Cathedrals of the Flesh: My Search for the Perfect Bath [Hardcover]

Alexia Brue (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 22, 2003

A sensual tour of the world's great bathing cultures.

People journey to Greece for the ruins, Turkey for the Haghia Sophia, and Russia for St. Basil's, but Alexia Brue travels with a different itinerary: to visit the baths. What starts off as an innocent vacation quickly becomes an obsession, as the author ventures to Turkey, Greece, Russia, Finland, and Japan to sample the range of spa cultures and bathing traditions the world has to offer.

Caught up in the tide of exploration and crossing paths with fellow travelers along the way, Alexia drifts further and further away from the life she left behind in New York City. Hoping to find a thriving local bath scene, she dips into hamams, banyas, saunas, and onsen, finding both disappointment and bliss.

At once deeply personal and highly informative, full of intimacies, discoveries, and unexpected twists, Cathedrals of the Flesh is the candid and playful account of one woman's determination to follow her passion, ultimately inspiring readers to do the same.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Originally undertaken as research for setting up a Turkish bath business in New York City, journalist Brue's project revealed that her cultural curiosity was greater than her entrepreneurial drive. At first, the book hews too closely to the genesis of Brue's endeavor as the opening chapters, about her initiation at various Parisian baths and her first forays in Turkey, are overshadowed by the urge to take notes for the business. But then there's a trip to Greece to visit ancient thermae-a fine excuse to meditate on the centrality of baths to classical culture-followed by an amusing stay in Russia, where skillful flogging at scorching banyas proves suffering can still be a cultivated art. It's then on to Finland and Japan, where it's clear this has become a cultural inquiry, not a business research project. Brue, who's bold enough to wander abroad speaking a bare handful of polite phrases, does get herself into the proverbial hot water on occasion-mistakenly stripping naked for a Japanese mixed sex bath, for example-but with humor and good attitude she manages to learn even from her faux pas. Her style is delightfully informal, packing in a lot of (admittedly esoteric) information, e.g., what's the physiological effect of birch twig beatings? "What sicko" invented the Japanese electric bath? And who knew how popular breast implants are with young Russian women, or that they have their pubic hair waxed down to a Mohawk? Better her than me, many readers may be muttering, but isn't that the point of armchair travel?
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From The New Yorker

This entertaining picaresque chronicles the author's mostly naked reconnaissance of the world's public baths, from cavernous marble Turkish hamams and smoky Helsinki saunas to militantly hot Moscow banyas and a New York bathhouse of dubious hygiene. Between fierce scrubbings and whippings with birch twigs, Brue stealthily observes her fellow-bathers: jaded Russians (commenting on the decline of banyas, one says, "Stalin very bad man, so bad banyas"), fleshy Brooklynites discussing linoleum, and Romanian strippers who refuse to take off their swimsuits at a Japanese hot spring. Brue's depiction of herself as a bumbling innocent abroad isn't entirely believable, but her approach to other cultures is refreshingly humble, and her devotion to the pleasures of bathing with strangers makes a seductive case for "skinship," in which, naked together in the same water, "you do away with all the normal social barriers in life."
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (January 22, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582341168
• ISBN-13: 978-1582341163
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #657,106 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Bather's Baedeker, January 27, 2003

By 

M. R. Shifrin (Leatherhead, England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cathedrals of the Flesh: My Search for the Perfect Bath (Hardcover)

This is a thoroughly delightful, often amusing, account of Alexia's search for the perfect bath. Once started, the book is difficult to put down; by the end, you not only know a bit more about her 'on hold' relationship with Charles, and want to know even more about her fascinating putative business partner Marina, but you have painlessly absorbed as much information as you could want to know about the differing characteristics of a variety of national public baths. Along the way, you will also have met a number of characters who are not easy to forget, and you will have a guide to which baths to use and which to avoid-of not inconsiderable benefit to one visiting Turkey who, like Alexia, is warned to avoid the 'unhygienic' baths in Istanbul. The evocative line drawings by Lynda Reeves McIntyre which appear at the head of each chapter fittingly complement the book. 

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Even Better Than a Bath, January 15, 2003

By 

Kenneth L. Adelman (Arlington,, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Cathedrals of the Flesh: My Search for the Perfect Bath (Hardcover)

This book's even better than a bath.
Brue is a wonderful writer, but far beyond that, she's a wonderful story-teller.
The quest for the perfect bath forms the plot line, but the quest makes a far richer tale than any particular bath.
Even for those of us in quest of nothing more than a daily shower, this makes for wonderful reading, as Brue is witty, insightful, and above all humorous.
While she acts humble as a stranger in strange lands pursuing a strange interest, she shouldn't be humble as a story-teller. She's gifted in taking a specialized field and making it lively, even delightful, to anyone who loves human nature and passions.
I'd recommend it strongly -- and have to loads of people.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars "Sex and the City" go searching the perfect bath, July 27, 2004

By 

T-Rex (Tokyo, Japan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cathedrals of the Flesh: My Search for the Perfect Bath (Hardcover)

Did someone give the author an idea that in order to sell a non-fiction today, it has to have a Sex and the City flavor? Otherwise how can one explain this constant accidental meetings between good-looking exotic males and the writer, who is a single, thirty-ish, female New Yorker. From my view, this book could stand by itself without this boy meets girl side-story. At times it was very distracting to otherwise an excellent travelogue. I regret this because the central theme of the quest for the perfect bath is an honest effort with not too much cliche or stereotypes.