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Original Title:	Being Dead
ISBN:	0312275420 (ISBN13: 9780312275426)
Edition Language:	English
Setting:	United Kingdom
Literary Awards:	National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction (2000)

Being Dead

Jim Crace

Paperback | Pages: 196 pages

Rating: 3.71 | 4499 Users | 510 Reviews

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Title	:	Being Dead
Author	:	Jim Crace
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	First Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 196 pages
Published	:	1999 by Picador USA
Categories	:	Fiction. Novels. Contemporary. Literary Fiction. Death. Mystery

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Lying in the sand dunes of Baritone Bay are the bodies of a middle-aged couple. Celice and Joseph, in their mid-50s and married for more than 30 years, are returning to the seacoast where they met as students. Instead, they are battered to death by a thief with a chunk of granite. Their corpses lie undiscovered and rotting for a week, prey to sand crabs, flies, and gulls. Yet there remains something touching about the scene, with Joseph's hand curving lightly around his wife's leg, "quietly resting; flesh on flesh; dead, but not departed yet."

"Their bodies had expired, but anyone could tell--just look at them--that Joseph and Celice were still devoted. For while his hand was touching her, curved round her shin, the couple seemed to have achieved that peace the world denies, a period of grace, defying even murder. Anyone who found them there, so wickedly disfigured, would nevertheless be bound to see that something of their love had survived the death of cells. The corpses were surrendered to the weather and the earth, but they were still a man and wife, quietly resting; flesh on flesh; dead, but not departed yet."

From that moment forward, Being Dead becomes less about murder and more about death. Alternating chapters move back in time from the murder in hourly and two-hourly increments. As the narrative moves backward, we see Celice and Joseph make the small decisions about their day that will lead them inexorably towards their own deaths. In other chapters the narrative moves forward. Celice and Joseph are on vacation and nobody misses them until they do not return. Thus, it is six days before their bodies are found. Crace describes in minute detail their gradual return to the land with the help of crabs, birds, and the numerous insects that attack the body and gently and not so gently prepare it for the dust-to-dust phase of death.

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Ratings: 3.71 From 4499 Users | 510 Reviews

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So - last year I read Jim Crace's "Harvest" and thought it was one of the best books I've read in ages. Last month I began his most recent, "Melody", and thought it one of the worst books I'd read ever. In an effort to redeem him, I decided to give him one more crack, with "Being Dead", a well reviewed novel of his from almost 20 years ago.I'm not sure what he was trying to achieve with this one, but I now know two things -1. I know much more about post-mortem processes than I ever thought I'd

If only Jim Crace had narrowed his ambitions to a short story about decomposing bodies. It's really the tale of putrefaction that is well-told here, not at all that of the lives the decaying bodies have left behind, which smacks overpoweringly of contrivance.Crace's characters, and I noticed this in Genesis as well, are unavoidably false. The author has an odd way of saying "he is the type" - which should be the signal for "person you can relate to" - and then inventing a type you have never

One major theme which is present in Jim Craces novels is the power nature has over society. No matter what the situation is, the natural world will win. Being Dead is no exception.Zoologists Joseph and Celice return to a sandy beach after a long absence, the reason is twofold. This is the place where the couple first had sex when they were students and secondly Celice has some demons which she has to confront. Unfortunately when they are in the act, a thief bashes their heads with a piece of

This is a book about ordinary people. This is painting by Van Gogh in 1888 titled Shoes The objects painted are the artist's own processions - they are well used, experienced and passive. Now, instead of a full analysis of Van Gogh's artistic merit (which can be found in any high school art essay), try to picture his thought when he was painting this pair of shoes. Were they chosen with particular intention? Not really, since he did another painting with a black pair of boots in the same manner.

Not a pleasant novel, unless you love decay, but a courageous success.

Life CycleThis is one of the most extraordinary books I have ever read, vying with D. M. Thomas' The White Hotel for poetic originality, though quite different in manner. And one of the most extraordinary things about it is that it makes no claim to concern itself with world events at all, but something utterly ordinary: the death of a middle-aged couple near a small seaside town. Which brings me to the first of the four points I offer as demonstration.1. The Story. Joseph and Celice are

How do you rate a book when you recognize the literary quality of the prose but cant connect with the story? This book opens with the murder of a middle aged couple, both zoologists, as they picnic on a secluded beach. Descriptions of the decaying corpses in poetic language are interspersed with moments from the couples relationship and the events leading to the discovery of their bodies. Whereas the natural process of decay and the aging bodies are portrayed with prose so gorgeous it seems to