Memento Mori: The Dead Among Us by Paul Koudounaris

I am a major bone nerd. With that said, I loved this book. Off the bat, I want to acknowledge that I am aware that not everyone will enjoy this book. It’s definitely a niche book. But if this is something that seems like it might be up your alley, I would recommend checking it out.

You don’t have to commit to a whole coffee table book on death and bones without seeing what’s inside of it. I mean, what if you really don’t like it? For example, I borrowed a copy from my local library. It turned out -spoiler!- I really enjoyed it. I will probably purchase a copy for myself eventually.

It’s definitely a coffee table book: I’m pretty sure photos take up more space than the writing does. With that said, the pictures are beautiful and the text is informative, enriching, and does a fairly good job at avoiding ethnocentrism. I think nature, human beings, bones, culture, art, etc. are amazing. I do not find bones or death particularly nor inherently macabre. If you do, this may not be for you.

Physically, the book is beautiful. The hardcover is bound in a silky, deep blue fabric. The cover art is in a rich, contrasting orange which is almost flush with the blue background. Inside, the pages are your standard, high quality photo stock. My only complaint is the somewhat shiny finish; I would’ve preferred the finish to be as matte as possible. The shine reflects in some light, sometimes necessitating re-positioning either myself or the book to be able to take in the entire page. I remember it being most bothersome when reading via natural light indoors, though I didn’t attempt to read this outside. The volume is quite large. This is a good feature in a coffee table book and gives enough space to show off the beautiful photographs. However, it can seem a bit cumbersome when I was trying to find a position to read without shine obstructing the page.

Almost all of the photos are in color. The originals are all beautifully composed, presented in crisp and clear high definition. Koudounaris’ photography is dynamic, breathing life into photos of the dead. For me, the text could have been a bit bigger but if this was the best font size to balance the photography, text, and design, it’s a good compromise.

The book is divided into 9 chapters. The chapters’ subtitles are descriptive while the titles are a little more light-hearted:

• Introduction: Memento Mori
• The Dead Will Rise: Macabre Masterpieces of the Nineteenth Century
• The Gates of Paradise: Bones and Salvation in the Christian Tradition
• They Walk Among Us: Mysterious Burial Caves in Asia
• Blessed Souls: Elaborate Ossuaries in the Catholic World
• They Shall Not Perish: Memorials in Bone to Victims of Tragedy
• Remains to be Seen: Mummies and Other Exquisite Corpses
• Crossing the Border: The Living and the Dead in Bolivia
• Heavenly Glory: Decorated Bones from Around the World

Each chapter begins with a page-long introduction to the chapter. This text is presented in a larger and more decorative font.

Koudounaris provides a lot of variety in the photographs presented in Memento Mori. At the same time, I felt that the volume did a good job of providing enough photographs and at a large enough size so that lots of detail is available. Many photographs were given their own page or two page spreads. In the very beginning, there’s even a four page spread of a corpse. It folds out and I almost ripped the paper at first. Just a heads up if you’re an impatient klutz like me.

I also enjoyed how much variety there was in the places Koudounaris photographed. How a culture interacts with their dead varies from culture to culture and Koudounaris included many such examples.

I was able to visit Rome this summer for a weekend trip. When I was there, I made a point of visiting the Capuchin Crypt beneath Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini. It was stunning. It was very cool to see that crypt represented in Memento Mori. I’ve also been aware of the Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech Republic though I haven’t had the chance to visit. The Sedlec Ossuary is very well known so I wasn’t surprised to see it included here.

The volume included many sites and practices I was not familiar with prior, including burial caves, how prominent ossuaries were in Catholic history, ossuaries used as memorials following genocide, and ñatitas.

Not every page is marked with a page number. Many, if not all, full page photos do not include a page number. This decision makes sense: nothing to distract from the photo. The page numbers are important in this volume because much of the text refers to nearby photos. While some of the photos being referenced are on the same page or the opposite page, there were a handful of times I had to count across multiple sets of pages before being sure that I was looking at the photo being referenced. It could be fixed by adding more page numbers and/or rearranging the full page or two page spreads.

Overall, I really enjoyed Memento Mori and plan to buy it at some point.