Rating: 
Summary: A unique read
Review: "Being Dead" is unlike any other work of fiction I have read. It begins with the murder of Joseph and Celice in the dunes of Baritone Bay, the spot where they consummated their love thirty years ago. As their bodies begin to decay, Crace describes that fateful day in reverse chronological order, intercutting the story of their meeting thirty years before. Flashes to the present update the reader, with graphic detail, on the increasing decomposition of Joseph and Celice, and the search their daughter Syl begins for her missing parents. "Being Dead" is a truly unique book; it rather defies classification. Perhaps in the "Brilliant" or "Haunting" sections.
Rating: 
Summary: Started with a bang; ended with a dud.
Review: This was interesting as to the perspective of death and decay by insects, grass, etc. It started to get uninteresting and reminded me of those high school classics that are so dry and full of symbolism that you forget about the sheer joy of reading for reading sake. I would not reccomend this to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: Great words, bad idea
Review: This book is so well written you almost forget that you hate it. The words are delightful, so descriptive, so interesting the plot's not awful but the construction is the worst.Crace seems to like the inventive take on the modern novel. With books like this one and "The Devil's Larder" he takes the modern conception of how a book is put together and flips it on it's ear. Unfortunately for Being Dead, when it lands on its ear it hurts and you can never quite get around the literary device to enjoy the book. The concept is this: He takes the main characters on the book and kills them in the first 10 pages, then he tells the story backwards and forwards from there. The backwards part is good- these are well crafted, interesting people who have a great deal on their collective minds. There's a married couple on the rocks, there's an estranged daughter, there's a career that hangs in the balance. The problem is that while he's telling the story of the way they lived he's also telling the story forward. This is the tale about how our hero's now dead bodies are doing. They, in fact, are decomposing, complete with details of what scavenger is nibbling on what body part. It's a great idea... though in reality it's hard to follow and sometimes a little gross. If you are fond of clever ways to reorganize books you might like this. But if you're fond of clever re-orgs and still want a good read that keep's your attention Crace has one for you. You'll probably want to skip this and read "The Devil's Larder".
Rating:
Summary: The Deliciousness of Being Dead
Review: Have you ever wondered what your death might be like? I've imagined the accident, my family getting the call, their reactions. I have wondered many scenariors, different deaths. Jim Crace takes the scenario to the next step as well in Being Dead. The lives, deaths, and decompositions of Joseph and Celice unfolds. Depending on how fast you wish to read - either the savoring sip or the indulgent gulp - their lives may be a slow motion picture or a flash before your eyes. What an amazing undertaking; pulling science and literature into this short, superb read. Joseph and Celice are dead lovers decomposing on the beach, and you will be enthralled.
Rating: 
Summary: Unique but ultimately unsatisfying
Review: No question that this is a unique literary effort by a talented writer. The topic - two people decaying on a beach after a senseless murder -- and their past lives up to that point - is one I've never read before. The timeline - starting with the murders and going backward - also original. Crace's style is lyrical and poetic. But I must have missed something - I didn't have the "wow" reaction of the other reviews -- more like a "huh" reaction. I have a pretty strong stomach, but the graphic descriptions of death and decay were too much for me to handle in spots, and it just made me feel very sad and depressed when I was finished with it.
Rating:
Summary: Profound and touching
Review: Jim Crace in Being Dead again succeeds in writing a compeling, philosophical novel. He does so in an amazing manner - creating a folk-custom of quivering, an all night vigil of mourning and remembrance, which is juxtaposed against a ultra-scientific world view. Similarly human emotion is juxtaposed against natural inevitibility. Chapters alternate between the dead of the title - a couple, both middle-aged zoologists - and the "quivering" - recounting their life together from their original meeting until their death. The chapters of "being dead" are detailed, scientific descriptions of the process of flesh decaying. Yet despite the objectivity, through use of landscape and language, Crace succeeds in making the story move foreward in these chapters. The "quivering" chapters provide the biography of the couple, primarily through the wife's experience. The sense of what draws the couple together and what drives them apart is equisite - a realistic view of a long marriage. As the couple's disappearance is noted and their estranged daughter Syl accepts their death, the reader is lead to see in her distinct resemblances to her mother. This leaves the reader, at the end, with a sense of the circularity of nature. Sprinkled through the book are paragraphs of a philosophical nature. I personally disagree with the proffered views but find them absolutely right for the characters to which they are attached (even when the character is the narrator). As such, I see this as an ideal book for a "book club" discussion, although I can scarcely envision a book club which consider reading such a difficult topic.
Rating: 
Summary: Not for the feint of heart
Review: Don't read this novel if you're afraid to die. Crace frankly presents death in all its burst arteries, leaky orifices, ugly smells and disgusting sights. But he does it with such compassion for the subject that after the first chapter, you're ready for the ride. The structure of the novel is striking, alternating between the death of the couple to when they first met, then ten minutes before their death to just after they met, etc., etc., until the daughter, who is searching for her missing parents, takes over the focus of the narrative and we see life after death. Such a deliberately constructed narrative leads us to where we knew we were going all along, and it's so much more deeply satisfying when we get there because we're in the hands of Crace's deft prose. What a wonderful, thought-provoking death. What a typical death. What a strange one. What a commonplace occurrence. What a phenomenon. What a gem of a book.
Rating:
Summary: The ground almost swallowing them whole
Review: I was pleasantly surprised at what an excellent book this was. I read a review from the New York Times and one from Salon that touted Crace's writing style - and they were right. The tale jumps to different time periods intertwining the reader into Joseph and Celice's lives. The two are indiscriminately killed; it frankly doesn't matter why they were killed because this is a book about death, not dying. Their deaths and decomposition is analyzed in detail as well as their daughter's uncertainty while her parents are rotting in the Baritone Bay dunes. It sounds morbid, but it is actually quite fascinating and beautiful - for these two the circle of life was practically complete - the ground almost swallowing them whole. As disturbing as the title is for some of you, this book I think you will find this to be a wonderful story about death and maybe give some meaning to what death is - I don't purport to say that I have figured it out though.
Rating:
Summary: Original exploration of the reality of death
Review: Jim Crace is an enormously talented writer as "Being Dead" loudly attests. Crace masterfully interweaves multiple time-lines in the lives of Joseph and Celice, including the tale of their decaying bodies after they are murdered on a beach. Joseph and Celice were married middle-aged zoologists. They were essentially unremarkable people, and their mundane lives are easily overwhelmed by their shared death. Crace's prose is often lyrical and always beautifully crafted - a stunning juxtaposition to the gruelling and gruesome scenes he is describing. Many people will be put off by his frank and vivid descriptions of dead bodies, but in many ways it is a fitting epitath for these pragmatic scientists. Altogether a challenging and impressive read.
Rating: 
Summary: and on and on and on and on and the end!
Review: This novel seemed to me to try too hard to describe the author's (?) personal and extremely subjective perception of death. In the area of mortality, most people have firm beliefs about what death means as a punctuation or a pause within this mortal coil. If you do not subscribe to Crace's dry, definitive and hopeless view of death, you have to constantly suspend your own self consciousness above the reading material and discern content from an aloof, rather than entranced point of view. I felt I was reading a science book written by someone who had to finish a contract with his publisher and time was running short. There seemed no point to the entire death diatribe (perhaps THAT then is the point) and I was looking for closure along different lines than Crace offers on the final pages of this book. Not great, nor would I recommend this to anyone especially around the holidays ... all botany and deductions without any of the magic and imagination that most readers are accustomed to in their formative and reflective literary choices. mtd
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