Dark Archives:
A Librarian's Investigation Into the Science and History of
Books Bound in Human Skin
by Megan Rosenbloom
Does it matter what happens to your body after you die? Religious people might be inclined to answer in the affirmative, the rest of us maybe not so much. I tend to think that what happens to your corpse should be decided, when possible, by you before you die. After all, despite what you may or may not own while you live, your body is ultimately the part of you that you have had throughout the short span of your existence from the chemical concoction that is a zygote to the inanimate, rigor mortis infested stiff that you become the moment you croak. But after that final moment, your body becomes nothing but an object and whatever happens to it is beyond your comprehension. Would it matter if someone sliced off a layer of your skin, tanned it like leather, and used it to bind a book? Being the bibliophile that I am, I kind of like the idea, but others may not be so comfortable with it. I floated the idea with my wife and she said she would definitely not allow me to have that done. She’s mostly afraid of what my in-laws might think though.
The medical librarian and archivist Megan Rosenbloom’s Dark Archives delves into the subject of anthropodermic bibliopegy, the art and practice of binding books in human skin. When confronted with the reality that this really has been done in the past, a lot of questions immediately rise to mind such as who would want one of these, whose skin was used, or is it legal to make or own one? The author addresses all of these questions and then some.
The subtext of this book is the pursuit of knowledge. Books bound in human skin are not terribly interesting in and of themselves; they mostly look like ordinary leather bound books. Therefore the concept of “provenance” ,as they call it in the rare and antiquarian book trade, is central to the meaning of the work. The idea of provenance is that the history of the book is what gives it value. Previous ownership, the manufacturing process, the historical context, its current location, its authenticity, and its commonality all contribute to the value of the cultural artifact. In some cases, this provenance determines its financial value when it goes up for auction. In other cases the value is determined by what scholars and historians can learn from the volume’s history. It is the latter of these two values that concerns Megan Rosenbloom.
As the author travels around America and Europe in search of these books, she explains the scientific process of determining their authenticity. A lot of books that are believed by their owners to be bound in human skin turn out to be fake, most often bound in tanned pig hide. Think of that the next time you eat a taco de chicharron. At the very least, Rosenbloom is doing a service to the book world by identifying forgeries that are floating around in the possession if book collectors and authenticating the real ones. Pursuing knowledge of forged human skin books opens up some interesting lines of enquiry. For example, every book that was believed to be bound in the skin of non-white people has turned out to be fraudulent, making you wonder why someone would first off want such a book and also begging the question of why these forgeries were sold in the first place (I’ll give you a hint: it has something to do with making money). Also, books bound in the skin of Holocaust victims are probably all fakes too.
Aside from the biology of the matter, there is also the psychology behind it all. Some of the subject matters of these human skin books might tell us a bit about it. Many of them are medical and anatomical treatises written from a scientific point of view. Some of them are historical narratives or records kept that are of historical importance. One title was bound in the skin of a Scottish criminal and that book is on display in a museum with other mummified body parts taken from the same man. There are other books on the occult, mostly proven to be fakes, and one that even contains a poem about sado-masochism. Absolutely none of these are Harry Potter novels.
Inevitably, a book such as this could not be taken seriously without an ethical examination of using human remains for creating works of art. Rosenbloom doesn’t make light of the subject and actually condemns the practice as being inhumane and barbaric. But she does treat these antiquarian book as artifacts and the value of artifacts lie in what they can tell us about the past. Most importantly, the knowledge gained from researching the provenance of these books tells us something about how people viewed other humans in distant history. The fact that a lot of these books were commissioned by medical doctors and the tanned-leather skin that was used came from poor people who often died in hospitals or insane asylums says a lot about power relations and the predatory nature of class conflict. Rosenbloom uses the philosophy of Michel Foucault as an analytical tool to confront this issue. In criticism, I would say that she does not depend too heavily on Foucault to draw conclusions and is much more convincing when she follows her own ideas. In the end, she uses her subject matter as a reference point for understanding the current ethical climate of the medical profession and ends by calling for healthcare professionals to be more compassionate towards their patients while maintaining the necessary professional distance.
Now all of this is very interesting, but this book doesn’t always flow the way it should. Narrative transitions are poorly managed. In any typical chapter, Rosenbloom gives vivid details of an item’s provenance and its historical context and then abruptly shifts without warning to some statement about something else, usually something to do with our current times. It often seems like she doesn’t complete her intended task, but on closer reading she actually does; the problem is that her writing lacks the signaling and bridging that indicates conclusion and transition to some other related subject matter. This signaling might be a mere formality of style, but it makes the reading smoother and less confusing. The author should have found a better proofreader.
In terms of thought provoking content, Dark Archives is jam-packed with things to consider. The chapter on the legal grey areas of possessing human remains has enough to keep your head reeling for days. The book is also brief and accessible, even if it is sometimes poorly written and lacking in direction. It ultimately raises the question of how the living relate to the dead seen through the issue of what we are allowed to do with human remains. And maybe binding a book in human skin is less gruesome then we think. After all, cathedrals in Europe house relics from dead saints and kings, catacombs and charnel houses stockpile hundreds of thousands of bones and skulls all on view for gawking tourists, English people in Victorian England used to keep locks of the deceased’s hair in jewelry, Buddhist temples in Asia have mummified monks on display in glass cases that are believed to have magical powers, Tibetans have traditionally made ritual objects and musical instruments from human bones, human body parts were formerly built into the walls and foundations of buildings, mummies are on display in museums all across the world and so are mummified body parts, 18th century painters used to use paints made from ground up mummies, and people of that same time period used to have mummy unwrapping parties in their homes. People keep the cremains of their loved ones in urns stored in their houses. And the dead have never had any idea that any of this was going on. Books bound in human skin don’t sound so unusual now, do they? The practice is illegal now, as it should be, but the study of those artifacts for scientific and historical reasons is entirely legitimate. That is the whole point of this book.
