something a little different in your reading docket, you could definitely do worse than Rag and Bone.
In preparation for this odd visitation, the author of this book was interviewed by our public radio station. I don’t remember the details of that interview, but I was intrigued enough to put this book on my TBR list and I’m glad that I read it, even if just for the quirk factor.
Poor old Saint F-X, he wasn’t the most successful proselytizer of the Christian faith, but in death he managed to find more fame and sainthood (he is featured early in the book). It’s these stories of the people behind the relics that are interesting, as well as finding out that Buddhists and Muslims also have treasured relics. It seems to be a bizarre human tendency, perhaps starting when the Neanderthals buried their dead in the caves that they inhabited.
The author is a religion scholar, but this offering is not a scholarly tome. It is sometimes humerous and very informative, without being overwhelming. If you are looking for something a little different in your reading docket, you could definitely do worse than Rag and Bone.
December 22, 2021
Panoramica dei capitoli
1. - Prendi il martire per l'alluce - un inutile gesuita diventa reliquia per marketing.
2. - La gamba del lama va in tournée - anche i buddisti mandano in giro pezzi di persone in cambio di offerte. I californiani rispondono entusiasti (excursus con gibboni).
3. - Un, due, tre, prepuzio! - la reliquia più punk della chiesa cattolica, ovvero lo "scarto" della circoncisione di Gesù. Dramma teologico irrisolto.
4. - Costolette ben cotte - Giovanna d'Arco barbecue e una spazzolata alla sindone.
5.- Mani attraverso gli oceani - non potevano mancare i russi e i Romanov.
6. - Il pelo più pericoloso del mondo - "per la barba di Maometto!", il profeta a quanto pare spelava come un gatto.
7. - Con l'unghia e con il dente - ecco, in questo capitolo non riesco a trovare ironia. Una reliquia diventa oggetto di potere tra due etnie per tentare di dominarsi a vicenda. "Questo è il motivo per il quale ognuno degli oltre mille fedeli buddhisti che visitano il tempio ogni giorno deve passare attraverso una stretta costruzione che contiene un metal detector, una macchina per i raggi X, due tavoli pieghevoli e una tenda dietro la quale si può preservare il proprio pudore nel caso di una perquisizione corporale approfondita.", dice l'autore. Davvero un vecchio dente vale tutto questo?
8. - Spaccare il capello - teniamo le tombe di tutti, ma proprio tutti, ma cementiamo quella di Eva. Noi donne siamo sempre il nemico, eh?
Ok, questa è la panoramica dei capitoli. Capita l'idea del libro, che è quella di fare un viaggio tra le reliquie delle maggiori religioni del pianeta, lo si può anche leggere in disordine, o leggere solo il capitolo che interessa. Se non si è hooligan di qualche fede in particolare riterrete che le similitudini sono molto più delle differenze e, come me, vi chiederete che bisogno c'è di scannarsi per decidere quale amico immaginario è il migliore.
L'autore scrive bene, il libro è un ottimo esempio di infotainment e la lettura scorre. I capitoli sono lunghi abbastanza da essere esaustivi e brevi abbastanza da permettere di essere letti in un'unica sessione. È una lettura che arricchisce e allena lo spirito critico.
1. - Prendi il martire per l'alluce - un inutile gesuita diventa reliquia per marketing.
2. - La gamba del lama va in tournée - anche i buddisti mandano in giro pezzi di persone in cambio di offerte. I californiani rispondono entusiasti (excursus con gibboni).
3. - Un, due, tre, prepuzio! - la reliquia più punk della chiesa cattolica, ovvero lo "scarto" della circoncisione di Gesù. Dramma teologico irrisolto.
4. - Costolette ben cotte - Giovanna d'Arco barbecue e una spazzolata alla sindone.
5.- Mani attraverso gli oceani - non potevano mancare i russi e i Romanov.
6. - Il pelo più pericoloso del mondo - "per la barba di Maometto!", il profeta a quanto pare spelava come un gatto.
7. - Con l'unghia e con il dente - ecco, in questo capitolo non riesco a trovare ironia. Una reliquia diventa oggetto di potere tra due etnie per tentare di dominarsi a vicenda. "Questo è il motivo per il quale ognuno degli oltre mille fedeli buddhisti che visitano il tempio ogni giorno deve passare attraverso una stretta costruzione che contiene un metal detector, una macchina per i raggi X, due tavoli pieghevoli e una tenda dietro la quale si può preservare il proprio pudore nel caso di una perquisizione corporale approfondita.", dice l'autore. Davvero un vecchio dente vale tutto questo?
8. - Spaccare il capello - teniamo le tombe di tutti, ma proprio tutti, ma cementiamo quella di Eva. Noi donne siamo sempre il nemico, eh?
Ok, questa è la panoramica dei capitoli. Capita l'idea del libro, che è quella di fare un viaggio tra le reliquie delle maggiori religioni del pianeta, lo si può anche leggere in disordine, o leggere solo il capitolo che interessa. Se non si è hooligan di qualche fede in particolare riterrete che le similitudini sono molto più delle differenze e, come me, vi chiederete che bisogno c'è di scannarsi per decidere quale amico immaginario è il migliore.
L'autore scrive bene, il libro è un ottimo esempio di infotainment e la lettura scorre. I capitoli sono lunghi abbastanza da essere esaustivi e brevi abbastanza da permettere di essere letti in un'unica sessione. È una lettura che arricchisce e allena lo spirito critico.
March 12, 2018
Rather more anecdotal and less "fact based" than I would have liked. Features a nice joke about Jesus's penis but even that is so old (the joke, not the penis) that it goes back to John Calvin.
June 8, 2019
The still-moist and plump (so they claim) tongue of Saint Anthony of Padua, the patron saint of lost objects; the heart of Saint Jean-Baptiste-Marie Vianney who, in his lifetime, was famous for allegedly being able to “read the hearts” of those who came to him to confess their sins; the hopping and jumping heart of a recently deceased Tibetan lama; the finger of Saint John the Baptist; the toes of the martyr Saint Francis Xavier; the strands of hair of the Buddha; the Buddhist Yama Yeshe’s leg; the foreskin of Jesus Christ (the Divine Prepuce); the ribs of Joan of Arc; some bones of Sister Elizabeth of the Russian Orthodox Church who was murdered for her faith by the Bolshevik Secret Police; the hair from the chin of the Prophet Muhammad; the Holy Tooth and Nail of Siddhartha Gautama—these are just some of the relics introduced to us here, most of them likely fake.
