Suicide

[noema]

Suicide, perhaps the most complex of all human acts, has always intrigued people and particularly writers who, in their attempt to understand the philosophical implications of such a tendency or an act, are often accused of aestheticizing it. Of course, the fact of suicide, epidemiologically speaking, is of serious sociological importance when we consider the rise in global suicide rates, particularly since the year 1998, which has been termed, with deliberate jocular fancy I suppose, the year of the 'Suicide Boom'. But then, we have those recurrent instances where the artist's committing suicide imparted new, yet often forceful, levels of meaning, creating considerable biographical interest when subjecting her work to literary and theoretical analysis. In what can be termed 'reverse mimesis' life imitates art, even pursues its intrinsic death-logic to a culmination in voluntary death. I'm specifically thinking of writer such as Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, John Berryman, Sergei Yesenin, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Yukio Mishima and to a certain extent Ernest Hemingway, only to name a few. While studying their work, with the theme of suicide in mind, one is confronted with the contingency that makes formulating definitions impossible. The dominant, primal question is: 'What or who is a suicide?"

I would be very glad if you shared your views about suicide, its implications in the arts, its importance in cultures and societies. Also, I would be extremely thankful if you refer to, in the passing, instances of suicides in fictional and non-fictional works that you might have read. I myself have managed to read quite a number of books on this matter but of course, I discovered that it's not humanly possible to know everything that has been read or said on suicide. You could allude to the obvious ones such as the suicide of Goethe's Werther. You could also refer to yourself.

[chasestalling]

there are two sorts of suicide in fiction i think are worth noting.

the suicide as a sort of a stylized, romantic act, where the character shamelessly draws attention to oneself; and the more discreet kind, where it's never made clear if the deceased had indeed committed suicide, and if he or she had, one would be heartless to condemn, considering the circumstances.

with respect to the latter the narrator has more less this to say of the deceased. i paraphrase: 'her death (suicide) was a protest against the ugliness of life and in this her beauty, though physically a travesty, exceeded her peers by leaps and bounds.'

[noema]

Indeed, suicide has been often interpreted as an aesthetic resistance. The dead body of the suicide becomes a site of protest against all those forces that wouldn't let the subject sustain its notions of beauty or order. In death, the suicide attains a wholeness of being that she was denied in life. But then, sometimes suicide is also committed with an afterlife in view and a greater degree of spirituality is involved in this case.

The character belonging to your first category obviously sees suicide as a cry for help, not necessarily leading to death. The paradox is, in some cases these appeals, in momentary lapses of control, do lead to death accidentally and cannot be called 'suicide' at all because we do not have the sanction to characterize them as completely intentional. And hence, we are confronted with the problem of defining suicide.

[kelby_lake]

there are two sorts of suicide in fiction i think are worth noting.
s.

with respect to the latter the narrator has more less this to say of the deceased. i paraphrase: 'her death (suicide) was a protest against the ugliness of life and in this her beauty, though physically a travesty, exceeded her peers by leaps and bounds.'

Where's the quote from?

[Jozanny]

Interesting post noema. I may have read a number of works by writers who killed themselves, but off-hand, I cannot recall many literary character suicides which have had much of impact, unless one counts David Mitchell's Cloud Altas and AS Byatt's Little Black Book of Stories, at least by inference, some of her characters die because they have no other choice in their destiny. There is Othello, of course, who may stand out since he is Shakespeare's man of color, at once magnanimous and terrible in his implosion of patriarchal inclusion and violation.

From what I understand on the basis of The Rolling Stone editor's comments, Hunter Thompson took his own life for the same reason I would, because his body was failing to the point of overtaking his identity.

I think this is the only time, as an act, that it is justified. Any other reason, is, I suspect, futile, since life has to die. I am not sure what you mean, exactly, in posing your last question, but it seems to me suicide is about defiance, although Byatt's metaphors mute this to an acceptance, in a rather complicated way.

[Pecksie]

It's an interesting subject. Many writers in history have had suicidal tendencies, although not all of them carried them to fulfillment. Shelley comes to mind - he didn't kill himself, although there is some circumstantial evidence that he may have prevented his friend Williams from trying to keep the boat in which they drowned afloat. Also, suicide features prominently (both consciously and unconsciously) in his writings, visions (as recorded by his friends) and in the lives of the people around him, including his first wife.

