BOOK 204: SEVERED: A HISTORY OF HEADS LOST AND HEADS FOUND: FRANCES LARSON

The human head is exceptional. It accommodates four of our five senses, encases the brain, and boasts the most expressive set of muscles in the body. It is our most distinctive attribute and connects our inner selves to the outer world.

Yet there is a dark side to the head’s preeminence, one that has, in the course of human history, manifested itself in everything from decapitation to headhunting. So explains anthropologist Frances Larson in this fascinating history of decapitated human heads. From the Western collectors whose demand for shrunken heads spurred massacres to Second World War soldiers who sent the remains of the Japanese home to their girlfriends, from Madame Tussaud modeling the guillotined head of Robespierre to Damien Hirst photographing decapitated heads in city morgues,from grave-robbing phrenologists to skull-obsessed scientists, Larson explores our macabre fixation with severed heads.

MY VERDICT: I can’t quite put my finger on why, but I did not enjoy this book. From the subject matter it seemed like this was very much my kind of book, I love the macabre, the other side of science, the unusual, but the thing I love the most and which is integral even to a non fiction book was missing; story. I only remember things told in stories, the better the story is told, the more I remember, there are not many stories told in this book, it reads more like a sub-par thesis than an entertaining non-fiction book. It is such a shame because it started out so well. The story of Oliver Cromwell’s head at the start of this book is interesting - I would even recommend it - it tells the history of a person’s head after they have died - after that, stop reading and go read something on this kind of subject but much better written - like Stiff by Mary Roach. I’m very disappointed that I didn't enjoy this book - I did read the whole thing to end hoping that something more interesting might emerge but alas it did not.