Lawler Literature 002:Human Cadavers, Animal Brains, and Shakespeare on Film

Lawler Literature is a feature in which I discuss books I've read, books I'm reading, books I've lent away, and books I've sold online as Lawler Books.

Here's an excerpt from Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach:

Outside the gate, we spend a long time scraping the bottoms of our boots on a curb. You don't have to step on a body to carry the smells of death with you on your shoes. For reasons we have just seen, the soil around a corpse is sodden with the liquids of human decay. pp. 69-70


In this passage, Roach has just visited a Tennessee body farm. For those who don't know, body farms are exposed landscapes in which forensic anthropologists study bodily decomposition in a variety of settings. This often involves setting an un-embalmed corpse out on the grass and letting it melt, wicked witch style.

The uninitiated might imagine that Roach's book is either intolerably morbid or nauseatingly gruesome, or that reading a book about cadavers on the subway can get one arrested. Not so. Not only is this book exceptionally informative, it is a riot.

Given the above quote, is it wrong that I kind of want to be Mary Roach when I grow up?

Luckily, Roach has recently come out with another book, called Packing for Mars, about day-to-day life in space for astronauts. It will be released August 2nd, I believe. For a more in-depth review of Stiff, read this post.

Animal Minds, Virginia Morell. National Georgraphic, March 2008: Okay, here's where I reveal the magnitude of my nerdiness by telling you that I have quite a large collection of National Geographic back issues, none of which are monetarily valuable. But they make my soul do the can-can, and that is reward enough, even if such collections can only lead to social ostracism and bag-ladyism.

As for this article, It is about animal thought processes, and how they may not be entirely different from human thought processes. I re-read it every time I'm considering veganism:

This is the larger lesson of animal cognitive research: it humbles us. We are not alone in our ability to invent or plan or to contemplate ourselves--or even to plot and lie. pp. 53

Morell goes on to describe how both apes and scrub jays can deceptively hide food from those with whom they are supposed to be sharing. So, yes, non-human mammals can be stingy, too. Others can use tools, recognize faces, and be productive members of their communities. I suspect that some species are more human-like than I am.

The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film, ed by Russell Jackson: The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film was my textbook for a Shakespeare and Film class. The class was great! I did not, however, crack open the text. Still managed to spill coffee on it though. Here's an excerpt from an included essay entitled "Shakespeare and Movie Genre" by Harry Keyishian:

Recent films have moved even closer to Hollywood forms. Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet is, among other things, a Mel Gibson movie, with discernible connections to his earlier films. (The director has said that he cast Gibson in the role after seeing his character contemplate suicide in the first Lethal Weapon film.) Baz Luhrmann's William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet is a Leonardo DiCaprio vehicle, which was followed by another tale of great and doomed love, Titanic. From a critical perspective, coherent analysis can follow from setting the Shakespearean ventures of these actors into the context of their other films. pp 74

For the record, my favorite Hamlet does not involve Mel Gibson. Also, Baz's R + J is the best, longest music video I've ever seen.

For other Shakespeare adaptations, I recommend:

Hamlet, Kenneth Branagh

Henry V, Kenneth Branagh

Romeo and Juliet, Franco Zeffirelli

The Taming of the Shrew, Franco Zeffirelli

Othello, Oliver Parker

O, Tim Blake Nelson

And, because I can: 10 Things I Hate About You, the movie, as well as the TV show.