In Albert Cohen's "Belle du Seigneur", suicide is the only way that remains open for the main characters, a mixed religion, adulterous couple in the heyday of fascism. The same happens, albeit for different reasons, with the eponymous character in "Anna Karenina". I'm sure there are many more examples out there...

Interesting suicides in literature (though not of main characters) are those of Svidrigailov in "Crime and Punishment" and the highly sentimental suicide-cum-murder of the little boy in "Jude the Obscure".

[Jozanny]

As is common, soon after I read Pecksie's post, I thought of Madame Bovary's death scene, and Kate Chopin's always muted masterpiece, The Awakening, but I was never much moved by Emma's vanity, nor her hunger for aesthetic absolutes; it is Flaubert's mastery which holds my fascination, not the characters he treats like do-do's, or in Salammbo, like brawn and guts in 19th century machismo; he does not, to go to noema's point, turn death into a glossy centerfold.

Tolstoy simply failed to move me with Anna Karenina's death. She is an outlier for me, in this instance.

Both Chopin and Byatt, do, however, sacrifice the realism of ending life for metaphorical intent--now this thread has me thinking.:p

[chasestalling]

Where's the quote from?

from nabokov's pale fire

[polgara]

Dare I mention Ophelia whose "death was doubtful"? Or do most people agree with Queen Gertrude's version of her death ?

[noema]

From what I understand on the basis of The Rolling Stone editor's comments, Hunter Thompson took his own life for the same reason I would, because his body was failing to the point of overtaking his identity.

I think this is the only time, as an act, that it is justified. Any other reason, is, I suspect, futile, since life has to die. I am not sure what you mean, exactly, in posing your last question, but it seems to me suicide is about defiance, although Byatt's metaphors mute this to an acceptance, in a rather complicated way.

Hey Jozanny, your reference to Hunter Thompson reminded me of David Foster Wallace and also by extension to Kurt Cobain's 'it is better to burn out than fade away'. I agree with your view that the fear generated from the prospect of something overtaking one's 'identity' (which is a very complex composite of experiences) can lead to self-killing. Actually, this would be called egoistic suicide opposed to the so-called martyrdom, or the suicide-culture that exists in some groups in the Middle East, where a suicide bomber is often seen as a hero of sorts doing his bit for his people. In the case of the later, the person committing suicide, has to sacrifice his 'identity' to the glorified cause. In this regard, we can also think of the Roman suicides, particularly of Nero, or the famous harakiri or seppuku of the Japanese officials committed mostly to avoid public disgrace.

[JBI]

It's not a new concept - it existed somewhat, I think, in Greek thought, and transcended to us in the form of Lucricia, via the Romans. The romanticism centers on the finality, and decisiveness of the act, and the simple fact that it cannot be reversed, no matter what. When someone commits suicide, they are committing the most reckless thing we can think of, and we therefore react strangely.

[noema]

It's not a new concept - it existed somewhat, I think, in Greek thought, and transcended to us in the form of Lucricia, via the Romans. The romanticism centers on the finality, and decisiveness of the act, and the simple fact that it cannot be reversed, no matter what. When someone commits suicide, they are committing the most reckless thing we can think of, and we therefore react strangely.

I agree with you when you say that it's not new. It was never invented as such. It was always there. In a certain sense our lives oscillate between the Eros and the Thanatos. Plato talks about it in one of his dialogues (Phaedo, I think). And then, Socrates' death is a suicide to the extent that he willingly espouses death in Plato's Apology.

Suicide is irreversible. All forms of death are so. Several Romantics perceived death as an aesthetic act to transcend the mundane and the material. I'm tempted to repeat Keats' cliched lines:

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death
...
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain


A person who commits suicide is different from a suicidal person. The feeling of strangeness that suicide in general produces in us arises out of unknowability of the act itself, I think.

[Josef K.]

sorry for grammar, syntax, spelling mistakes.

