Tractatus Logico-Suicidalis: On Killing Oneself

by Hermann Burger, Adrian Nathan West (Translator, introduction)

“Suicidology is the science of self-murder. Suicidography is the vision of a life reduced to a chain of causes that lead in the final instance to self-extermination.”

In the tunnel-village of Göschenen, at the northern foot of the St. Gotthard Pass, a man named Hermann Burger has vanished without a trace from his hotel room. Suspected of the cold-blooded act of self-murder, what is found in his room is not a suicide note, but a 124-page manuscript formulating a philosophical “suicidology” entitled Tractatus Logico-Suicidalis: an exhaustive manifesto comprising 1046 “thanatological” aphorisms (or “mortologisms”) advocating suicide. “Lord-Lord, forgive them-them,” declares the disfluent chaplain reading the manuscript for insight, “for they know not what they write-write.”

This metaliterary “grim science of killing the self” studies the predominance of death over life, drawing inspiration from such traumatic experiences as the breakup of a marriage, the abandonment by wife and children, a dismissal from his post as a newspaper culture editor, years of endogenous depression, the erosion of friendships, and the sexual disgrace of impotence, but the aphoristic text presents something more complicated than a logical conclusion to life experience (though an icy logic indeed informs its execution). Drawing inspiration from such authors as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Emil Cioran, and Thomas Bernhard, Burger’s unsettling work would be published shortly before the author would take his own life through an overdose of barbiturates.

“Hermann Burger is one of the truly great authors of the German language: a writer of consummate control and range, with a singular and haunting worldview.” —Uwe Schütte

Hermann Burger (1942–1989) was a Swiss author, critic, and professor. Author of four novels and several volumes of essays, short fiction, and poetry, he won numerous awards for his work. He first achieved fame with his novel Schilten, the story of a mad village schoolteacher who teaches his students to prepare for death. At the end of his life, he was working on the autobiographical tetralogy Brenner, one of the high points of twentieth-century German prose. He died by overdose days after the first volume’s publication.

Genres: Philosophy, Fiction, Theory, Essays, Literature, Germany

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Hermann Burger was born in 1942 in Burg, Canton of Aargau; his father worked for an insurance company. He enrolled at the ETH Zurich in 1962 and began studying architecture, but switched to German literature and art history in 1964. The publication of the poetry collection "Rauchsignale" ("Smoke Signals") in 1967 marked the beginning of his literary career, followed by the prose collection Bork in 1970. For the next couple of years Burger focused on his career in literary studies, writing his thesis on Paul Celan and his habilitation treatise on contemporary Swiss literature. He taught at universities in Zurich, Bern and Fribourg and worked as a literary editor for the Aargauer Tagblatt. His academic experience is reflected in the loosely autobiographical novel "Die künstliche Mutter" ("The Artificial Mother") which won him the Conrad-Ferdinand-Meyer-Preis in 1980. It was dedicated to his wife and its first edition has the dedication „Für Anne Marie“.
Burger's first major novel "Schilten. Schulbericht zuhanden der Inspektorenkonferenz" ("Schilten. School Report for the Attention of the Inspectors' Conference") was published in 1976 and made into a movie by Swiss film director Beat Kuert in 1979. It is about a teacher who has to tell the conference of inspectors about the development of his pupils, but speaks about death cult, graveyards and burials in a very detailed way. Archetypes of this novels are Franz Kafka and Thomas Bernhard. Burger mixes reality and fiction, and the more one reads about him, the more one finds out, that Burger writes about himself, his own suffering.
He won the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in 1985 for his story "Die Wasserfallfinsternis von Badgastein" ("The Waterfall-Eclipse of Badgastein"). 1988, a changing of publishers from S. Fischer to Suhrkamp took place in a spectacular way.
The novel "Brenner" (in two volumes, four were planned), shows a protagonist wrapped in cigar smoke, who tells his life - Burger himself was a cigar smoker and descendant of cigar producers. Volume 1 has exactly 25 capitles, like a cigar box contains 25 cigars. Each capitle's name contains the name of a famous cigar brand. The second capitle announces the author's suicide intention: A red Ferrari is bought, because saving money no longer makes sense. It is about the divorce and the grief about having no contact to his two kids. Burger's last lessor was emeritus historian Jean Rudolf von Salis (= „Jérôme von Castelmur-Bondo“ in the novel). The last months of Burger's life and a review on his 46 years are described detailed in this roman a clef, he describes all coining persons (under changed names).
Burger's depressive and desperate moods grew with his literary acclaim, leading him to write the "Tractatus logico-suicidalis" (1988), a collection of aphorisms advocating suicide. The 1046 aphorisms are about the sentence „Gegeben ist der Tod, bitte finden Sie die Lebensursache heraus.“ (Death is given, please finde the cause of life.) The title remembers Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The book about suicide was viewed by the critics with sarcasm, and the seriousity of his suicide plans were not recognized. On February 28, 1989 he committed suicide in Brunegg by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. Not until Burger's death the critics saw similarities to Jean Améry and his book Hand an sich legen (that Burger knew).
Burger's early promoter Marcel Reich-Ranicki, literature critic, wrote March 3, 1989, few days after his death, in an obituary: „Hermann Burger war ein Artist, der immer aufs Ganze ging, der sich nicht geschont hat. Er war ein Mensch mit einer großen Sehnsucht nach dem Glück. Die deutsche Literatur hat einen ihrer originellsten Sprachkünstler verloren.“ („Hermann Burger was an artist who went the whole hog every time, didn't conserve himself. He was a man with a big longing for happiness. The German literature has lost one of her most inventive language artists.")
H

Reviews

[S̶e̶a̶n̶ · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this aphoristic inquiry into suicide—framed as a fictional found manuscript left behind by a missing man with the same name as the author—Hermann Burger builds a compelling case for his 'mortological' subject. Threaded with references to such literary deathwalkers as Thomas Bernhard, Emil Cioran, and Franz Kafka, as well as more than a few anecdotes from the life of the great escape artist Harry Houdini, the Tractatus is at once both expansive and suffocating in its approach—a book best taken only a few pages at a sitting. But is all of this just an elaborate attempt by Burger to convince himself? Perhaps the answer lies in aphorism 932:

'The Tractatus Logico-Suicidalis is a single irreducible justification for a single irreducible suicide.'

