"If God exists, and I truly don't believe he does, he will know that there are limits to human understanding. He was the one who created this confusion in which there is poverty, injustice, greed and loneliness. He doubtless had the best of intentions, but the results have proved disastrous; if God exists, He will be generous with those creatures who chose to leave this Earth early, and he might even apologise for having made us spend time here".
The Plot
The story begins with Veronika in her room, waiting for the time that she could take her sleeping pills and say goodbye to the world. She has her sleeping pills ready and a magazine by her bedside, to read while she waits for the sleeping pills to work.
Veronika has it all. She has a loving family, she has had boyfriends, a lovely job as a librarian, and everything needed for a comfortable life. But she simply isn’t happy. She has two very simple reasons why she decides to die (I’m refraining from mentioning them)
Before getting herself the sleeping pills, Veronika contemplated various ways in which she could end her life. She thought of jumping off her bedroom balcony but decided against it as it would shock her parents if they saw their daughter's lifeless body in a pool of blood.
Things change when her unconscious body is taken to Villette, a famous mental asylum. Her suicide plan backfires. Veronika in fact didn’t die. Her time on earth had only shortened. What happens here is the crux of the story. Veronika is told that she has maybe a week to live. She finally starts to live her life in the asylum where she frees herself from all the mental bondages. The do’s, the don’ts, and societal pressures. Quite fascinatingly she does this on the pretext that everyone around her considers her mad.
During her short stay, she befriends a few other patients who share their stories with her. They drop nuggets of wisdom and at the same time explain what their journey with mental illness was like and still is. While Veronika realizes slowly but surely how badly she wants to live, she influences those around her to re-evaluate their lives.
The story revolves around Veronika and a few other patients who navigate through their epiphanies.
Verdict
What I loved | What I didn’t like |
Insight into what mental illness looks like.
| Like all books, Veronika Decides to Die also has its slow chapters. But you can easily make it out of it. |
Discusses matters that are considered a taboo. | It is a trudge-able trench. Easily lose interest while reading the book. |
It is an easy read. It is 191 pages long. Totally readable in a week if you are a habitual reader. | Most of what the book teaches us is very well known among the common masses. |
The author brings in his own experience at the asylum. This makes the read even more interesting. | According to me, it is a one time read. But this is will differ from person to person. |
I bought the book for Rs. 280. which makes it worth it. Though I suggest you buy it at second hand | |
Spoilers
A few thought-provoking moments in the book
“She had given up many of her desires so that her parents would continue to love her as they had when she was a child, even though she knew that real love changes and grows with time and discover new ways of expressing itself.”
Veronika spent all her life wanting nothing to change. She even accepted her life as it were. Never going out of her way to delight herself. I found this to be a mild revolt against nature; change is inevitable. Love will grow. Love will change. It will take new forms. But love will stay. But wanting everything to remain the same is fighting against nature’s course.
“If I had a choice, if I had understood earlier that the reason my days were all the same was because I wanted them like that, perhaps...' But the reply was always the same: There is no perhaps, because there is no choice. And her inner peace returned, because everything had already been decided”.
I partially disagree with this. Not everything is within our control. But to say that everything is destined and to give up on aspects of life that you can control is an easy way out of any situation.
"There are people waiting for me there. Although they don't yet know me, and I don't know them. But I'm sure I can be useful, and the danger of an adventure is worth a thousand days of ease and comfort.'. When he had finished reading the note, the members of the Fraternity all went to their rooms and wards, telling themselves that Mari had finally gone mad”.
This was the ‘PIVOT!!!’ moment in the story, the patients at the institution considered Mari mad because she thought that life outside and inside the institution was the same. That those who are not living their lives the way they want are truly mad. We always have a choice. Even when the lights are out and there is nothing but darkness all around. We have a choice to live our lives the way we want to.
Moral of the story
In conclusion, I don’t think there is a definite way of terming someone mad. We often look at others whom we don’t understand, (it's maybe who they are, what they do, or what they believe in) and call them crazy. We are always going to point at the incomprehensive and declare it ‘mad’.
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