The history of holy relics is the history of humanity’s various systems of belief, of faith in the supernatural. They are powerful, not because they really have powers in themselves (like bombs), but only because people BELIEVE that they have such powers. In a way, they are like politicians people vote into office. They may be incompetent idiots but it does not really matter what they are if the people who vote them into office attribute to them capabilities and virtues which they really do not have.
This is why during medieval times relics were in fact big business and were subjects of rampant counterfeiting and thievery. Some battles were even fought for them or were triggered by them. They not only have religious and magical powers, but also political, military and economic powers. They can cure, then and now, not because they have medicinal properties, but because of those who believe they can cure diseases, even fatal ones. The miracles are actually all in the mind, where positive thinking can bring results, where being upbeat and hopeful strengthens the body’s immune system, and where the placebo effect, still not fully understood yet, can delightfully manifest and astonish.
After traveling around the world studying, and gawking at, these relics and interacting with those who venerate them or the holy dead who left them as mementos to the world, the author ended this book in a perceptively playful tone:
“From time to time, now that my traveling is done, I catch myself staring out the kitchen window marvelling at the fact that a body in pieces, on display, the object of centuries of devotion, argument, and sometimes ridicule, could have begun as simply human, little different from the helpless and loved creature crying in the next room.
“I am thinking of this, of lives transformed into symbols, of symbols so powerful they can transform even death, when I look up and see my wife at my side.
“She holds her hand out, palm up, and there between us is a little scrap of yellowed skin. Brown at the edges, where the blood has dried, it is what’s left of an umbilical cord, and it has just fallen off our infant daughter.
“‘I thought you might want to see it,’ she says.
“She knows me well. And I know her well enough that I do not propose we keep it.
“Just a bit of dead skin upon which so much once depended, it goes without ceremony into the trash can.
“I have no doubt that relics will always be among us, no matter how spiritually or scientifically advanced we consider ourselves, no matter how quaint or barbaric we find treating ‘what remains’ of those we admire as conduits to something greater than ourselves. For now, though, there are diapers to change and baths to give, lullabies to sing and bills to pay. It’s time to put the holy dead behind us, to turn again, as we all must, to the needs of the living.”
The history of holy relics is the history of humanity’s various systems of belief, of faith in the supernatural. They are powerful, not because they really have powers in themselves (like bombs), but only because people BELIEVE that they have such powers. In a way, they are like politicians people vote into office. They may be incompetent idiots but it does not really matter what they are if the people who vote them into office attribute to them capabilities and virtues which they really do not have.
This is why during medieval times relics were in fact big business and were subjects of rampant counterfeiting and thievery. Some battles were even fought for them or were triggered by them. They not only have religious and magical powers, but also political, military and economic powers. They can cure, then and now, not because they have medicinal properties, but because of those who believe they can cure diseases, even fatal ones. The miracles are actually all in the mind, where positive thinking can bring results, where being upbeat and hopeful strengthens the body’s immune system, and where the placebo effect, still not fully understood yet, can delightfully manifest and astonish.
After traveling around the world studying, and gawking at, these relics and interacting with those who venerate them or the holy dead who left them as mementos to the world, the author ended this book in a perceptively playful tone:
“From time to time, now that my traveling is done, I catch myself staring out the kitchen window marvelling at the fact that a body in pieces, on display, the object of centuries of devotion, argument, and sometimes ridicule, could have begun as simply human, little different from the helpless and loved creature crying in the next room.
“I am thinking of this, of lives transformed into symbols, of symbols so powerful they can transform even death, when I look up and see my wife at my side.
“She holds her hand out, palm up, and there between us is a little scrap of yellowed skin. Brown at the edges, where the blood has dried, it is what’s left of an umbilical cord, and it has just fallen off our infant daughter.
“‘I thought you might want to see it,’ she says.
“She knows me well. And I know her well enough that I do not propose we keep it.
“Just a bit of dead skin upon which so much once depended, it goes without ceremony into the trash can.
“I have no doubt that relics will always be among us, no matter how spiritually or scientifically advanced we consider ourselves, no matter how quaint or barbaric we find treating ‘what remains’ of those we admire as conduits to something greater than ourselves. For now, though, there are diapers to change and baths to give, lullabies to sing and bills to pay. It’s time to put the holy dead behind us, to turn again, as we all must, to the needs of the living.”
March 20, 2023
Not sure what drew me to this book, other than morbid curiosity— but I found it dry, dull and frankly quite boring.
May 24, 2024
Possibly one of the worst books I have read in a long time. I gave up confidence in the author when I read on page 80:
"...By the time King Louis IX got involved in the relic hunt, King Baldwin II, the ruler of the Knights Templar who governed Jerusalem from 1118 to 1131, gladly served as broker for the French sovereign's purchase of both the Crown of Thorns and another head of John the Baptists..."
Almost everything in the above statement is wrong, Baldwin II was not 'ruler' of the Knights Templar which was only founded in 1119 by Hughes de Payens and Godfrey de Saint-Omer and Baldwin was busy as King of Jerusalem by that stage. Baldwin didn't provide any help to Louis IX of France because Baldwin died in 1131 and Louis IX was born until 1214 and didn't acquire the crown of thorns until 1238 by which time there was no 'kingdom' of Jerusalem because Saladin had reconquered it in 1187. King Louis IX purchased the crown of thorns from the Latin emperor of Constantinople (that it was a 'Latin' emperor not a Greek one is actually significant but way to complicated to explain so I suggest looking up the sack of Constantinople and the fourth crusade).
That this farago of inaccuracy is part of the authors explanation that the real purpose of the Crusades was to steal relics is both implausible and deeply insulting - it is like explaining that the cause of WWII was Hitler's desire to loot great works of art.
What is even more disturbing is his laudatory chapter on the 'Heart Shrine Relic Tour' which was going about the world raising funds to build a 500 foot high 'Maitreya Buddha' in Uttar Pradesh. As of 2024 no statue has been built though the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition did try and grab 300 acres of land under India's 'Land Acquisition Act' (a law from the British Raj for compulsory purchasing land for railways - it is one of numerous legal hangovers from the Raj which render questionable the boast that the British empire provided India with the rule of law). Even by the time this book was published in 2009 the whole project stank of boondoggle and corruption and it is amazing that the author in his supposedly extensive travels and research in connection with this book never met, or even heard of, any of the 3000 indian families protesting at the seizure of their lands for derisory compensation.
