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Headlong: A Novel
Julia has suddenly lost her husband and, along with him, her will to live. The vital, energetic old woman that her daughter Kati thought she knew has disappeared almost overnight. How is Kati to cope with a mother constantly on the verge of suicide? This finely wrought tale of love and conflict casts a searchlight into dark areas - how people deal with ageing, loss, death, and grief. At what point are you allowed to say "Life is not worth living?" The story is exquisite and captures the complications of parents and their adult children, and matters around the quality of life.
230 pages, Hardcover
First published April 15, 2009
17 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 25, 2010
I'm afraid this is going to be a very un-PC review about a highly sensitive topic. It's not that I don't sympathise with the story and the characters, rather, my dislike for this book is because I believe there are other ways to approach this theme, and that the result isn't always as inevitable as the story presents.
It is an extremely heartfelt novel about dealing with an elderly mother who has depression and repeatedly tries to kill herself. Hungarian born Australian writer Susan Varga uses the novel to present the emotionally complex reasons in favour of euthanasia and assisted suicide. The novel also features the (non-graphic) gay relationship of the daughter who tells the story in first person.
Towards the beginning of the novel the first person narrator explains that she would love to believe in the inviolable sanctity of human life but she can’t: if it is clear that a person does not want to live, then their life has no such sanctity. I disagree.
I believe the novel’s attitude towards suffering is deficient: that the only way to cope with suffering is to avoid it by keeping busy. The story goes on to show how suffering will eventually catch up with you and that it’s too hard to keep fighting it. For an alternative and highly liberating view on suffering, read Jacques Philippe's Interior Freedom.
Varga's novel also justifies the mother’s position by showing how logical and consistent she is in her determination to die. The context of this attitude is that they have tried every medical means to treat her depression, but it keeps coming back worse than before. There is much discussion about the futility of trying to talk someone out of depression and suicide if you can see with certainty it is what they want, and what the circumstances seem to point to as the only solution. No amount of love and care can help them because it just hits the wall that depression has built around them. When the daughter wonders some time later whether her mother could have come out of her depression by now and begun again to enjoy life, she cuts off the thought as irrelevant and harmful. Again, I disagree.
It seems to me that the interpersonal relationships of the main characters are all plagued by selfishness, though it is often presented in the guise of care or concern for the other person. Everyone carries on their own tug-of-war: mother & daughter, brother and sister, daughter and partner. They seem to demonstrate a belief that the best way to help another person is to get them to understand 'me and my needs' better.
Many characters show a tendency to pray, they are all suffering and incapable of resolving their situations and so they naturally ask (whom, they don’t know) for help. However it is ‘prayer’ coupled with an explicit disbelief in the existence of God.
Overall it is a consistent argument for euthanasia and assisted suicide, and a potentially emotionally convincing one, even if it also shows that the only satisfaction possible from holding this position is found in being able to offer a rambling justification by telling the story. I would just urge people to read a view from the other side before deciding to go with this one.
It is an extremely heartfelt novel about dealing with an elderly mother who has depression and repeatedly tries to kill herself. Hungarian born Australian writer Susan Varga uses the novel to present the emotionally complex reasons in favour of euthanasia and assisted suicide. The novel also features the (non-graphic) gay relationship of the daughter who tells the story in first person.
Towards the beginning of the novel the first person narrator explains that she would love to believe in the inviolable sanctity of human life but she can’t: if it is clear that a person does not want to live, then their life has no such sanctity. I disagree.
I believe the novel’s attitude towards suffering is deficient: that the only way to cope with suffering is to avoid it by keeping busy. The story goes on to show how suffering will eventually catch up with you and that it’s too hard to keep fighting it. For an alternative and highly liberating view on suffering, read Jacques Philippe's Interior Freedom.
Varga's novel also justifies the mother’s position by showing how logical and consistent she is in her determination to die. The context of this attitude is that they have tried every medical means to treat her depression, but it keeps coming back worse than before. There is much discussion about the futility of trying to talk someone out of depression and suicide if you can see with certainty it is what they want, and what the circumstances seem to point to as the only solution. No amount of love and care can help them because it just hits the wall that depression has built around them. When the daughter wonders some time later whether her mother could have come out of her depression by now and begun again to enjoy life, she cuts off the thought as irrelevant and harmful. Again, I disagree.
It seems to me that the interpersonal relationships of the main characters are all plagued by selfishness, though it is often presented in the guise of care or concern for the other person. Everyone carries on their own tug-of-war: mother & daughter, brother and sister, daughter and partner. They seem to demonstrate a belief that the best way to help another person is to get them to understand 'me and my needs' better.
Many characters show a tendency to pray, they are all suffering and incapable of resolving their situations and so they naturally ask (whom, they don’t know) for help. However it is ‘prayer’ coupled with an explicit disbelief in the existence of God.
Overall it is a consistent argument for euthanasia and assisted suicide, and a potentially emotionally convincing one, even if it also shows that the only satisfaction possible from holding this position is found in being able to offer a rambling justification by telling the story. I would just urge people to read a view from the other side before deciding to go with this one.
December 8, 2023
Loooooooved
Explores a persons right to die
Complex mother daughter relationship is always a big win for me
Australian <3333
Explores a persons right to die
Complex mother daughter relationship is always a big win for me
Australian <3333
July 29, 2009
A difficult book as it details the story of a breaved widow looking for a way to end her life as her grief has become overwhelming. Written from the point of view of her daughter, it is a story for reading when feeling strong and happy.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews