30 feature The Shaping of Guyanese Literature
By Petamber Persaud
A
few years ago, I wrote an article on suicide entitled ‘Writers are not suicide proof’. It was prompted by the suicide of an excellent Guyanese writer of children’s literature who had just broken into the regional spotlight and the world (Commonwealth) stage. His writings did not indicate any defeatism; he was writing for children and there was almost always a happy ending (with a moral). I am revisiting this subject of suicide due to the spate of lives lost to suicide. I am revisiting this subject of the writer and suicide with the hope of adding some insight and solution. In this article, I will share the thoughts of writers who explored the subject of suicide, writers who experimented with suicide, writers who committed suicide and some of whom survived. I will juxtapose those thoughts in order to show divergent perspectives. “The thought that I might kill myself formed in my mind coolly as a tree or a flower.” Sylvia Plath. Credited for ‘advancing the genre of confessional poetry’, Plath committed suicide by sticking her head in an oven and dying of carbon monoxide poisoning. “Killing myself was a matter of such indifference to me that
Sylvia Plath
I felt like waiting for a moment when it would make some difference.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky. “The only difference between a suicide and a martyrdom really is the amount of press coverage.”(my emphasis) Chuck Palahniuk. “I have had to experience so much stupidity, so many vices, so much error, so much nausea, disillusionment and sorrow, just in order to become a child again and begin anew. I had to experience despair, I had to sink to the greatest mental depths, to thoughts of suicide, in order to experience grace.” Hermann Hesse “Let them think what they liked, but I didn’t mean to drown myself. I meant to swim
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till I sank - but that’s not the same thing.” Joseph Conrad. This reminds me of Eric Roach of Trinidad and Tobago who swam out to sea (Quinam Bay) to his death, leaving behind a suicide note ‘Finis’ and a poem, “At Quinam Bay”, among other writings. “Suicide is a form of murder - premeditated murder. It isn’t something you do the first time you think of doing it. It takes getting used to. And you need the means, the opportunity, the motive. A successful suicide demands good organization and a cool head, both of which are usually incompatible with the suicidal state of mind.” Susanna Kaysen (my emphasis) “It is not seen as insane when a fighter, under an attack that will inevitably lead to his death, chooses to take his own life first. In fact, this act has been encouraged for centuries, and is accepted even now as an honourable reason to do the deed. How is it any different when you are under attack by your own mind?” Emilie Autumn “But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself.” Albert Camus “Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.” Seneca “Killing oneself is, anyway, a misnomer. We don’t kill ourselves. We are simply defeated by the long, hard struggle to stay alive.” Sally Brampton “People pontificate, “Suicide is selfishness.” Career churchmen like Pater go a step further and call in a cowardly assault on the living. Oafs argue this specious line for varying reasons: to evade fingers of blame, to impress one’s audience with one’s
Edgar Mittelhotlzer
mental fibre, to vent anger, or just because one lacks the necessary suffering to sympathize. Cowardice is nothing to do with it - suicide takes considerable courage. Japanese have the right idea. No, what’s selfish is to demand another to endure an intolerable existence, just to spare families, friends, and enemies a bit of soul-searching.” David Mitchell “We cannot tear out a single page of our life, but we can throw the whole book in the fire.” George Sand. “A book is a suicide postponed.” Emil Cioran. Here I think of Edgar Mittelholzer, Guyana’s most famous novelist. He died by selfimmolation – burning himself to death as foretold and described in his writings. And the death of Jean Amery was similar, in some ways, to the death of Mittelholzer in that Amery wrote a book on suicide and enacted his writing to the death. “There was a footpath leading across fields to New Southgate, and I used to go there alone to watch the sunset and contemplate suicide. I did not, however, commit suicide, because I wished to know more of mathematics.” Bertrand Russell
…“a man who has decided upon self-destruction is far removed from mundane affairs” Vladimir Nabokov. “The real reason for not committing suicide is because you always know how swell life gets again after the hell is over.” Ernest Hemingway “If I had no sense of humour, I would long ago have committed suicide.” Mahatma Gandhi “Women are constantly trying to commit suicide for love, but generally they take care not to succeed.” W. Somerset Maugham “God surely did not create us, and cause us to live, with the sole end of wishing always to die. I believe, in my heart, we were intended to prize life and enjoy it, so long as we retain it. Existence never was originally meant to be that useless, blank, pale, slow-trailing thing it often becomes to many, and is becoming to me, among the rest.” Charlotte Brontë “Life is short enough, there is nothing worth here to take your life, and those things we do gain can never be taken to our grave.” Anthony Liccione “When you feel like giving up, just remember the reason why you held on for so long.” Unknown “Suicide doesn’t end the chances of life getting worse, it eliminates the possibility of it ever getting any better.” Unknown “A lot of you cared, just not enough.” Jay Asher. Hoping this is not an indictment on our society. There’s the rub as Shakespeare would exclaim. Responses to this author telephone (592) 226-0065 or email: oraltradition2002@yahoo.com What’s Happening “An Introduction to Guyanese Literature” by Petamber Persaud, available at Austin’s Bookstore and the National Library.