The failure to get the Maitreya Buddha built is all the more extraordinary because India is overflowing with hideous gigantic statues most of them built in the last twenty years.
Nor does he bother to question, let alone provide scientific explanation, for the buddhist 'relics' which are supposed to miraculously appear in the cremated remains of buddhist holy people. As for his piece on the buddha's tooth in Kandy in Sri Lanka he might be surprised to learn that there are equally significant relics of the Buddha in 23 countries (24 if you count heaven as a country) including two teeth in the USA. Nor does he mention the extensive wars over these relics.
Perhaps his most extraordinary chapter is on the remains of the now sainted grand duchess Elizabeth of Russia. He relates the most ridiculous tales about how her body while being transported out of Russia had to be continually reburied to hide it from Bolsheviks which is highly unlikely as it was part of consignment of half a dozen dead Romanovs plus servants brought out of Russia by the Allied Military Mission and in any case stopping a train to bury and then dig up six or more bodies would have been time consuming as well as impossible to hide. There was nothing remarkable about the removal of grand duchess Elizabeth's remains to Jerusalem, it was because her German family and its English branch (the Mountbattens) had plenty of money to pay for it to be moved. The far less rich, or uncaring, relatives of the other Romanovs left their bodies in Beijing's orthodox cathedral which was torn down during the cultural revolution and is now a car park. Some relics are clearly less worth recovering than others.
Finally Mr Manseau repeats the claim that St. Anthony's chapel in Pittsburgh with its 5,000 relics has more relics than any place aside from Rome. This might come as a surprise to, for example, the basilica of St Ursula in Cologne which houses the relics of Ursula and her 11,000 martyred virgin companions. I am sure that there are numerous other cathedrals, monasteries and religious houses throughout the world who would dispute the Pittsburgh claim, which is apparently self invented and self perpetuated by the Pittsburgh Church.
In a book of little over 230 pages I have barely scratched the surface of the stupidities to be found in it and makes this book an exemplar in everything that is wrong with almost every book written about religious phenomena by amateurs which inevitably means the credulous and ignorant.
"...By the time King Louis IX got involved in the relic hunt, King Baldwin II, the ruler of the Knights Templar who governed Jerusalem from 1118 to 1131, gladly served as broker for the French sovereign's purchase of both the Crown of Thorns and another head of John the Baptists..."
Almost everything in the above statement is wrong, Baldwin II was not 'ruler' of the Knights Templar which was only founded in 1119 by Hughes de Payens and Godfrey de Saint-Omer and Baldwin was busy as King of Jerusalem by that stage. Baldwin didn't provide any help to Louis IX of France because Baldwin died in 1131 and Louis IX was born until 1214 and didn't acquire the crown of thorns until 1238 by which time there was no 'kingdom' of Jerusalem because Saladin had reconquered it in 1187. King Louis IX purchased the crown of thorns from the Latin emperor of Constantinople (that it was a 'Latin' emperor not a Greek one is actually significant but way to complicated to explain so I suggest looking up the sack of Constantinople and the fourth crusade).
That this farago of inaccuracy is part of the authors explanation that the real purpose of the Crusades was to steal relics is both implausible and deeply insulting - it is like explaining that the cause of WWII was Hitler's desire to loot great works of art.
What is even more disturbing is his laudatory chapter on the 'Heart Shrine Relic Tour' which was going about the world raising funds to build a 500 foot high 'Maitreya Buddha' in Uttar Pradesh. As of 2024 no statue has been built though the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition did try and grab 300 acres of land under India's 'Land Acquisition Act' (a law from the British Raj for compulsory purchasing land for railways - it is one of numerous legal hangovers from the Raj which render questionable the boast that the British empire provided India with the rule of law). Even by the time this book was published in 2009 the whole project stank of boondoggle and corruption and it is amazing that the author in his supposedly extensive travels and research in connection with this book never met, or even heard of, any of the 3000 indian families protesting at the seizure of their lands for derisory compensation.
The failure to get the Maitreya Buddha built is all the more extraordinary because India is overflowing with hideous gigantic statues most of them built in the last twenty years.
Nor does he bother to question, let alone provide scientific explanation, for the buddhist 'relics' which are supposed to miraculously appear in the cremated remains of buddhist holy people. As for his piece on the buddha's tooth in Kandy in Sri Lanka he might be surprised to learn that there are equally significant relics of the Buddha in 23 countries (24 if you count heaven as a country) including two teeth in the USA. Nor does he mention the extensive wars over these relics.
Perhaps his most extraordinary chapter is on the remains of the now sainted grand duchess Elizabeth of Russia. He relates the most ridiculous tales about how her body while being transported out of Russia had to be continually reburied to hide it from Bolsheviks which is highly unlikely as it was part of consignment of half a dozen dead Romanovs plus servants brought out of Russia by the Allied Military Mission and in any case stopping a train to bury and then dig up six or more bodies would have been time consuming as well as impossible to hide. There was nothing remarkable about the removal of grand duchess Elizabeth's remains to Jerusalem, it was because her German family and its English branch (the Mountbattens) had plenty of money to pay for it to be moved. The far less rich, or uncaring, relatives of the other Romanovs left their bodies in Beijing's orthodox cathedral which was torn down during the cultural revolution and is now a car park. Some relics are clearly less worth recovering than others.
Finally Mr Manseau repeats the claim that St. Anthony's chapel in Pittsburgh with its 5,000 relics has more relics than any place aside from Rome. This might come as a surprise to, for example, the basilica of St Ursula in Cologne which houses the relics of Ursula and her 11,000 martyred virgin companions. I am sure that there are numerous other cathedrals, monasteries and religious houses throughout the world who would dispute the Pittsburgh claim, which is apparently self invented and self perpetuated by the Pittsburgh Church.
In a book of little over 230 pages I have barely scratched the surface of the stupidities to be found in it and makes this book an exemplar in everything that is wrong with almost every book written about religious phenomena by amateurs which inevitably means the credulous and ignorant.