I think suicide is a form of protest against others's success, a consequence of personal failure and the failure to transform this failure into creative action which supplements the psychological/existential lack of "posistive" meaning. We shouldn' t forget that Nietzsche [1844-1900], who had many health problems during his mentally ballanced life, accused Socrates of sickness - he wanted to die because he probably couldn' accept life in all its forms.

[noema]

Nietzsche wrote the first part of Thus Spoke Zarathustra in only ten days after a period of illness and depression caused probably due to the apprehension regarding his relationship with Salome. Meditating upon or envisioning one's own death can often lead to deep insights into life and existence and more often than not produces unique artistic inspiration.

Suicide is a protest no doubt. It is also a serious moral problem. It is discouraged by all religions, as far as I know, and a person who has attempted but failed to commit suicide is looked down upon as 'mentally ill' by the society. In literature and film, of course, the responsibility to justify the suicide of a character lies solely with the author/film-maker if he thinks it necessary to justify it at all. One instance where the author chooses not to justify or clarify the suicide of a character is Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim where Captain Brierly takes his won life without any apparent rhyme or reason.

[librarius_qui]

I tried to suicide two characters. None of'em turned out dead, but one of them did jump! :bawling:

Archibald had decided to commit suicide. It was night. He left home, went to the nearest and sufficiently high bridge. Climbed the wall. He hesitated, thinking with himself “what am I doing here?! I … fear heights!...”, but he centered himself. Looked down. Darkness. Was in silence, for a while.

“I’m ready”, he said, encouraging himself, and with his eyes, by then, courageously closed. He heard the pipe of a train, coming from the way ahead … With his eyes closed, he asked … “Do I jump to be smashed by the train, or to be broken on the train’s wagons roofs?” It was too late: the train was there, already, fifty miles an hour, under the bridge. Archibald jumped!

He fell on sacks of sand or something like. “But! … What?!” Sacks with some kind of stuffed softness enough to have held his fall. He thought with himself “where must this train be heading to? …” and, after some silence, he thought again … “I think I’m travelling on, and moving away …”.

He ended up in Bristol. Took a ship to the Americas.

He decides to jump. But the narrator saved him :D
In another story, two passer-bies convince the lad not to jump. In that other story, the boy was desperate about a girl, who had rejected him.



***


In the Satyricon, there's a tale of a soldier, who was about to commit suicide, after having failed to his duty. It happens in the new testment, as well. (On both occasions, the men are held, and convinced not to commit suicide ...) I'll try to find the chapter to you, in the Satyricon. [Satyricon, fragments CXI-CXII.] In the "Apostles", it's in fragment 16, 27 of the fifth book.

There's Cleopatra's case, as well ...


Cheers!

librarius
:crash:

Besides my restrictions to mentioning it,
I can't help bringing the writing of the suicide of Denethor, son of Ecthelion (book III, chapter VII). VERY DIFFERENT, though, from the present media description. I will say no more about this.--


:crash:

[noema]

Here's an anti-suicidal poem by Dorothy Parker:

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

[WrdOrnitologist]

Is suicide the ultimate stand of ones freedom or the last act of his trapped mind?

[noema]

Is suicide the ultimate stand of ones freedom or the last act of his trapped mind?

It is certainly an act of freeing oneself from life, or rather this life. But what is the freedom to? What is suicide a free pursuit of?

[waryan]

Is suicide the ultimate stand of ones freedom or the last act of his trapped mind?

Both I imagine most authors would argue, and do and always will, and both perspectives provide for great literature. I think if suicide isn't done correctly in a novel however, it can very easily seem as a cop-out. I'm thinking of Donna Tart's the Secret History, but that's just my opinion.

[noema]

It is almost impossible to know what goes on inside the mind of a person before he commits suicide. I agree that representing suicide in novels in a convincing way is a very difficult thing to achieve. It can never be simple.

[Bitterfly]

Have you read Durkheim's book about suicide? I saw it in a bookshop today and was wondering whether it was worth reading.

[noema]

Have you read Durkheim's book about suicide? I saw it in a bookshop today and was wondering whether it was worth reading.

