Book Reivew: Eternal Prairie

Book

Eternal Prairie: Exploring Rural Cemeteries of the West
written by Randy Adams

From the weathered, handmade crosses in prairie filed sot the ornate monuments of urban cemeteries, grave markers are personal commemorations of the loss that also represent a wealth of history, symbolism, faith, and art.

Randy Adams has spent years exploring and photographing the homesteads, small towns, churches, and cemeteries of the rural prairies. In Eternal Prairie, he looks at the social history, traditions, and significance of the huge variety of grave markers on the prairies, and the stories that surround the people, monuments, and mourners he encountered on his journey.

RANDY ADAMS is a writer and photographer with a fascination for the vanishing structures, artefacts, and fold art of the prairies. He was born and raised in Edmonton, AB, and presently resides in Nanaimo, BC.

Review

Unlike Miller's Remember Me As You Pass By (review), Adams book does cover rural cemeteries of the prairie provinces with highlights of Albert, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan burial grounds. But like Miller, he also tends to focus on the notable cemeteries and markers that he encountered in his travels.

Offering some visually stunning photographs, a headstone in the rain, and other unique markers such as wrought iron crosses in the Catholic cemetery at Prelate, SK by a local blacksmith and abandoned churches the images allows readers to see in either black 'n' white or colour, what Adams saw in his excursions.

An informative and visually appealing book that lets one see unique markers and cemeteries, Adams provides history and personal experiences with cemetery caretakers and those who erect the markers in memory of those who died.

Source: Adams, Randy. Eternal prairie : exploring rural cemeteries of the west. Calgary: Fifth House Publishers, 1999.

Book Reivew: The Graveyard Book

Book
The Graveyard Book
Written by Neil Gaiman, Illustrated by Dave McKean

Nobody Owens, know to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy.

He would be completely normal if he didn't live in a sprawling graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor of the dead.

There are dangers and adventures in the graveyard for a boy--an ancient Indigo Man beneath the hill, a gateway to the desert leading to an abandoned city of ghouls, the strange and terrible menace of the Sleer.

But if Bod leaves the graveyard, then he will come under attack from the man Jack--who has already killed Bod's family...

Beloved master storyteller Neil Gaiman returns witha luminous new novel for the audience that embraced his New York Times bestselling modern classic Coraline. Magical, terrifying, and filled with breathtaking adventures, The Graveyard Book is sure to enthrall readers of all ages.

NEIL GAIMAN is the author of several books for children, including the New York Times bestelling Coraline; the collection of short stories for young readers M is for Magic; and Interworld, co-authored with Michael Reaves. His picture books included The Wolves in the Walls and The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish, illustrated by Dave McKean, and The Dangerous Alphabet, illustrated by Gris Grimly. He wrote the script for the film MirrorMask and is also the author of nationally bestselling, critically acclaimed, and award-winning novels and shorts stories for adults as well as the Sanman series of graphic novels and other graphic novels, including the graphic novel adaptation of Coraline. Among his many awards are the World Fantasy Award, the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, the Bram Stoker Award. Originally from England, Gaiman now lives in the United States. Visit him online at http://www.mousecircus.com/.

Review
I selected this novel to read for two reasons, 1) it had "graveyard" in the title which is a key word I keep my eyes peeled for as possibly being related to the subject of cemeteries and 2) I hadn't really heard anything bad about it.

Well The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman is juvenile fiction making it very "light" (and enjoyable) reading for me, what I absolutely adored as a taphophilia was how Gaiman rendered the graveyard experience into the story.