March 30, 2010
This book is one of my top 2009 reads; moreover before I sent it away I had to reread it :)
It is also probably most surprising reading experience I’ve had for a very long time. It’s a great travelog, it’s incredibly funny, equally educational, shocking (how surprising!), ticklingly blasphemous, and absolutely bizarre!
You really would not even imagine (if you’re unfamiliar with the world of relics like myself) what people are able to do with something (human origin) that consider sacred but even worse is to see what Church (!!!) is doing. I was really shocked so many times while reading this book.
First paragraph (I love it!):
”This is a book about dismembered toes, splinters of shinbone, stolen bits of hair, burned remnants of an anonymous rib cage, and other odds and ends of human remains, but it is not book about death. Around every one of the macabre artifacts that, for a variety of reasons, have come to be venerated as religious relics, circles an endless orbit of believers and skeptics, bureaucrats and clergy, con artists, and just plain curious souls. This is a book about life.”
Manseau has done fantastic research about the issue covering all major religions. There are very informative story about each relic while being part of precise human being and that’s very interesting. But the story of the body after soul continued its journey, is stunning! I found that my own religion as the most bizarre (probably because it’s mine). I was more than once reacted like “Oh gosh no! They didn’t! How could they?” and even “Oh hurry up and lets move to Buddhism!” (I‘m joking!) And then the most pathetic: “OK I’m Christian but at least I’m not Catholic”. There are many (I guess ) blasphemous moments; but then how not be blasphemous when you’re reading about Holy Prepuce (Jesus foreskin)!?!? I didn’t even know such thing even exists and is worshiped (by the way do you know the origin of the Saturn’s rings? Go figure! You wouldn’t believe; there is no way you would even guess!)! Or few churches that each enshrines a head of John the Baptist in the same time?!? I’ve seen in Spain part of The Cross (later I’ve found out there are so many pieces of that same cross that Romans must have deforest entire Middle East to made it) also I’ve seen the hand of some saint and then I thought it’s quite morbid (now I see that was actually light image).
What I liked is that Manseau is never offensive; I don’t think he’s hurting religious being in his readers. At least he didn’t hurt mine. He’s looking from a rational point of view on something which is in enormously large scale not rational whatsoever.
As I said he’s very witty and don’t expect from this book to be profoundly serious. Quite opposite; it looks like a coffee chat … OK I admit, the topic would be quite insane but still a coffee chat. And what I liked the most in this book is how people are 100% ready to believe in something so unlikely accurate and even to actually feel the sacred power of it; whether that is a shinbone or a pebble founded in the ash after cremation. It’s really amazing.
From the blurb:
”Manseau’s “Rag and Bone” reads like a novel, entertains like a TV docudrama, and educates like the best college professor you ever had. It is at once informative, quirky, and funny. Do people really think that the leathery tongue of 12th century saint can bless them with good fortune? They do. Why do people believe in such weird things as the holy relics of religion? Read this book to find out. WARNING: you may well discover that you also hold beliefs in holy relics and not even know it!”
Here I’d like to mention one vignette I found very interesting. It’s part of the relics in Buddhism, religion I know little about. The only Buddhist I know personally is my dear friend Shanna who told me while visiting me in Belgrade something very interesting: That Buddhism is actually not religion but philosophy. Reading this book helped me to fully realize her words.
There is a story in the book about the Temple of the Tooth in the city of Kandy, Sri Lanka. Of course it’s worshiped and moreover in Myanmar they made a replica equally worshiped as “the original”. As I said I knew little about Buddhism but I knew that much to see a mountain-sized contradiction. And here is an explanation:
There are two branches in Buddhism: one that is following Siddhartha’s words how we should disconnect ourselves from impermanent things in our life (which is basically everything) and the one that is doing completely opposite thing: that is worshiping something so undoubtedly impermanent such is human body (i.e. Siddhartha’s tooth) and even ready to die for. But what was incredibly surprising is that Siddhartha was fully aware that people would hear his sermons and understand what he had meant or they would hear them and understand the exact opposite. He never denied that he told people what they needed to hear to affect necessary change in their lives. He knew that his followers would take from his message parts they needed the most. For some that meant philosophy, for others that meant teeth.
So what about relics? And should they necessary be connected with religion? Are they mandatory sacred? What one relic could be?
“Relics seem to me to admit that, yes, while we do have spiritual dimension to our lives, we are also flesh under the looking glass of all those around us. Our lives and or deaths are witnessed by others, and what our lives might mean to them is mostly beyond our control. We are simultaneously people who need symbols to survive, and we are symbols ourselves. Our bodies – our toes and shins, our foreskins and ribs, our hands and whiskers, our teeth and hair – have the capacity to tell stories we can not imagine. And the facts of our lives can be as mysterious and in need of explanation as anything that lies beyond.”
This is without doubt one of the best nonfiction book I’ve read in years. I so didn’t expect this. I didn’t know what to expect at all. I was attracted with the bizarre topic it deals with and was hooked from the page 1.
It is also probably most surprising reading experience I’ve had for a very long time. It’s a great travelog, it’s incredibly funny, equally educational, shocking (how surprising!), ticklingly blasphemous, and absolutely bizarre!
You really would not even imagine (if you’re unfamiliar with the world of relics like myself) what people are able to do with something (human origin) that consider sacred but even worse is to see what Church (!!!) is doing. I was really shocked so many times while reading this book.
First paragraph (I love it!):
”This is a book about dismembered toes, splinters of shinbone, stolen bits of hair, burned remnants of an anonymous rib cage, and other odds and ends of human remains, but it is not book about death. Around every one of the macabre artifacts that, for a variety of reasons, have come to be venerated as religious relics, circles an endless orbit of believers and skeptics, bureaucrats and clergy, con artists, and just plain curious souls. This is a book about life.”
Manseau has done fantastic research about the issue covering all major religions. There are very informative story about each relic while being part of precise human being and that’s very interesting. But the story of the body after soul continued its journey, is stunning! I found that my own religion as the most bizarre (probably because it’s mine). I was more than once reacted like “Oh gosh no! They didn’t! How could they?” and even “Oh hurry up and lets move to Buddhism!” (I‘m joking!) And then the most pathetic: “OK I’m Christian but at least I’m not Catholic”. There are many (I guess ) blasphemous moments; but then how not be blasphemous when you’re reading about Holy Prepuce (Jesus foreskin)!?!? I didn’t even know such thing even exists and is worshiped (by the way do you know the origin of the Saturn’s rings? Go figure! You wouldn’t believe; there is no way you would even guess!)! Or few churches that each enshrines a head of John the Baptist in the same time?!? I’ve seen in Spain part of The Cross (later I’ve found out there are so many pieces of that same cross that Romans must have deforest entire Middle East to made it) also I’ve seen the hand of some saint and then I thought it’s quite morbid (now I see that was actually light image).
