…Or Not to Be: A Collection of Suicide Notes

Marc Etkind’s book of suicide notes is, he says “pornography” and that we are “sadistic voyeur[s], transforming someone else’s pain into [our] own pleasure.”  He continues to state that “it seems wrong to make public someone’s private pain.  But this assumes that all suicide notes are meant to be private.”  All of the suicide notes in …Or Not to Be have been previously published.  Etkind brings them into this collection to discuss the similarities of these notes and to try to shed some light and understanding on the mind of a suicide completer.

 

On Easter Sunday in April of 2004 (I don’t remember the exact date, either the 11^th or 12^th – I’m terrible with dates, but I remember the Christian holiday well), my eldest brother completed suicide.  He was 50 years old.  He left no note.  For most of the year following his death, I was haunted by that eternal question: why?  I am resolved to never knowing the answer, however I had not realized until reading Etkind’s book that six years after the fact I am still asking: why?  I guess I always will.

 

Excerpt from …Or Not to Be:

 

Resume

 

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.

                                    ~ Dorothy Parker

 

Dorothy Parker attempted suicide five times, and “died at the age of seventy-three of a heart attack.”  I guess she took the advice of her own work.  Many artists complete suicide, in large part because they are often manic-depressives.  In fact, mental illness is a contributing factor in the decision to end one’s life, if not the factor for suicide. 

 

What I have learned from Etkind’s book, which not only presents suicide notes from all walks of life and eras of history, since notes were first published in the eighteenth century with the birth of literary, but also analyses their contents, that even for those who leave notes, no answer is found as to why the individual chooses suicide.  There just is no answer.

 

A remarkable book.  …Or Not to Be: a Collection of Suicide Notes by Marc Etkind, published by Riverhead Books in New York, 1997.

 

Till next time, happy reading

L