All we know for certain is that—book or no book—in the end he did somehow convince himself…

[michal k-c · Rating 2 out of 5]

seeking to become the anglosphere's foremost expert on Hermann Burger simply by reading two of his books. this is a fascinating little document that, while I don't find it to be philosophically compelling, is nonetheless respectable for its commitment to the concept (Burger left this work in lieu of a suicide note). I think that the profound depressive will look upon these aphorisms and agree, yes, life is a sentence, death is forced upon you, why not seize control? however it is much more nobler to live in spite of this, to carry forth with the animal dumbness required to muster a modicum of happiness.

[Dillon Droege · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the best book I’ve ever read.

[Zane · Rating 3 out of 5]

As silly as it is, this book definitely has its place in the pessimist canon. The author avoids declaring the book as an actual philosophical treatise by writing a fictional introduction about a town searching for a missing man, and the aphorisms that follow/compose the book are supposed to be in a manuscript about “mortology” found in the missing person’s hotel room. The aphorisms are referred to as mortologisms, as they all center around death by suicide. Even though it is a supposed work of fiction, the mortologisms are Burger’s own observations on suicide and seemingly every aspect involved with it. Some mortologisms are poetic, some hit hard, but most of them are so dumb they’re laughable. As much as I rolled my eyes reading this book though, I generally enjoy reading shit like this - good or bad - because I’m usually depressed and often think about suicide (who doesn’t?!), and find solace in writings like this somewhat. I think that’s honestly the reason I felt compelled to review it in the first place.

I also have to mention the physical quality of the book. I love the quality of Wakefield Press books, this one especially: the texture and feel of holding this book was more enjoyable than most books I’ve held. It’s the perfect weight and pliability lol.

[Paula · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excepcional. Pone sobre la mesa una apología del suicidio partiendo de una comprensión del mismo. Analiza el suicidio desde la perspectiva del suicidante y de la sociedad, no siendo un análisis profundo y vinculado a una bibliografía.
Lo recomiendo en tanto permite conocer los antecedentes lógicos del pesimismo posterior a los tiempos de Burger, ya que esta obra influyó en pensadores como Emil Cioran.

[Tosh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here are my thoughts on the Hermann Burger book.
https://open.substack.com/pub/tosh/p/...

[Christianmaggitti · Rating 4 out of 5]

in senso figurato la carriera di ogni suicida comincia con uno sciopero della fame

[Colton · Rating 5 out of 5]

A pillar of suicidal literature.

[Maximiliano Graneros · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sin sutilezas, zagas y enmohesido por sus propias dolencias Burger compone, en su gran mayoría, un libro de silogismos o poco más de mil epigrafias con una obsesión desbordante e imaginativa: la muerte. Dará cita textual a literatos, intelectuales y personajes que de transfondo y muy marcado se dan el periplo de pensar o ''dar'' el salto; el suicidio. Se puede deleitar uno con sus máximas o contradicciones; Hermann no dará estocada sin puntear (¿o perforar?) con sus dichos. Si bien no da muestra de ser un individuo trastornado, sí uno muy reflexivo y a fin de cuentas, consecuente.

[Simone · Rating 3 out of 5]

at his best, berger is an admittedly second rate cioran; his aphorisms will do in a pinch when cioran is not near at hand. at his worst, he’s a whiny defeatist who takes great masturbatory pleasure in his self imposed misery. i don’t like this book enough to recommend you read it, but i don’t hate it enough to give away my copy. average down to the bone.

[Jake]

Not sure how advisable it was to read this book, but what’s done is done. It’s a book of 1,000+ aphorisms, and like all collections of aphorisms it’s mostly silly and/or trying too hard to be clever, but the parts that hit, hit hard.

[LMM Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

At risk of putting this down, Burger's Tractatus is better approached as a piece of extended poetry than as a philosophical text. Interesting in places, I found it all too filled with lofty assertions supported by nothing but their self-satisfied audacity.

[Rodrigo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some interesting aphorisms of the reasons why suicide is a valid option, sometimes the only option, there are some interesting ideas on the philosophical ground, a lot of dark humor and satire of course. But sometimes I feel these ideas lacking or boring

[loathe · Rating 5 out of 5]

How can you know you don’t want to be a self-murderer unless you read one of the best books on why you should?

It allows for pushing through Nihilism into a harsh acceptance and appreciation rather than absurdism.

Or you vibe with the book too much and see ya.

[Severin M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential.

[Nico]

Gracias a este libro me animé a ir a terapia

[Natalie Wehrer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thorough killer

[Bryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good meal is a normal state of affairs. Creativity only happens once we find a hair in our soup.

[Zach · Rating 4 out of 5]

I went into this book blind and was impressed that Burger had managed to translate many of my thoughts into words. This book, in a sense, made me feel less alone. It also made me aware of how banal my thoughts are.