What I liked is that Manseau is never offensive; I don’t think he’s hurting religious being in his readers. At least he didn’t hurt mine. He’s looking from a rational point of view on something which is in enormously large scale not rational whatsoever.
As I said he’s very witty and don’t expect from this book to be profoundly serious. Quite opposite; it looks like a coffee chat … OK I admit, the topic would be quite insane but still a coffee chat. And what I liked the most in this book is how people are 100% ready to believe in something so unlikely accurate and even to actually feel the sacred power of it; whether that is a shinbone or a pebble founded in the ash after cremation. It’s really amazing.
From the blurb:
”Manseau’s “Rag and Bone” reads like a novel, entertains like a TV docudrama, and educates like the best college professor you ever had. It is at once informative, quirky, and funny. Do people really think that the leathery tongue of 12th century saint can bless them with good fortune? They do. Why do people believe in such weird things as the holy relics of religion? Read this book to find out. WARNING: you may well discover that you also hold beliefs in holy relics and not even know it!”
Here I’d like to mention one vignette I found very interesting. It’s part of the relics in Buddhism, religion I know little about. The only Buddhist I know personally is my dear friend Shanna who told me while visiting me in Belgrade something very interesting: That Buddhism is actually not religion but philosophy. Reading this book helped me to fully realize her words.
There is a story in the book about the Temple of the Tooth in the city of Kandy, Sri Lanka. Of course it’s worshiped and moreover in Myanmar they made a replica equally worshiped as “the original”. As I said I knew little about Buddhism but I knew that much to see a mountain-sized contradiction. And here is an explanation:
There are two branches in Buddhism: one that is following Siddhartha’s words how we should disconnect ourselves from impermanent things in our life (which is basically everything) and the one that is doing completely opposite thing: that is worshiping something so undoubtedly impermanent such is human body (i.e. Siddhartha’s tooth) and even ready to die for. But what was incredibly surprising is that Siddhartha was fully aware that people would hear his sermons and understand what he had meant or they would hear them and understand the exact opposite. He never denied that he told people what they needed to hear to affect necessary change in their lives. He knew that his followers would take from his message parts they needed the most. For some that meant philosophy, for others that meant teeth.
So what about relics? And should they necessary be connected with religion? Are they mandatory sacred? What one relic could be?
“Relics seem to me to admit that, yes, while we do have spiritual dimension to our lives, we are also flesh under the looking glass of all those around us. Our lives and or deaths are witnessed by others, and what our lives might mean to them is mostly beyond our control. We are simultaneously people who need symbols to survive, and we are symbols ourselves. Our bodies – our toes and shins, our foreskins and ribs, our hands and whiskers, our teeth and hair – have the capacity to tell stories we can not imagine. And the facts of our lives can be as mysterious and in need of explanation as anything that lies beyond.”
This is without doubt one of the best nonfiction book I’ve read in years. I so didn’t expect this. I didn’t know what to expect at all. I was attracted with the bizarre topic it deals with and was hooked from the page 1.
September 24, 2013
I was interested in reading *Rag and Bone* because I have an interest in things such as this, strange as it may sound. I loved Mary Roach's *Stiff* and Christine Montross's *Body of Work*, both of which are exemplary and deserving of 5 stars. Manseau starts out well enough, beginning with the story of Roman Catholic relics. His writing is lively and held my interest. As the book progressed, however, his writing became duller and digressed into far too much philosophical ramblings.
There's an important difference between the 1st and 2nd halves of the book. In the first half, Manseau, as mentioned above, explores the relics of Christianity from tongues to nail clippings. In the second half, he explores the relics of Islam. Whereas the first part was a compelling read, the second part about Muslim relics was not so much. While Manseau colored his narrative with ironic comments, irreverent and somewhat snarky while writing of Christian relics, he didn't do so with those of Islam. (I found this style quite reminiscent of Mary Roach's -- as well as the breeziness of it -- to a point in which I thought he was channeling a bit too much.)
I understand his change of tone when addressing Islamic relics (of which there are very few, as compared to Catholic relics). He is striving to be respectful towards a religion that has been much maligned during the past decade. I wondered, however, why he felt his irreverence was acceptable when writing about relics of other religions. This was problematic.
I was also surprised -- and somewhat offended -- by his naivete while traveling the Islamic world. At one point, he is visiting a mosque in Syria when a religious elder looks at him hard. Manseau assumes that the man's disapproval meant that he wasn't welcome. Manseau was clueless that the man was indicating that Manseau needed to remove his shoes. To be so ill-informed that people remove their shoes when entering a mosque (especially when the women in front of him did so)demonstrated cultural ignorance that I found inexcusable.
A finally note relates to Manseau's writing style beyond what was mentioned above. His sentence structure doesn't always make for an easy read, and I found myself having to go back to figure out what he was trying to say. The fault lies in his liberal use of parenthetical phrases. These phrases are so long that it became necessary for me to reread sentences without them. These phrases would have been better used as full, descriptive statements.
While I'm not dissatisfied by my read of *Rag and Bone*, it is not a book that I would recommend to others, whereas Roach's and Montross's books are high on my recommendation list. It is, however worth the read if it's an area of interest to someone. It's a fairly short book, coming in at about 230 pages with large print; it reads quite quickly.
There's an important difference between the 1st and 2nd halves of the book. In the first half, Manseau, as mentioned above, explores the relics of Christianity from tongues to nail clippings. In the second half, he explores the relics of Islam. Whereas the first part was a compelling read, the second part about Muslim relics was not so much. While Manseau colored his narrative with ironic comments, irreverent and somewhat snarky while writing of Christian relics, he didn't do so with those of Islam. (I found this style quite reminiscent of Mary Roach's -- as well as the breeziness of it -- to a point in which I thought he was channeling a bit too much.)