Now I’m reconsidering what I want done with my body when I die. It has to be something that won’t upset my wife. I’ll probably stick with my original plan even though Dark Archives really did make me reconsider this and a lot of other things as well.
The medical librarian and archivist Megan Rosenbloom’s Dark Archives delves into the subject of anthropodermic bibliopegy, the art and practice of binding books in human skin. When confronted with the reality that this really has been done in the past, a lot of questions immediately rise to mind such as who would want one of these, whose skin was used, or is it legal to make or own one? The author addresses all of these questions and then some.
The subtext of this book is the pursuit of knowledge. Books bound in human skin are not terribly interesting in and of themselves; they mostly look like ordinary leather bound books. Therefore the concept of “provenance” ,as they call it in the rare and antiquarian book trade, is central to the meaning of the work. The idea of provenance is that the history of the book is what gives it value. Previous ownership, the manufacturing process, the historical context, its current location, its authenticity, and its commonality all contribute to the value of the cultural artifact. In some cases, this provenance determines its financial value when it goes up for auction. In other cases the value is determined by what scholars and historians can learn from the volume’s history. It is the latter of these two values that concerns Megan Rosenbloom.
As the author travels around America and Europe in search of these books, she explains the scientific process of determining their authenticity. A lot of books that are believed by their owners to be bound in human skin turn out to be fake, most often bound in tanned pig hide. Think of that the next time you eat a taco de chicharron. At the very least, Rosenbloom is doing a service to the book world by identifying forgeries that are floating around in the possession if book collectors and authenticating the real ones. Pursuing knowledge of forged human skin books opens up some interesting lines of enquiry. For example, every book that was believed to be bound in the skin of non-white people has turned out to be fraudulent, making you wonder why someone would first off want such a book and also begging the question of why these forgeries were sold in the first place (I’ll give you a hint: it has something to do with making money). Also, books bound in the skin of Holocaust victims are probably all fakes too.
Aside from the biology of the matter, there is also the psychology behind it all. Some of the subject matters of these human skin books might tell us a bit about it. Many of them are medical and anatomical treatises written from a scientific point of view. Some of them are historical narratives or records kept that are of historical importance. One title was bound in the skin of a Scottish criminal and that book is on display in a museum with other mummified body parts taken from the same man. There are other books on the occult, mostly proven to be fakes, and one that even contains a poem about sado-masochism. Absolutely none of these are Harry Potter novels.
Inevitably, a book such as this could not be taken seriously without an ethical examination of using human remains for creating works of art. Rosenbloom doesn’t make light of the subject and actually condemns the practice as being inhumane and barbaric. But she does treat these antiquarian book as artifacts and the value of artifacts lie in what they can tell us about the past. Most importantly, the knowledge gained from researching the provenance of these books tells us something about how people viewed other humans in distant history. The fact that a lot of these books were commissioned by medical doctors and the tanned-leather skin that was used came from poor people who often died in hospitals or insane asylums says a lot about power relations and the predatory nature of class conflict. Rosenbloom uses the philosophy of Michel Foucault as an analytical tool to confront this issue. In criticism, I would say that she does not depend too heavily on Foucault to draw conclusions and is much more convincing when she follows her own ideas. In the end, she uses her subject matter as a reference point for understanding the current ethical climate of the medical profession and ends by calling for healthcare professionals to be more compassionate towards their patients while maintaining the necessary professional distance.
Now all of this is very interesting, but this book doesn’t always flow the way it should. Narrative transitions are poorly managed. In any typical chapter, Rosenbloom gives vivid details of an item’s provenance and its historical context and then abruptly shifts without warning to some statement about something else, usually something to do with our current times. It often seems like she doesn’t complete her intended task, but on closer reading she actually does; the problem is that her writing lacks the signaling and bridging that indicates conclusion and transition to some other related subject matter. This signaling might be a mere formality of style, but it makes the reading smoother and less confusing. The author should have found a better proofreader.
In terms of thought provoking content, Dark Archives is jam-packed with things to consider. The chapter on the legal grey areas of possessing human remains has enough to keep your head reeling for days. The book is also brief and accessible, even if it is sometimes poorly written and lacking in direction. It ultimately raises the question of how the living relate to the dead seen through the issue of what we are allowed to do with human remains. And maybe binding a book in human skin is less gruesome then we think. After all, cathedrals in Europe house relics from dead saints and kings, catacombs and charnel houses stockpile hundreds of thousands of bones and skulls all on view for gawking tourists, English people in Victorian England used to keep locks of the deceased’s hair in jewelry, Buddhist temples in Asia have mummified monks on display in glass cases that are believed to have magical powers, Tibetans have traditionally made ritual objects and musical instruments from human bones, human body parts were formerly built into the walls and foundations of buildings, mummies are on display in museums all across the world and so are mummified body parts, 18th century painters used to use paints made from ground up mummies, and people of that same time period used to have mummy unwrapping parties in their homes. People keep the cremains of their loved ones in urns stored in their houses. And the dead have never had any idea that any of this was going on. Books bound in human skin don’t sound so unusual now, do they? The practice is illegal now, as it should be, but the study of those artifacts for scientific and historical reasons is entirely legitimate. That is the whole point of this book.
Now I’m reconsidering what I want done with my body when I die. It has to be something that won’t upset my wife. I’ll probably stick with my original plan even though Dark Archives really did make me reconsider this and a lot of other things as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment