It really is a shame that depression, one of the most devastating human illnesses, is also one of the most misunderstood. Sometimes I just wish it was something physical, like cancer, something they can detect with a scan. Then the tremendous ostracism that surrounds the illness would perhaps be greatly reduced. For how absurd it is for a depressive to have someone say to them, It will pass, we all have our bad days, or something of that sort. As absurd as saying the same thing to a cancer patient. For the mind is as part of the body as the liver or the lung. Anyway, this is a wonderful study of suicide, and it's misrepresentation.
Also, apart from those two books (I loved that Ned Vizzini novel, haven't read the other one), there's a very brief novel by Édouard Levé that I would add to that list of great suicide literature. It's simply called "Suicide." As for a book length study, there's the encyclopedic tome, "The Noonday Demon," by Andrew Solomon. It's like "The Anatomy of Melancholy" but for the 21st century reader.
I also recently started I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokpokki by Baek-Se Hee and another one I recently acquired was No Longer Human by Osamu Dasai. The books do a much better job of understanding these complex conditions. But for TV detectives, we may have to wait a minute.
It really is a shame that depression, one of the most devastating human illnesses, is also one of the most misunderstood. Sometimes I just wish it was something physical, like cancer, something they can detect with a scan. Then the tremendous ostracism that surrounds the illness would perhaps be greatly reduced. For how absurd it is for a depressive to have someone say to them, It will pass, we all have our bad days, or something of that sort. As absurd as saying the same thing to a cancer patient. For the mind is as part of the body as the liver or the lung. Anyway, this is a wonderful study of suicide, and it's misrepresentation.
Also, apart from those two books (I loved that Ned Vizzini novel, haven't read the other one), there's a very brief novel by Édouard Levé that I would add to that list of great suicide literature. It's simply called "Suicide." As for a book length study, there's the encyclopedic tome, "The Noonday Demon," by Andrew Solomon. It's like "The Anatomy of Melancholy" but for the 21st century reader.
I also recently started I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokpokki by Baek-Se Hee and another one I recently acquired was No Longer Human by Osamu Dasai. The books do a much better job of understanding these complex conditions. But for TV detectives, we may have to wait a minute.