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"Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? " Macbeth
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Professional Reviews
Journal of the American Medical Association, Dec 8, 1999; Ezra E. H. Griffith, MD; Yale University
At least Geo Stone tells it to you plainly in the introduction to his text. If you are terminally ill, he wants to give you information that will help you determine the best way to kill yourself no mincing of words here. He emphasizes self-determination…Unhesitatingly, he makes it clear that each competent individual has the right to figure out how and when to die. He has no solace to offer should you disagree with his political stance...But you shouldn't conclude that he's encouraging you to kill yourself not so...
...Stone thus spends about 145 pages initially constructing a background on suicide and its derivatives, euthanasia and assisted suicide. His crucial point, made repeatedly, is that there is too much misguided emphasis on making people live longer. This is not out of any humanistic commitment to people but, rather, out of a rigid adherence to ethics-based principles that simply ignore the degree and extent of suffering some people are experiencing.
This is the background to be traversed before transitioning to the book's second part, another 250 pages of stunning details about ten or so methods of killing yourself, including asphyxia, cutting and stabbing, electrocution, and jumping, among others. Did you know that it is more effective to shoot yourself straight through the mouth from front to back than to aim at your face or under the chin? Stone notes that "people tend to flinch or tilt their head back at the moment they pull the trigger, changing the direction of bullet entrance and decreasing the chances of fatal brain damage. . . . " There is no question that facts like these can make for interesting reading, and they're provided for every methodology considered.
...Still, this book is about death, baldly put. It assaults the senses even of physicians. It will shock pastors and teachers and all who preach about the sanctity of life because few of us are accustomed to talking straightforwardly and lucidly about the most successful way to die. Stone's almost celebratory approach to the subject will not win him too many friends. After all, you won't want to call this book to the attention of your children or other loved ones while sitting around the dining room table or just before they go off to university, even if the text itself has intellectual merit.
Non-Fiction Reviews "Author's Look at Suicide May Help Deter It" by Susan Schechter 1/22/02
Not everybody who attempts suicide is actually trying to kill him/herself. Some are just cries for attention, but they may still accidentally be successful anyway. Suicide and Attempted Suicide: Methods and Consequences looks at the history of suicide, how it's done, and what the outcome -- intended or not -- might be.
It seems strange to be reviewing a book about suicide, whether it is about the psychology of suicide (called suicidology) or how to commit suicide. But Suicide and Attempted Suicide: Methods and Consequences, by Geo Stone, explains both topics and more. The first half discusses the history of suicide, from the earliest recorded cases both biblical and historical, though modern times. It also covers the psychology and sociology of suicide. The second half reads like a clinical version of Final Exit. And with this bit, the author does the impossible – convinces people not to end their lives.
Stone wrote this book with the purpose of preventing suicide. By describing in clinical, graphic, medical, and gory detail all the different ways to go, the reader cannot help but shudder and get grossed out. And realize that is far more difficult to shuffle off this mortal coil than they may have previously thought.
I must confess, I bought this book a year ago in hardcover, at a major bookstore chain. A friend of mine, an old boyfriend actually, had committed suicide, and I , like anyone who has been left behind by someone who has died by their own hand, was struggling for answers.
Stone takes an attitude much like Dorothy Parker’s (who was a manic depressive herself) often quoted poem “Resume.” All these ways to die are difficult. According to the author, 30,000 people kill themselves in the U.S. every year.
Socrates once said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” The suicidal mind takes that question and asks, “What if you have examined your life and found it to be not worth living?” People contemplating death is not a new phenomena. Stone points out there are four suicides in the Old Testament. There are Egyptian writings going back at least 6,000 years of a man contemplating his own mortality and suicide. How many suicides are there in Greek tragedies? All these things are addressed in the first half of the book, in clear language for the layman.
What is startling about this book is that fact that so many times an attempt at suicide leads to unintended consequences, namely death, or permanent disability. Geo Stone states, “Ignorance is dangerous and desperation can be fatal.” The goal of this book is to enlighten, to reduce the number of fatalities and permanent injuries. By describing all the ways to go, the reader realizes that it is more difficult than the movies or TV lead us to believe about dying. It can be quite messy, and if not done correctly, the victim can live and spend the rest of their lifetime in pain from the botched attempt. The book also gives clues to look for to deter teenage and elderly suicides, a growing phenomena.
When I was reading this book I could not help but think of the poet Sylvia Plath, who I admired terribly when I was a teenager. She, according to her biographers, was not trying to kill herself when she turned the gas on in the kitchen of her English flat. She was probably making a cry for help, being home with two small children, her marriage in tatters, and living in a country not of her birth. She miscalculated because gas was not in stoves at that time in the United States. Indeed, had her nanny not been late for work that day, and the man who lived in the flat below passed out from the fumes, she might still be here.
This is the kind of person the author is trying to help. The suicidal person who does not really wants to die, but to go to sleep and wake up again, to find their problems over. Or the person who is making a cry for help, for someone to notice them and help them get over these problems.
In short, if this is a topic that is of interest, to anyone who likes psychology, or is just fascinated on how the human mind works, this book is highly recommended. But only if you want to know what really goes on in someone’s mind.
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