TITLE: The Body Fantastic
AUTHOR: Frank Gonzalez-Crussi
PUBLISHER: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262045889
PODCAST EPISODE: Book Club 27
REVIEWER: Hilary Wilson
The Body Fantastic, Frank Gonzalez-Crussi’s new book from MIT Press, implores the reader to move away from Cartesian Dualism to an understanding of the body through the concept of Valery’s Fourth, or quantum, body. Our conception of our bodies, Gonzalez-Crussi argues, is not solely informed by its mechanical functions or how others see us. Our corporeality instead is partially moulded by our native folklores, history, and myriad other influences we encounter and absorb throughout our lives.
Every chapter is dedicated to a different part of the human body, although not necessarily the parts one might expect. Reams of paper have been dedicated to the heart and the brain, after all, but what of the stomach? What of saliva and urine, hair and feet? And in spite of us all having once spent time in the uterus, it seems to be a distressingly underexplored subject of folkloric study - but this book delves deep into the past where it was once considered a sentient animal and the source of all female thought.
Gonzalez-Crussi intersperses his medical history with fascinating asides, and uses the many varied parts of our bodies to better understand ourselves and our place in the universe. While one might expect a discussion on the uterus to devolve into sexism in medical practice, one would less expect it to reveal Casanova to be outed as an early champion of women’s rights. Similarly, discussions of disordered eating end up showing the excesses of American culture. The feet pave the way for discussions on death, foot fetishes in the 1500s, and the development of literary fairy tales. Through a discussion of orality Gonzalez-Crussi examines why we are drawn to eat food that hurts us and what that might say about both our psychology and our cultural conceptions of masculinity.
As a long time reader of books on both medical history and folklore I was both delighted and surprised by how much of this book was completely new to me. Gonzalez-Crussi draws from unique and numerous primary sources -- most would know about the man who ate a plane over the course of two years and the gluttinos Tarrare, but how many would know about Madame D’Aulnoy’s travels in Spain in the 1500s and the Spanish court’s manifold rituals surrounding feet? Likewise, people are fairly familiar with the practice of urine therapy these days - but how many are familiar with the Roman’s obsession with saliva as a healing salve and its connections to early Christianity?
I cannot recommend this book enough. While the book is a treasure trove of information, it is not a difficult one to read unless you are particularly squeamish. I guarantee that the book will contain information you’ve not read before, and that it will fascinate and delight any new reader. It is impossible to come away from it without a new curiosity about the most familiar thing to all of us: our own body.
AUTHOR: Frank Gonzalez-Crussi
PUBLISHER: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262045889
PODCAST EPISODE: Book Club 27
REVIEWER: Hilary Wilson
The Body Fantastic, Frank Gonzalez-Crussi’s new book from MIT Press, implores the reader to move away from Cartesian Dualism to an understanding of the body through the concept of Valery’s Fourth, or quantum, body. Our conception of our bodies, Gonzalez-Crussi argues, is not solely informed by its mechanical functions or how others see us. Our corporeality instead is partially moulded by our native folklores, history, and myriad other influences we encounter and absorb throughout our lives.
Every chapter is dedicated to a different part of the human body, although not necessarily the parts one might expect. Reams of paper have been dedicated to the heart and the brain, after all, but what of the stomach? What of saliva and urine, hair and feet? And in spite of us all having once spent time in the uterus, it seems to be a distressingly underexplored subject of folkloric study - but this book delves deep into the past where it was once considered a sentient animal and the source of all female thought.
Gonzalez-Crussi intersperses his medical history with fascinating asides, and uses the many varied parts of our bodies to better understand ourselves and our place in the universe. While one might expect a discussion on the uterus to devolve into sexism in medical practice, one would less expect it to reveal Casanova to be outed as an early champion of women’s rights. Similarly, discussions of disordered eating end up showing the excesses of American culture. The feet pave the way for discussions on death, foot fetishes in the 1500s, and the development of literary fairy tales. Through a discussion of orality Gonzalez-Crussi examines why we are drawn to eat food that hurts us and what that might say about both our psychology and our cultural conceptions of masculinity.
As a long time reader of books on both medical history and folklore I was both delighted and surprised by how much of this book was completely new to me. Gonzalez-Crussi draws from unique and numerous primary sources -- most would know about the man who ate a plane over the course of two years and the gluttinos Tarrare, but how many would know about Madame D’Aulnoy’s travels in Spain in the 1500s and the Spanish court’s manifold rituals surrounding feet? Likewise, people are fairly familiar with the practice of urine therapy these days - but how many are familiar with the Roman’s obsession with saliva as a healing salve and its connections to early Christianity?
I cannot recommend this book enough. While the book is a treasure trove of information, it is not a difficult one to read unless you are particularly squeamish. I guarantee that the book will contain information you’ve not read before, and that it will fascinate and delight any new reader. It is impossible to come away from it without a new curiosity about the most familiar thing to all of us: our own body.