Rag and Bone: A Journey Among the World’s Holy Dead
June 22nd, 2009 | Historical, Religious | Permalink | No Comments »
About the author: Peter Manseau is the author of the memoir Vows; the novel Songs for the Butcher’s Daughter; and most recently Rag and Bone: A Journey Among the World’s Holy Dead.
He has won the National Jewish Book Award and the Sophie Brody Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Jewish Literature, and was shortlisted for the Mecantile Library First Novel Award.
A founding editor of the religion blog, KillingtheBuddha.com, and coauthor of Killing the Buddha: A Heretic’s Bible, he is currently the editor of Search magazine. In his spare time, he is both a doctoral candidate in religion and a lecturer in journalism at Georgetown University. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife and two daughters.
Visit his website: www.petermanseau.com
Notes on the book: Peter Manseau embarks on a global odyssey in search of the “dismembered toes, splinters of shinbone, stolen bits of hair, burned remnants of an anonymous rib cage, and other odds and ends” belonging to saints and other sacred figures. The result is an entertaining, sometimes affecting inquiry into man’s yearning for spiritual transcendence through the worship of holy relics, real or otherwise–from the Shroud of Turin to more obscure bits of clothing and body parts.
Manseau meets a cast of fellow enthusiasts–including a French paleopathologist who spends his spare time rummaging through the supposed bone fragments of Joan of Arc. 
The veneration of relics is certainly not a thing of the past. The book relates that when Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI, he sequestered himself in his apartment with the heart of Saint Jean-Baptiste-Marie Vianney, patron saint of priests.
“Relics seem to me to admit that, yes, while we do have a spiritual dimension to our lives, we are also flesh under the looking glass of all those around us. Our lives and our 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 cannot imagine. And the facts of our lives can be as mysterious and in need of explanation as anything that lies beyond.”
About the author: Peter Manseau is the author of the memoir Vows; the novel Songs for the Butcher’s Daughter; and most recently Rag and Bone: A Journey Among the World’s Holy Dead.
He has won the National Jewish Book Award and the Sophie Brody Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Jewish Literature, and was shortlisted for the Mecantile Library First Novel Award.
A founding editor of the religion blog, KillingtheBuddha.com, and coauthor of Killing the Buddha: A Heretic’s Bible, he is currently the editor of Search magazine. In his spare time, he is both a doctoral candidate in religion and a lecturer in journalism at Georgetown University. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife and two daughters.
Visit his website: www.petermanseau.com
Notes on the book: Peter Manseau embarks on a global odyssey in search of the “dismembered toes, splinters of shinbone, stolen bits of hair, burned remnants of an anonymous rib cage, and other odds and ends” belonging to saints and other sacred figures. The result is an entertaining, sometimes affecting inquiry into man’s yearning for spiritual transcendence through the worship of holy relics, real or otherwise–from the Shroud of Turin to more obscure bits of clothing and body parts.
Manseau meets a cast of fellow enthusiasts–including a French paleopathologist who spends his spare time rummaging through the supposed bone fragments of Joan of Arc.
The veneration of relics is certainly not a thing of the past. The book relates that when Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI, he sequestered himself in his apartment with the heart of Saint Jean-Baptiste-Marie Vianney, patron saint of priests.
“Relics seem to me to admit that, yes, while we do have a spiritual dimension to our lives, we are also flesh under the looking glass of all those around us. Our lives and our 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 cannot imagine. And the facts of our lives can be as mysterious and in need of explanation as anything that lies beyond.”