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From: weemba@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Matthew P. Wiener)
Newsgroups: net.suicide
Subject: Re: painless for whom?
Message-ID: <12607@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Sun, 23-Mar-86 18:56:31 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.12607
Posted: Sun Mar 23 18:56:31 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 25-Mar-86 03:44:00 EST
References: <5121@alice.uUCp> <12526@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: weemba@brahms.UUCP (Matthew P. Wiener)
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In article <12526@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> gsmith@brahms.UUCP (Gene Ward Smith) writes:
>                              Was there "only one way out" for Yukio
>Mishima? Is not the suicide of Mishima the product of this Japanese
>societal sickness,

Picking Yukio Mishima as an example of your point is extremely poor, Gene.
Writers and artists in general seem to have a higher suicide rate than
normal is the impression I have.  Nobody would say the suicide of Hemingway
is the product of American societal sickness, but pick a Japanese and pow!
you've analyzed the reasons right there.

Perhaps the fact that Kawabata(*) offed himself too, at about the same
time, left an extra strong impression.  But Oe is still going strong.
And I recall Bankei died naturally.

(*)my memory is failing here: I mean the author of _The Snow Country_.

ucbvax!brahms!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720