I understand his change of tone when addressing Islamic relics (of which there are very few, as compared to Catholic relics). He is striving to be respectful towards a religion that has been much maligned during the past decade. I wondered, however, why he felt his irreverence was acceptable when writing about relics of other religions. This was problematic.
I was also surprised -- and somewhat offended -- by his naivete while traveling the Islamic world. At one point, he is visiting a mosque in Syria when a religious elder looks at him hard. Manseau assumes that the man's disapproval meant that he wasn't welcome. Manseau was clueless that the man was indicating that Manseau needed to remove his shoes. To be so ill-informed that people remove their shoes when entering a mosque (especially when the women in front of him did so)demonstrated cultural ignorance that I found inexcusable.
A finally note relates to Manseau's writing style beyond what was mentioned above. His sentence structure doesn't always make for an easy read, and I found myself having to go back to figure out what he was trying to say. The fault lies in his liberal use of parenthetical phrases. These phrases are so long that it became necessary for me to reread sentences without them. These phrases would have been better used as full, descriptive statements.
While I'm not dissatisfied by my read of *Rag and Bone*, it is not a book that I would recommend to others, whereas Roach's and Montross's books are high on my recommendation list. It is, however worth the read if it's an area of interest to someone. It's a fairly short book, coming in at about 230 pages with large print; it reads quite quickly.
January 9, 2011
A book about traveling to visit holy relics: what could be better than that? It could have been bigger, for one thing. It could have had illustrations, whether photographs, ephemera from Manseau's trips, or merely sketches. And it could have been arranged not the in order of Manseau's adventures, since one didn't necessarily build from and comment on the previous, but in chronological order of the relics. I found it hard to keep the history clear.
Manseau seeks out at least one fleshly representative of each major religion: the mummy of St. Francis Xavier in Goa, a chin whisker of the Prophet in Kashmir, a lama's leg on tour in LA, the foreskin of Jesus (of which there were once 12 in circulation) in Jerusalem, charred bones of Joan of Arc. Manseau's readable text moves along briskly, discussing the history and trade of bits of bodies that flourished as Christianity spread out from the Holy Land. I enjoyed the book and read it very quickly, but it left me hungry for more. Rag and Bone didn't quite live up to its subtitle of "A Journey Among the World's Holy Dead."
I need a coffee table book with photos of relics.
Manseau seeks out at least one fleshly representative of each major religion: the mummy of St. Francis Xavier in Goa, a chin whisker of the Prophet in Kashmir, a lama's leg on tour in LA, the foreskin of Jesus (of which there were once 12 in circulation) in Jerusalem, charred bones of Joan of Arc. Manseau's readable text moves along briskly, discussing the history and trade of bits of bodies that flourished as Christianity spread out from the Holy Land. I enjoyed the book and read it very quickly, but it left me hungry for more. Rag and Bone didn't quite live up to its subtitle of "A Journey Among the World's Holy Dead."
I need a coffee table book with photos of relics.
May 19, 2009
Though the subject matter of this book is profoundly interesting, this book is clearly a collection of individual essays rather than a book about this subject. The fascination with the remains of saints--such a subject would seem to be something that could write itself with a vast level of interest, and I started off this book rather peaked, but slowly my interest waned, as each chapter went through pretty much the same form of introduction-background-quirky character-letdown. This sequence might have been fine had these chapters appeared as a regular column in a quirky magazine, but in the format of a book I wanted to see a progression of ideas, a developing perspective, but instead this book came across as a series of vingettes. Fascinating anecdotes to hear, like the tale of a bishop named Hugh who bit off a piece of a saint for his own church, but the afterword of this book is too obligatory and brief to offer much insight into this phenomenon.
May 20, 2009
Manseau treats the subject of people's veneration of relics with kindness and respect. There was a lot to learn here, about the relics of others and our own religious, political and personal relics.
From page 11:
This attitude is in such sharp contrast to Mary Roach's snarky, cynical book, "Spook". Roach was compelled to make such fun of others' most cherished beliefs, I had to lay it down. It was not funny or entertaining, just mean-spirited.
I would recommend "Rag and Bone" to all. A short, quick little traveloque of relics, sites and the people who venerate them.
From page 11:
"While questions of relics' origins and provenance fascinate me, to see a finger believed to be that of John the Baptist is to see an object that people have come to kneel before and pray to for centuries. I am as interested in the stories it has inspired as in the story of the object itself. Indeed, if it is not actually John the Baptist's finger, it is potentially all the more interesting."
This attitude is in such sharp contrast to Mary Roach's snarky, cynical book, "Spook". Roach was compelled to make such fun of others' most cherished beliefs, I had to lay it down. It was not funny or entertaining, just mean-spirited.
I would recommend "Rag and Bone" to all. A short, quick little traveloque of relics, sites and the people who venerate them.
July 15, 2012
A book author (anyone with time and money to travel could have researched and written this book) should not berate a famous French medical doctor/anthropologist for his difficulties with English. Do you not speak French? And then to quote him, verbatim, in his search for words with which to communicate his thoughts to you? How irritating!
A Gentle Ribbing (name of said chapter), indeed. You, yourself, came off jealous, peevish, and more than a little childish and churlish when speaking of Dr Charlier's work. No. You will never be that caliper of scientist.
I know that it was only one chapter out of eight, but it was the one that sold me the book. Hardback. Aah. What about the other seven? Yes, there was attitude visible in those chapters, also, disguised as humor.
I gave this book three stars for research. I should have taken one back on principle - as when you give a C grade and go back and add a -. Yes, C-!
A Gentle Ribbing (name of said chapter), indeed. You, yourself, came off jealous, peevish, and more than a little childish and churlish when speaking of Dr Charlier's work. No. You will never be that caliper of scientist.
I know that it was only one chapter out of eight, but it was the one that sold me the book. Hardback. Aah. What about the other seven? Yes, there was attitude visible in those chapters, also, disguised as humor.
I gave this book three stars for research. I should have taken one back on principle - as when you give a C grade and go back and add a -. Yes, C-!
July 13, 2016
Interesting but...I kind of wanted the author to have a little more intellectual curiosity about the true nature of the relics. Rather than confront the fact that most of them are fakes, he kind of says at the end that it doesn't really matter. But if it doesn't matter, why is he so cagey about identifying them either way? and if, as he says, it's almost more interesting if they are NOT real, I need a bit more from him about the WHY of these particular relics. It felt like there was an elephant in the room in each chapter--he knows the relics are fake but doesn't want to offend anyone by saying so.