When visiting a cemetery, a person does not just look at the markers and scenery but read tombstones. There are 12 instances where this "graveyard lingo" appears much like a transcribers work and for me, made the book a truly well done fictionalized graveyard experience.
As the reader in me wants to share, here are the 12 accounts:

p. 39 - ...while Bod lay in the spring sunlight watching a bronze-colored beetle wandering across the stone of Geo. Reeder, his wife, Dorcas, and their son Sebastian [Fidelis ad Mortem].

p. 48 - ...the boy popped up--literally, like a jack-in-a-box--from behind a tombstone [Joji G. Shoji, d. 1921, I was a stranger and you took me in].

p. 96 - Doctor Tregusis [1870-1936, May He Wake to Glory] inspected it and pronounced it merely sprained.

p. 104 - The moon had begun to rise by the time Bod reached Mr Pennyworth's mausoleum, and Thomes Pennyworth [here he lyes in the certainty of the moft glorious refurrection] was already waiting, and was not it the best of moods.

p. 106 - And so it went, until it was time for Grammar and Composition with Miss Letitia Borrows, Spinster of this Parish [Who Did No Harm to No Man all the Dais of Her Life. Reader, Can You Say Lykewise?].

p. 140 - Bob was walking, sleepily and a little gingerly, past the small tomb of the wonderfully named Miss Liberty Roach [What she spent is lost, what she gave remains with her always. Reader be Charitable]...

pp. 163-4 - He went down the hill at a run, a ten-year-old boy in a hurry, going so fast he almost tripped over Digby Poole [1785-1860, As I Am So Shall You Be]...

p. 174 - Bod sighed and he lowered the book, and leanded out enought to see Thackeray Porringer [1720-1734, son of the above] come stamping up the slippery path.

p. 176 - ... while Miss Euphemia [186-1883, She Sleeps, Aye, Yet She Sleeps with Angels] had been buried in Victorian times...

p. 209 - Bod rubbed his hand over the stone of Thomas R. Stout [1817-1851. Deeply regretted by all who knew him]...

p. 221 - "Majella Godspeed, Spinister of this Parish, 1791-1870, Lost to All But Memory," Scarlett read aloud.

p. 231 - Nehemiah Trot was the Poet's name, and his gravestone, beneath the greenery, read: Here lies the mortal remains of / Nehemiah Trot / Poet / 1741-1774 / Swans Sing Before They Die

So, go! Read! And tell me if I missed any!

Source: Gaiman, Neil. The graveyard book. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2008.

Book Review: Remember Me As You Pass By

Book

Remember Me As You Pass By: Stories from Prairie Graveyards
written by Nancy Millar

Nancy Millar learned two things as she explored Alberta’s graveyards: graveyards contain our history, and our history is never boring!

In this lively and most unusual history book, you’ll – learn about the real Sam McGee who lived and died in Alberta; discover why babies died in the bad old days; look at the differences between men and women in the graveyard; learn about the changing style in gravemarkers.

Nancy Millar’s refreshing perspective offers up an intriguing and very personal look at history that touches us all.

Review

Remember Me As You Pass By: Stories from Prairie Graveyards by Nancy Millar is interesting and while I definitely recommend it for anyone from Alberta or genealogy in the province, I confess to expecting more from the prairie provinces because of the subtitle "Stories from Prairie Graveyards" which would have been much more accurate to state "Stories from Alberta Graveyards".

The cover blurb of course does specify Alberta, but that isn't much help when you're looking for titles using keywords such as "cemetery" and "graveyard" to learn more about them in a library catalogue.

One way that I relate to how Miller chose to present her subject is that for me, the first and strongest draw to cemeteries has always been the markers. The ultimate footnote in the story of life. Only as I've started transcribing cemeteries have I become interested in learning the stories of the "permanent residents." Though of course, with Miller stating to have visited 250 some cemeteries while researching, only a small fraction of the most interesting stories were included in the book.

I do wish though that Miller had devoted more to "look[ing] at the differences between men and women in the graveyard; learn about the changing style in gravemarkers" as promised by the blurb. It's why I really wanted to read the book in the first place, to learn about those sort of things.

All in all though, I doubt any taphophilia would mind vegging out with this book.

Source: Millar, Nancy. Remember me as you pass by : stories from prairie graveyards. Calgary; Glenbow, 1994.