And so, having (at 6:30 am) this morning finished the book I've been slowly reading, over this last month..
I thought it would be nice to review it with you all!
At the beginning of July this year (as her last few days were slipping away), I picked up 'Madame Bovary' by Gustav Flaubert at the cancer hospice my Grandmother was dying in.
(Before I go making the devil out of myself, I managed to leave my own book that I was reading at the time, there. So we can say karma has allowed a fair swap!)
I started Madame Bovary with her, reading it aloud as wasn't sure what to say. At the time she was 'semi-vegetative' and I wondered to my-self, 'what can I say to this woman who cant answer me if I talk to her. Who, I'm sure can't understand what I'm saying anyway!' It was a very odd experience.
Back to the book
If you give a shit about what happens in the book, it is summarised here.
Long story short, Madame Bovary ends up dead.
She kills herself.
I thought it drew a strange parallel - for me anyway.
So
Here I am thinking about death, in a kind of death and taxes way. Perhaps more than some, less than others, whatever.
I was having a bit of a hard time grasping the death of my grandmother, as she is the first person i've known who has died. Im not religious. I'm not sure if she was particularly.
I know that she saw the priest a lot before she died and expressed regret that she was not going to be living anymore.
My grandmother was old and didn't have a choice about the terminal cancer that killed her.
Young Ms Bovary killed herself.
OK Ms Bovary is fictional, but the concept is'nt.
What has happened to her soul? What is death?How do people die?
Why do people choose death?
Questions Questions
Answers?
This guy (Mr Shelly Keagan) is a lecturer from Yale, and has given me a bit of existential Hypothesising to help in the possible answering of some of these questions.
Watch it on Academic Earth
Interested in death, definitely worth looking at the whole course lectures!
There is also economics courses amongst otherthings. YA
What did i learn?
That life is a lot more complicated that just being alive.
And death is unfathomable.
Thats all
Having encountered a range of people who I know have died my view would be that sometimes people who take their life find the fear of living greater than the fear of dying, if you can overcome this obstacle death does not seem so daunting. I saw my dad die with dignity, his path towards this was paved with his ability to put other peoples fear of his dying before his own fear. Does that make sense?
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