Rag and Bone: A Journey Among the World's Holy Dead (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: relic tour, holy tooth, Mother Catherine, Joan of Arc, Francis Xavier (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

You have to love a book with sentences like this: Things got rough for the foreskins of Jesus as the Middle Ages matured. Author Manseau (Vows) lavishly scatters gems like this as he travels the world in search of the bones, teeth, hair and other scraps from the religiously renowned. The result is a lively lope among fragments from famous faith figures – Buddha's tooth, Muhammad's whiskers and the aforementioned foreskin, or foreskins, as many people and places have claimed ownership of this fragment. Manseau never gives over entirely to the snarkiness that sometimes marred some of his previous work, especially Killing the Buddha: A Heretic's Bible. Instead, he provides a rich history of each of the, ahem, items he considers and examines their effects on contemporary believers. Occasionally, Manseau's pilgrimages feel a little cursory; he writes that some of his visits to the relic sites were shorter than he would have liked. Yet he listens well. When he meets a Pakistani man praying before the supposed whiskers of Muhammad in an Aleppo mosque, Manseau asks if the man has come to be close to the Prophet. Close? I cannot be close, the pilgrim replies. I come to remind me how far it is I must go. (Apr.)
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From The Washington Post

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Justin Moyer You might be confident that the risen Christ is the Messiah, but would you be more so if you could venerate a piece of his remains: his foreskin, for example? Peter Manseau's "Rag and Bone," a travelogue in which the author details his search for body parts of the holy deceased, tackles the curious relationship between faith and the physical evidence relics offer. "A relic concentrates the beliefs surrounding it until they can be seen . . . like shining sunlight through a magnifying glass," Manseau writes of his pilgrimages to view bits of the departed, including Muhammad's whisker in Kashmir, one of the Buddha's teeth in Sri Lanka and Jesus' prepuce in Jerusalem. Of course, there's a lot of room for the word "alleged" when scrutinizing remains over two millennia old, but aside from a chapter devoted to a researcher trying to determine whether a scorched human rib found in a French museum belonged to Joan of Arc, Manseau is less interested in the legitimacy of relics than in how people use them to support belief. Christianity, Islam and Buddhism thrive by convincing the uninitiated that dogma preached by long-dead figureheads is universal truth. As the author points out, what better "portable form of sanctity" is there for evangelicals than St. Francis Xavier's toe, Lama Yeshe's leg or St. Anthony's tongue? Born to a former nun and a priest who married but refused to renounce the Church, Manseau brings the same expansive perspective on belief to "Rag and Bone" that fueled his 2005 memoir, "Vows" -- the understanding that every leap of faith can benefit from a little push.
Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.; 1 edition (March 31, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805086528
• ISBN-13: 978-0805086522
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #234,978 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars the facsinating role of relics in the world today, April 13, 2009

By	David Swanson (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

There are at least three good reasons to read Peter Manseau's latest book, Rag and Bone: A Journey Among the World's Holy Dead. The most quickly apparent reason is the way Manseau writes. Disguised as a travelogue, Rag and Bone is actually a history of the role relics play in the world's religions. Of the few remains of Joan of Arc Manseau writes,

"The bits and pieces that may have once belonged to the Maid of Orleans, the most popular saint the church ever killed, have been placed inside three glass jars, slid into cloth cozies, and arranged within a pale wooden case the size of a toolbox... First on the the RER commuter train, then the metro, she rides up out of the darkness like a body exhumed, despite the unfortunate fact that she never had a grave to begin with."

Manseau strikes the delicate balance of humor and awe through the book's eight chapters. While not overlooking the odd moments that are bound to take place while traveling the world to view pieces of dead people, the author is careful to treat the relics and those who venerate them with deference and admiration.

The stories that emerge when the reporter's search intersects with those who see something transcendent in old bones and bits of skin is the second reason Rag and Bone is so enjoyable. The best travelogues entertain even while showing the reader fascinating scenes and unknown histories; both are abundant in these pages. Manseau mixes his own adventures of traveling to places like Jerusalem and Syria with the stories of the once living saints whose bodies- or what's left of them- continue to influence the faithful.

There's another reason I so thoroughly enjoyed this book, though I'm not sure the author intended this reaction. Rag and Bone repeatedly shows the human desire for a physical connection with the spiritual world. Officially, many of the world's religions are rather ambivalent- or outright hostile- towards relics and the veneration that often follows. This hasn't stopped believers all around the world from making pilgrimages to see bits of bone, tooth, hair and (yes, it's true) foreskin. While modern religion is often portrayed in otherworldly terms, Manseau compellingly portrays the human need for a tangible connection with the divine.

In the midst of it's adventure, history, and humor there is plenty to ponder in Rag and Bone for those who share my Christian belief. Historic Christianity affirms the physical-ness of creation and humanity and looks to a final restoration of all things that is not less but more physical than what we now experience. Unfortunately Christianity has often moved in more gnostic directions where the body and the world is seen as a temporary existence from which we will one day escape. Within this dualistic worldview it makes sense that believers would grasp at relics as material connections to the out-of-reach spiritual world. A more traditional understanding of Christianity looks not to jars of bones for this connection but to people (the image-bearers of God) and the creation (a reflection of the character and creativity of God). The Christian is directed to God by the living creations of God. We are encouraged to worship as we encounter the beautiful and complex results of God's creative work.