Yes, I've read considerable part of Durkheim's Suicide. It's a study in sociology and the data that it presents are outdated. But the tripartite scheme of 'egoistic', 'altruistic' and 'anomic' suicides that it posits is still relevant. Apart from these three kinds, he also talks about 'fatalistic' suicide in relation to the suicides in African slaves. Despite its antiquarian approach the problem, it remains a classic in suicidology. It's worth reading only if you're really interested in things like epidemiology. It's not a philosophical book. Personally, I liked Jean Amery's 'On Suicide: A Discourse on Voluntary Death'.

[Bitterfly]

Thank you. I'll try to get hold of a copy then, when I've finished all the books I have to read (in about a year, then : ).

One example of suicide that struck me (you probably already know about): Lucrece's in Shakespeare's "The Rape of Lucrece".

[noema]

Richard Cory by Edwin Arlington Robinson


Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich, richer than a king—
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

[chasestalling]

Indeed, suicide has been often interpreted as an aesthetic resistance. The dead body of the suicide becomes a site of protest against all those forces that wouldn't let the subject sustain its notions of beauty or order. In death, the suicide attains a wholeness of being that she was denied in life. But then, sometimes suicide is also committed with an afterlife in view and a greater degree of spirituality is involved in this case.

The character belonging to your first category obviously sees suicide as a cry for help, not necessarily leading to death. The paradox is, in some cases these appeals, in momentary lapses of control, do lead to death accidentally and cannot be called 'suicide' at all because we do not have the sanction to characterize them as completely intentional. And hence, we are confronted with the problem of defining suicide.

is it sane or insane and in our attempts to pin it down to one or the other we'll find ourselves back on the starting blocks.

as to afterlife, let's not kid ourselves; our legacy on earth is all that we have and to speak of ourselves in the collective is a noble way of looking at things if it weren't only for the unheard, the unsung, the oppressed, suppressed, and the exploited in which case suicide isn't such an evil as we make it out to be.

[PabloQ]

...your reference to Hunter Thompson reminded me of David Foster Wallace and also by extension to Kurt Cobain's 'it is better to burn out than fade away'. Not to pick a nit, but Neal Young wrote that in reference to Sid Savage. Cobain used it in his suicide note.

Hemingway's suicide was largely due to his failing health resulting from years of alcohol abuse.

Richard Brautigan is another member of the eat a shotgun club, I believe. To an extent, some writers like Thompson and Cobain romanticized the legend of Hemingway's suicide and adopted it as their way out.

In terms of fiction, The House of Mirth ends in a tragic suicide. It's fairly romantic in nature because Lily gives up hope that she can reclaim her reputation or social standing or love. Her lover shows up in time to find her body, but not to save her. It's reminiscent of Romeo & Juliet, a double suicide that I can't believe hasn't been brought up as yet.

[AuntShecky]

Back in 1972 I read The Savage God by A. Alvarez, which was a literary study upon the topic of suicide. If memory serves -- we're going back over 30 years, the book was quite good. I just read that the author was a close friend of Sylvia Plath, and thus used the material he witnessed from her tragic life. .

The act itself is bound up with all kinds of religious beliefs. For some it can be a literal self-sacrifice toward their God, for others it is a sin. Suicide can even be a political statement, such as Buddhist monks setting themselves afire to protest untenable injustice, and as we have seen in recent years, suicide can be both a political and religious act which stems from misguided fanaticism which leads to horrifically tragic results.

Going back to the material put forth by Alvarez's book, I just don't buy suicide as an aesthetic act, though it can be a plot device: think of Ophelia, Romeo and Juliet.

Religious notions aside, we have to remember that the instinct for self-preservation is quite strong, much stronger than the "death wish." If something goes amiss with the mechanism of fighting for life, I would have to say that there might be some sort of pathology present.

If a individual is in much physical pain, because of a disease that of course would have an effect upon his or her decision to remain alive. (I'm not getting into a discussion of the morality of euthanasia, however.)

But in other cases, some kind of psychological disturbance might seduce a person into thinking about suicide: really severe depression, drugs, or a mental illness. That's justmy opinion as a layperson. (I'm not a doctor. I don't even
play one on TV.)

All I'm saying is: anyone who is even thinking about suicide should get help.

Now.

[Joreads]

[QUOTE=AuntShecky;646453]
All I'm saying is: anyone who is even thinking about suicide should get help.