Read
March 12, 2018The author is a magazine editor, and it shows in his latest book. A travelogue and introduction to various relics of the world, it is pleasant to read and occasionally made me laugh out loud. Each chapter wraps up neatly, but sometimes tritely, like an article in a glossy magazine. Despite the rich topic, in his effort to make his writing accessible to every last person, he fails to make very many interesting conclusions or to delve very far into any topic or idea. He also manages to completely massacre a Buddhist joke by explaining it. Worth reading if you'd like to know some basic stuff about the curious histories of some of the world's most venerated relics.
July 5, 2009
A good book as far as it goes, but it tends to come off more as a series of essays or impressions and less like a cohesive book. Manseau also tries a little too hard to be quirky at times. However, he handled the subject with respect and obvious interest, and I thought it was largely well done. I'm just disappointed that there wasn't more depth.
October 27, 2014
Being raised as a devout Catholic I was very interested in reading more about Relics. However this book not only covered Catholic relics, but Buddhist and Hindu relics as well. I learned a lot what qualifies a relic and how easy people were passing fakes off as relics before they put more stringent guideslines on them.
April 24, 2024
I finally got around to reading this after making a note of it years ago. Who could resist the title, I was going to say, but apparently a lot of people can. Not me. Manseau visits a number of Christian, Muslim and Buddhist relics, and, with a light touch, reflects on why, in our supposedly rational age, a great many people still venerate them. He never quite says that these objects cannot be genuine, but he does report on the history that goes with each one. He only gets 4 stars because I wanted more, and because he never mentions Mary Magdalene's skulls, of which there are two, both in France. I visited one of them, and was prepared to be openly incredulous, when I realized there was a woman on her knees lost in deep and silent prayer. The same thing happened again we were viewing the veil of the Virgin at Chartres - getting all jokey and then realizing another viewer was lost in prayer, oblivious to us. It's a mystery to me, and that's the point, I guess.
February 15, 2022
An easy, enjoyable read for a book on pantheological relic veneration.
February 7, 2019
An entertaining and occasionally thought-provoking read.
July 10, 2011
Not exactly an exhaustive examination of religious relics, nor does it try to be. Instead, this book explores the concept of religious relics as they have existed in the past and how they get by today, and includes extensive information on a few selected relics that seem pretty representative of the whole concept. It's not a reverent account, which made it more appealing for me, but it is respectful. Really, what it was lacking was a clear chronology (there simply isn't one, nor any overarching organization that I can see), as well as illustrations. This is certainly a book that could have done with a few full-color photographs inserted in the middle, but we had none of that. But it is readable, and interesting enough to get many reading further.
January 20, 2012
Very entertaining read, especially if you,like me, like travel commentary. Nice series of travelogues collected as he spanned the globe visiting religious relics and the living people in charge of said relics. I particulary enjoyed the story about his visit to Jerusalem and his time with Saint Elizabeth and her Orthodox Nun keepers. Mostly because he paid such respect to the Sister with which he toured the holy site.
I was, however put off by the religious snark factor. I enjoy sarcasm and wit, don't get me wrong and am not partcularly religious. BUT, I do take very seriously other folks taking THEIR religion seriously. His epilogue is a bit more thoughtful regarding veneration, but we don't get this until the end. If you are devout, might not be a read for you.
3.5
I was, however put off by the religious snark factor. I enjoy sarcasm and wit, don't get me wrong and am not partcularly religious. BUT, I do take very seriously other folks taking THEIR religion seriously. His epilogue is a bit more thoughtful regarding veneration, but we don't get this until the end. If you are devout, might not be a read for you.
3.5
November 18, 2013
As others have mentioned, the book is somewhat of a travelogue of the author's trips. As a result of that, the book is organized by trip and jumps around. For example, one trip is to see a Buddha relic, the next is to see Christian relics, but then he jumps back to see another Buddha relic. The book contains a number of interesting facts and the introduction is a bit of a primer concerning relics, but I was expecting a little bit more out the book. It was a fast, easy read and I did learn some things.
April 12, 2022
An Unexpected Trip Through the World’s Reliquaries
Please visit I. David’s blog: Focus on Non-Fiction at
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
I picked up Rag and Bone: A Journey Among the World’s Holy Dead by Peter Manseau expecting to read a scholarly history on some fairly esoteric religious beliefs. I was pleasantly surprised when I found that the book was actually a highly entertaining travelogue through the world of religious relics.
Relics, as used in the context of this book, are things of religious significance that are the subject of veneration. They are often the remains of a holy person or anything that came in contact with a holy person. In Rag and Bone Peter Manseau travels the world visiting reliquaries (the places where relics are kept) and meeting the people that venerate those relics.
The subject of relics is somewhat sensitive. Some people are very committed to the relics because of their religious beliefs. However, others may not be all that comfortable with the concept of veneration of a tongue or a bone or a hair. In addition, they may suspect that the objects being venerated are not what they claim to be and that those who venerate them are being conned. I appreciated how Manseau successfully walked a very fine line here. He acknowledged the skepticism of many readers but, at the same time, was respectful of the beliefs of those who have faith in the relics.
Readers of travelogues are, in effect, taking a trip with the author. Therefore, the first rule of a good travelogue is that the author must be a pleasant person with whom the reader would like to take a trip. Mr. Manseau unmistakably meets this requirement. I enjoyed his wry sense of humor and his personal perspective on the stops on his trip.
I found this book to be very entertaining. Through my travels with Mr. Manseau I learned something about a world with which I was unfamiliar and would not have ever visited. I give this book 4 stars and recommend it for those who are interested in a light book about religious beliefs.
Please visit I. David’s blog: Focus on Non-Fiction at
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
I picked up Rag and Bone: A Journey Among the World’s Holy Dead by Peter Manseau expecting to read a scholarly history on some fairly esoteric religious beliefs. I was pleasantly surprised when I found that the book was actually a highly entertaining travelogue through the world of religious relics.
Relics, as used in the context of this book, are things of religious significance that are the subject of veneration. They are often the remains of a holy person or anything that came in contact with a holy person. In Rag and Bone Peter Manseau travels the world visiting reliquaries (the places where relics are kept) and meeting the people that venerate those relics.
