"The best often die by their own hand / just to get away / and those left behind / can never quite understand / why anybody / would ever want to / get away from them." Charles Bukowski opposes the traditional statement of suicide that is intentional killing of one's self. However, he emphasizes that remaining people never understand why that person wants to end his life, as they do with Veronika. Veronika has anything she could wish for; young and pretty, with plenty of attractive boyfriends, a steady job, and a loving family (lives in Slovenia). So, what kind of person decides to die if she has a good life? Nevertheless, Veronika is not happy and she achieved to take a sleeping pill box which is very powerful narcotic drug. One winter morning, Veronika takes an overdose of sleeping pills but she becomes awaken later in a Vilette asylum. There, she is told that her heart is now irreparably damaged and she has only a few days to live. Veronika is waiting for an end in Vilette asylum and there, some people who she does not know before play vital roles in Veronika's short stay in the mental institution. One of them is Zedka (a Serbian woman - suffers from an impossible love), Eduard (schizophrenia) and also Dr. Igor. Readers can ask how come Dr. Igor is important to her life? Well, Dr. Igor is the one who tells her the only sentence that she could not decide whether she wants to hear or not: "Your heart was irreversibly damaged and soon it will stop beating altogether."
According to Veronika, one of the two reasons of choosing death instead of life is the strong belief of her commonsense that the life would be always same, everyhing would be worse by time, friends would die one by one, for other words, making life longer would bring her nothing but pain. The second reason is the consideration of anything is wrong in the world and she does not have power to correct them. We all ask ourselves these questions at least once in our lives, why we continue living if the life has nothing to give us? This question has two answers: either we are coward to kill ourselves or we are brave enough to carry the life with all negativity. Veronika experiences and considers about her second chance but the rest who do not understand that every second of existence is a choice they all make between living and dying must have still asked that "Is life ALWAYS WORTH living?"
"Veronika Decides to Die" is a novel to show people who do not come face to face with death and do not question the life how they squander the chance which is given them only once (or twice). Have we ever thought that we have a long list which we still didn't do and probably we won't until the death? Veronika makes us to think about that: "...I need to visit Ljubljana castle. It's always been there and I have never has the curiosity to go and see it close to.... I want to go out without a jacket and walk in the snow, I want to find out what extreme cold feels like...I want to feel the rain on my face, to smile at any man I feel attracted to, to accept all the coffees men might buy for me... I want to give myself to one man, to the city, to the life and, finally, to death".
According to Veronika, one of the two reasons of choosing death instead of life is the strong belief of her commonsense that the life would be always same, everyhing would be worse by time, friends would die one by one, for other words, making life longer would bring her nothing but pain. The second reason is the consideration of anything is wrong in the world and she does not have power to correct them. We all ask ourselves these questions at least once in our lives, why we continue living if the life has nothing to give us? This question has two answers: either we are coward to kill ourselves or we are brave enough to carry the life with all negativity. Veronika experiences and considers about her second chance but the rest who do not understand that every second of existence is a choice they all make between living and dying must have still asked that "Is life ALWAYS WORTH living?"
"Veronika Decides to Die" is a novel to show people who do not come face to face with death and do not question the life how they squander the chance which is given them only once (or twice). Have we ever thought that we have a long list which we still didn't do and probably we won't until the death? Veronika makes us to think about that: "...I need to visit Ljubljana castle. It's always been there and I have never has the curiosity to go and see it close to.... I want to go out without a jacket and walk in the snow, I want to find out what extreme cold feels like...I want to feel the rain on my face, to smile at any man I feel attracted to, to accept all the coffees men might buy for me... I want to give myself to one man, to the city, to the life and, finally, to death".
Really interesting story. But I do not think Veronika has good and proper reasons to choose death against life. Sometimes we all think about that two reasons led to Veronika to commit suicide. However, somehow, these are also reasons make our life valuable I mean if I knew me and my friends would live forever, that would make me feel depressed. In sum, my answer is yes, life is always worth living. Also forgiveness could ease our pains or get us to find new reasons to live.
YanıtlaSilThank you for your comment but it is better to read the book I guess :)
YanıtlaSil