I don't think that can be said enough. I have no idea what would be running through someones mind who was thinking of taking their own life I have never been there. But remember there are always people that you can talk to and always people that love you no matter what.

[noema]

Thanks PabloQ, I didn't know it was originally by Neil Young.
Talking of Hemingway, do you think some of his texts can be interpreted as preparations for his suicide?
Haven't read The Hose of Mirth. Will try to find it.

AuntShecky, I'm glad that you mentioned The Savage God. I'm ashamed to say that I haven't read it though i come across its reference in every other book on suicide I read. However, I don't quite agree with you when you say "anyone who is even thinking about suicide should get help". We adults are programmed to think of death. Animals don't committ suicide; neither do children.

[noema]

When I have fears that I may cease to be


WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charact’ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love!—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

John Keats

[Jozanny]

All I'm saying is: anyone who is even thinking about suicide should get help.

Now.

I rather agree with noema in my disagreement with this, Aunt. I come out of the social control model of mental health, professionally, and of disability both personally and professionally, and most of it these days is about containment for the comfort of middle class norms. I rather agree with Foucault's critique, and even outrage, at modern psychiatry. The older I become with cerebral palsy, the harder the dilemma, because human beings were certainly not designed or evolved for nursing homes. On a conceptual level, these places are evil, and they literally breed the immorality which mainstream media highlights on a daily basis. I have depression and anxiety, partly due to social isolation a wee little bit beyond my control (loss of career, transportation, mobility issues), and I am against suicide, at least the kind of suicide that Wallace used as his solution, but no one is going to convince me that the choice of an egotistical self-death is less rational than being warehoused in a nursing home facility. I've been in them, for my job, and the teacher's description of them in The Miracle Worker was not much of an exaggeration.

It isn't always either right or wrong. The lines do get to squiggle now and then.;)

[noema]

no one is going to convince me that the choice of an egotistical self-death is less rational than being warehoused in a nursing home facility....It isn't always either right or wrong.

Jozanny, you just opened, I think, a debate as to the logical validity of euthanasia. I use the word 'logical' in want of a better word. Jean Amery talks about the logic-of-life counterpointed by logic-of-life in his discourse on voluntary death. For me, there's nothing rational about not committing suicide. We live by default. I completely agree with you that a life lived, as a patient or Guardian, in nursing home or an asylum is not worth living because it is one form of slow death and death shouldn't be lived. As long as the state banishes euthanasia or physician assisted suicide (PAS), such deaths will be considered acts that are not wholly accepted in ordinary society and they will be tagged as taboos perhaps. But then, philosophically I agree with you when you say "It isn't always either right or wrong".

[erikwithAk]

I havent had anyone close to me die in this manner, however. i have friends who i have seen go from the happiest person alive to absolute depression due to someone close to them commit suiside. ive sat down on many occasions and talked with them on many levels, and they always talk about the deaseased so dearly and in the best regards and how much they loved them. in my beliefs this is the most inappropriate way to die becuase on the effects it has on the person and the people and world around them. be it in a position of greatness or at the rock bottom pits of hell :quote: in nursing home or an asylum is not worth living because it is one form of slow death and death shouldn't be lived - noema :unquote: its never a choice to be considored. if your still alive God is not done with you. if you are dead however, and your body just hasnt gotten the memo. then all i can say is that its between you and your maker.

[JBI]

Honestly, suicide for some people is a better alternative. The right and wrongs are irrelevnt, as suicide is a persons choice, and to some extent, it must be left up to them to decide whether or not they wish to die.

[NEEMAN]

I am of the opinion that suicide is always a bad decision. But is suicide 'wrong'? No, and the greatest achievement of western philosophy is that it has settled the issue of 'right & wrong' for all time. Suicide may be a bad decison, but there are plenty of bad decisions a person can make.

[noema]

I am of the opinion that suicide is always a bad decision. But is suicide 'wrong'? No, and the greatest achievement of western philosophy is that it has settled the issue of 'right & wrong' for all time. Suicide may be a bad decison, but there are plenty of bad decisions a person can make.

I agree. Why doesn't any religion support suicide?
do the souls of a person who has committed suicide go to hell?

