Very spare and beautifully written. Slightly too heavy on the anti-spiritual point (eg daughter not being upset). Not sure how much I would have liked it if I didn't think of Jim Crace as a writer that I liked. ( )

Quite nicely written, though a bit boring. A poor man's Ian McEwan. ( )

Many other reviews have equivocated on the quality of this book or backed away from what is unique about it by warning readers of the detailed journey into the processes of death and decomposition they must face if they read it. I, too, found the principle characters unappealing, but they are sufficiently specific-yet-universal to give us a reasonably good idea of what is ending when they die.

But it is beginning that interests Jim Crace. What makes this book worth reading is precisely its exploration of that distasteful journey into and beyond death. The lack of a particular statement about the characters as characters may be part of Crace's statement. He stays with them as long as he can, up to the point of death, and then remains faithfully at their sides as they decompose. Thomas Huxley declined to speculate on whether the poor stuff of which he was made would remain forever separate from the great All whence it came. Grace also declines to speculate. He stays with the bodies and what happens to them, because those at least do not remain forever separate. They part company with the person and embark on their own afterlife.

Grace gives us a good enough idea of who it is that is decomposing. But he does not delve further into their characters because it is the dissolution of their individuality he showing us. "Being Dead" is not a composition, but a decomposition, in which we are invited to gaze upon their remains and see not the end of two people but the beginning of something else--something that has its own aesthetic, its own directions, its own entropy, and its own mystery. It is this meditation on that liminal moment of undoing/becoming, written by Jim Crace with exquisite and tranquil grace, that makes this a very special book. His voice is not cold and clinical; on the contrary, in his highly specific descriptions you can hear the music of the spheres. "Being Dead" is one answer to that great line of Dracula's: "To die, to be truly dead-- That would be glorious."

Well-written. Beautifully captures the physical aspects of life and death. But too clinical for me to care about its characters. ( )

I so disliked the shallow, young people in this novel. I couldn't get to grips with the reason for the central concern of describing the gradual decomposition of the bodies on the dunes over the course of the novel. It is a fascinating idea but I struggled with the plotting around it. What might have worked better would have been a collection of disparate short stories where critical action took place close to where the bodies lay. The opening and closing story could have provided a framing structure. Then again I've never written a book and Jim Crace is an experienced, brilliant writer so what do I know? It's just what I would have preferred. ( )