In Scott Huler’s interesting and fun book, No-Man’s Lands: One Man’s Odyssey Through The Odyssey, Huler organizes his experiences around those of Odysseus, beginning with looking for Calypso’s cave, which he did near the end of his travels but which begins Odysseus retelling of his adventure. It’s a good book and should probably be on the list for many book clubs.

At one point in The Odyssey, Odysseus goes to Hell. Huler explained that he understood going to Hell was a one way trip, so he opted for another destination. Here’s an excerpt from chapter 11 of No-Man’s Lands, regarding his rumination among the dead. His location: the Capuchin cemetery within the Church of the Immaculate Conception (Chiesa di Santa Maria della Concezione).

Off the long hall are five crypts, each filled with artwork made of human bones—delicate traceries of pelvises and vertebrae; nicely proportioned thighbone archways beneath rows of human skulls; ceiling rosettes made of scapulae, collarbones, phalanges. In many crypts, bones—the bones of an estimated four thousand of more Capuchin monks—create niches in which stand, or recline, complete monk skeletons, clothed in those hooded coffee-brown robes.

Decorative art covers the walls and ceilings like the plaster filigree in a Renaissance palace—only it’s all made from bones, all with a focus on the brevity of earthly life. It’s breathtaking. . . . Continue reading Thinking Among the Dead →