[Bitterfly]

Seventh circle of hell for suicides (in Dante's Inferno)!

[Terror Firmer]

I agree. Why doesn't any religion support suicide?
do the souls of a person who has committed suicide go to hell?

Some religious beliefs follow this train of thought especially organized religions. If not with the precise eternal severity definitely a big taboo.

[joseph90ie]

I think this is very insightful on suicide, one of Ludwig Wittgenstein's thoughts:

"Surely one cannot will one's own destruction and anybody who has visualized what is in practice involved knows that suicide is always a rushing of one's own defences. But nothing is worse than to be forced to take oneself by surprise."

A rushing of one's own defences, he says, and I think this is spot on, like one is defending oneself unto the death against life. And the shock and novelty of the idea of taking oneself by surprise. I never knew I myself could take my very own self by surprise. But there you go; you can be driven to such violence against yourself.

I like Wittgenstein's remarks so much because it shows very logically and imaginatively how suicide is a failed act, yet it's not at all without sympathy, but full of understanding. His point is memorable. And it's safe to say his idea on this was no armchair philosophizing: three of his brothers committed suicide and he was often very worried about destroying his own life.

[sunshine_enl]

When I think of suicide in literature the first thing that comes into my mind is Septimus's falling out of the window in Mrs Dalloway.From a psychoanaltical point of view I consider Septimus's suicide to be a necessity and by this I mean that Septimus couldn't control his urges,he couldn't develop,he was always constricted in his ID(in Freudian terms) so in a way he had to be "punished",he had to die(I felt the same after watching Revolutionary Road and Monster)Taking his own life was the only way that Woolf could honour him,imagine if he had him die by a car-accident!
So suicide in some cases celebrates living, more than continuing one's existence ever could!

[Dori]

When I think about suicide in literature I immediately think Dostoevsky.

SPOILER ALERT








Mainly I think of Smerdyakov and Svidrigalov. Which leads me to believe that the act of suicide is the most selfish act imaginable (at least in Smerdyakov's case).

But then I think of Romeo and Juliet.

And Othello.

Now I don't know what to think about suicide. But all of those characters provide good case studies.

[chrismythoi]

i have encountered suicide in brave new world, by huxley.
i think in this instance, and i suspect in many others, the act of suicide is seen as the final straw, or the final defiance that can be conjured by a character.
in terms of the 'hounourable' suicide such as Japanese seppuku (spealt right?) it is seen more as a way of eliminating the acts of the person. therefore there is often a balance in most authors minds between these two; suicide as a rebellion and also as a submission.

suicide can also be loked at thematically and can be a general narrative rejection of events.

[seanlol]

Honestly, suicide for some people is a better alternative. The right and wrongs are irrelevnt, as suicide is a persons choice, and to some extent, it must be left up to them to decide whether or not they wish to die.

I completely agree.

[phoenix151]

It disturbs me that suicide is often glamourized in literature. How come the back of Hemmingway novels include in his little "bio blurb" the fact that he aced himself? I've never seen this on a Jack London book.

It's curious too that the origins of the Romantic Movement trace back to The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe, which is about love and suicide. The author himself later found the book distasteful and discouraged it's popularity. Napoleon himself considered it one of the greatest achievements in European literature. The novel gave birth to the first-recorded "copycat suicides", and was perhaps the most fashionable book in European history.

I find this all very unsettling.

[JBI]

It disturbs me that suicide is often glamourized in literature. How come the back of Hemmingway novels include in his little "bio blurb" the fact that he aced himself? I've never seen this on a Jack London book.

It's curious too that the origins of the Romantic Movement trace back to The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe, which is about love and suicide. The author himself later found the book distasteful and discouraged it's popularity. Napoleon himself considered it one of the greatest achievements in European literature. The novel gave birth to the first-recorded "copycat suicides", and was perhaps the most fashionable book in European history.

I find this all very unsettling.

There are two sides of the spectrum really - my highschool English textbook featured bios of some of the major writers of world literature, and for Virginia Woolf, introducing her essay The Death of the Moth, the bio went on and talked about her publishing career, with a very dull "Virginia Woolf died in 1941". Talk about stupidity.