The subject of relics is somewhat sensitive. Some people are very committed to the relics because of their religious beliefs. However, others may not be all that comfortable with the concept of veneration of a tongue or a bone or a hair. In addition, they may suspect that the objects being venerated are not what they claim to be and that those who venerate them are being conned. I appreciated how Manseau successfully walked a very fine line here. He acknowledged the skepticism of many readers but, at the same time, was respectful of the beliefs of those who have faith in the relics.
Readers of travelogues are, in effect, taking a trip with the author. Therefore, the first rule of a good travelogue is that the author must be a pleasant person with whom the reader would like to take a trip. Mr. Manseau unmistakably meets this requirement. I enjoyed his wry sense of humor and his personal perspective on the stops on his trip.
I found this book to be very entertaining. Through my travels with Mr. Manseau I learned something about a world with which I was unfamiliar and would not have ever visited. I give this book 4 stars and recommend it for those who are interested in a light book about religious beliefs.
Currently reading
September 30, 2019Rag and Bone (Pg.59 of 243)
Characters: Narrator, St Francis Xavier, Brother Shannon, Father Savio ,and Father Franklin.
Setting: Goa, India
The way the author wrote out St. Francis Xavier’s biography and explained what he did was great. He gave a backstory to the audience that was just enough to get my attention, but also explain why St. Francis Xavier was there. I also like the way the author switches in and out of the backstory.
The pattern of book however, is very confusing, the author makes no real indications when he going to the past or speaking of the present. I also don’t like how the author tries to combine his thoughts along with the book’s narrator. The beginning of the novel is 20 pages of prologue which add very minimal to the book.
I am hoping that the book can bring up some very good conflicts involving the church, the relics, and the characters involved. Hopefully I can get information that could help me in school about Francis Xavier and his mission in India. Mostly, I hope that the author can continue to make the dead people in the book, alive and tell their story.
Characters: Narrator, St Francis Xavier, Brother Shannon, Father Savio ,and Father Franklin.
Setting: Goa, India
The way the author wrote out St. Francis Xavier’s biography and explained what he did was great. He gave a backstory to the audience that was just enough to get my attention, but also explain why St. Francis Xavier was there. I also like the way the author switches in and out of the backstory.
The pattern of book however, is very confusing, the author makes no real indications when he going to the past or speaking of the present. I also don’t like how the author tries to combine his thoughts along with the book’s narrator. The beginning of the novel is 20 pages of prologue which add very minimal to the book.
I am hoping that the book can bring up some very good conflicts involving the church, the relics, and the characters involved. Hopefully I can get information that could help me in school about Francis Xavier and his mission in India. Mostly, I hope that the author can continue to make the dead people in the book, alive and tell their story.
August 21, 2022
I was a bit apprehensive going into this one as a nonreligious person who is just interested in how people fetishize the artifacts of death. I enjoyed it quite a bit, though. The tone is mostly light and curious, treating relics and the people and stories behind them as a travelogue would, rather than a dense or solemn academic treatment. The details of why and how these objects are revered run the gamut between sad and funny, spiritual and purely political or financial, and Manseau freely acknowledges that it is an act of faith just to believe any relic is what its minders say it is, when all you know for sure is that it is a shriveled lump of something.
August 28, 2017
although I'm sure this is not for everyone, notably those that only have a deep reverence for organized religion, I find it a joy to read. if we were allowed to rate in 1/2 increments, my rating would be 4.5.
It is at times funny and irreverent yet still gives a good perspective on various world religions and what they mean to people. I would read it again if I didn't have so many others already on my list. Who has time to reread? There's always more and more publications we may not want to miss.
This one is very with of you're reading time.
It is at times funny and irreverent yet still gives a good perspective on various world religions and what they mean to people. I would read it again if I didn't have so many others already on my list. Who has time to reread? There's always more and more publications we may not want to miss.
This one is very with of you're reading time.
March 12, 2017
I almost never even glance at the religion shelves in bookstores, but the cover caught my eye and as atheists and believers converge in death, I bought this one. In the USA, religious journalism is considered a serious beat, which I find curious, but I guess necessary in a country with such a religious, and confessionally diverse, population, so it is no surprise that Manseau hails from Washington DC. But what was a surprise was to find gems such as that "every city besides Rome lags behind Pittsburgh in its relic population. Saint Anthony's Chapel, in the Troy Hill section of Pittsburgh, claims to be second only to the Vatican in its collection. Founded by a nineteenth-century priest who scoured Europe, buying up pieces of saints he found in pawnshops, it boasts upwards of five thousand relics." Yankee hubris? Perhaps, but aggrandisement is all part of the relic trade - and the spiritual devotion attached to the earthy remnants of those considered holy. It is also somewhat startling to find that the first Catholic martyr whose remains were gathered and venerated, Polycarp, a Christian bishop, was put to death in 155 CE as an "atheist," meaning he was not a believer in the Roman pantheon of gods. And I won't even start on the bizarre folktale-to-pseudoastronomy trajectory of the foreskin of Jesus, but many other gems nestle in this delightful book like the putative tooth of the Buddha, Siddhartha Guatama, in its rocketship-like reliquary in Sri Lanka. His work of equal interest to the faithful and the faithless, Manseau has a light touch and a tongue perhaps partly as clever as that of St Anthony but, as he navigates the heaving crowds swelling around the relics of Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and others, however many times he presses that tongue into his cheek, he is never disrespectful of the mysteries, however weird they might be.
August 31, 2020
I really enjoyed this. It wasn't a strictly scientific recount of the relics that Manseau encountered, but instead it was a travelogue and philosophical dialogue on why we might want to collect these relics, and the seeming unequivocal pull of the human body, even in those traditions where the body is seen as unclean. I also learned a bit from it -- like the idea that if you were particularly holy, there'd be jewels in your cremated remains. Wonderful.
October 7, 2021
I thought this was a really fun story with a lot of really interesting information (if holy relics are your thing!) I found so many new bucket list destinations to check out thanks to the stories in this book. I look forward to reading more by Manseau in hopes that it will be as engaging as this book was.
July 9, 2021
Not the most engaging book I’ve ever read it nonetheless was an interesting read. There are stories worth knowing and an introduction to a subject i have never really given a lot of thought too even though I have seen relics personally.
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