When I was a boy - on this evidence, a miserable, maudlin sort of child - I used to kill time by calculating the value of a human life. Not the value of your soul or your contribution to civilisation or your lifetime earnings or your insurable value or the sums your heirs might realise in a wrongful death suit. I was interested in what a life's worth when broken down into the stuff it's made of, its bits and pieces, when to dust it hath returned. What's your dust worth?

LRB 14 April 2011 | PDF Download