Whether or not a reader finds this type of insight in its pages, Rag and Bone is an enjoyable read- as entertaining as it is informative.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Great Story of Relics, Faith and Finding Yourself, April 18, 2009

By	Sacramento Book Review "SacramentoBookReview.com" (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews

This is a tale about the fascinating world of religious and ancient relics. As a single subject, it would be mildly interesting - most of us are intrigued by the mystery of our ancient selves. But //Rag and Bones// takes what could have been a simple exploration of old bones and chalices, and transforms that simple literary exercise into a beautiful, and at times very funny and insightful journey of faith, culture, religious history, and exotic locales. Travel to Umbria and meet the tongue of a saint; go to Goa, India, and discover a holy toe; then hop on over to Hollywood, California at a local, popular Buddhist temple and yoga palace - hold the dust of a former Buddhist leader in the palm of your hand. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

What makes //Rag and Bones// more than just a good reference book for anyone wanting to learn about the history and meaning of ancient relics, is what makes essays in The New Yorker or Atlantic Review compelling. Author Peter Manseau is a tremendously talented creative non-fiction scribe. His flair for vivid detail, artful, conversational tone, and his writerly ear make reading his work not like reading at all. Manseau is a writer with flavor and humor, and has the kind of eye capable of bringing other realities and world's into a reader's living room, as if they themselves were standing at the foot of the Nepalese mountains. //Rag and Bones// is a truly great book, even if you could give a wit about the toe of some dead, alleged saint. Manseau makes bones thrilling.

Reviewed by Tracy Saville

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lively Stories of the Dead, April 6, 2009

By	R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

We take it for granted that people will revere their dead, memorializing or sentimentalizing them. We might view as old-fashioned the practice of keeping a lock of the dear departed's hair, but there is nothing too strange in that. But what if the keepsake was the dear departed's tongue? Veneration for body parts has a long history. "Whether a tooth, a heart, a whisker, or a calcified tear, these items have exerted a remarkable and complicated influence in the world for such tiny, often frankly repulsive, things." So writes Peter Manseau in _Rag and Bone: A Journey Among the World's Holy Dead_ (Henry Holt), a strange, reflective, and amusing tale of a very weird but universal practice. Manseau has traveled all over the world to peep at some of these objects, the ways they are put on display, their influence, and the people who adore them. Manseau is a writer on religion and other subjects, and throughout brings a humorous but always sympathetic view to relics and believers, and his insights into human nature through this peculiar subject are always interesting and sometimes profound.

He starts in Goa, for a look at the corpse of St. Francis Xavier. Francis stayed whole and undecayed until his return to Goa, where he was put on display and in 1554 a "pious Portuguese woman" was so filled with religious fervor before the relic that she not only kissed his toe but bit it off. That was a spontaneous removal, but in 1614 his right lower arm was cut off, split, and sent to Italy and Belgium to benefit Jesuits there; then later Jesuits in Japan got the rest of the arm, and then a shoulder blade went... well, you get the picture. One of the best parts of Manseau's book is that it does not restrict itself to the veneration of bones that is a familiar part of Catholic tradition, but shows relics in other religions as well. There are, for instance, relics in Islam, but they point out a very basic divide in the great Shia and Sunni branches. Shiites are inspired by relics and Sunnis are disgusted by them. From the beard of the Prophet himself has come (as one chapter here is titled) "The Most Dangerous Whisker in the World". Then there is the Buddha's tooth, which resides, naturally, at the Temple of the Holy Tooth in a Sri Lankan hill town. The most peculiar stories here have to do with the foreskin (or foreskins) of Jesus. All of him went to heaven, believers say, but the fruit of his circumcision had to be left behind on Earth somewhere. There used to be a dozen of these prepuces circulating around all over Europe. There are still bits of it about, but the place most accepted as the site of the true foreskin is Calcata, Italy, although the Catholic Church dismisses it as an "irreverent curiosity." This is perhaps a better designation than that given by a seventeenth-century Vatican librarian, who determined that the prepuce had indeed left Earth along with Jesus, and expanded and stopped at Saturn, where it became the planet's recently-discovered ring.

The Catholic Church has a designation for the offense of buying and selling sacred objects: simony. But there is a loophole: such objects can be donated, and donations can be accepted in return. This points out that relics are big business, like the touring Buddha relics which bring in dollars that are to go to an enormous statue of the Buddha, twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty. It also explains some of the thefts that have gone on for centuries, first by the Crusaders and then by monks of one church stealing from another in what seems like a great sport played from one era to the next. Of course, it isn't all about money, and as Manseau points out in this delightful collection of travel stories with a purpose, it isn't even always about faith. George Washington's hair can be found in many collections, as can fabric that soaked up Abe Lincoln's blood. And then there is the museum in Georgia that enshrines a finding from deep in the shag carpet of the Jungle Room in Graceland, and exhibits it as "Possibly Elvis's Toenail."