Kneller's Happy Campers

Caveat: My point of view on suicide is unorthodox and to some people very unsettling. Please keep that in mind before reading this post. Second, please note that I am not suicidal, I do not have suicidal tendencies, and I do not need therapy, well the last is probably debatable ;).


I didn't even know where to start with this novella. I loved it but was at the same time very bothered by part of its message. I had trouble grounding myself and deciding how much of it was commentary on Religion, particularly Christianity and Islam, and how much was just probing at existential questions. The blatant depiction of suicide bombers and Jesus make it difficult to ignore the religious references; however, as they seem to address more of a mainstream understanding or even stereotypical understanding of the religions I am not sure where or how to situate myself within that conversation. Consequently, I think I will focus more on the depiction of suicide and the implications surrounding such an act.

What bothered me most about this story was not its depiction of Jesus as a suicide, in fact I found that rather entertaining, or the failed hopes of the Muslim suicide bomber. What bothered me was the assumption of suicide as always condemnable. Thus Keret would be exposing the hypocrisy of Christianity and Islam, as those sacrificial figures (Jesus) or martyrs (Suicide bombers) are nothing more than common suicide victims. This does indeed as Katie said "pull the rug out from under" our common perceptions of those religions. The question remains where does this leave the act of suicide in general. Should one learn to always cling to life and make the most of this earth and accept death only when it comes naturally? It is in this question that I disagree with the conclusion the book seems to convey.

The suicides in this story are committed for religious reasons, cowardliness, unhappiness, and the inability to cope with what happens in life. These are, in my opinion, all deemed as condemnable reasons to end your prematurely. So heinous are these reasons for killing yourself, that you are forced to continue living in a world that is almost an exact replica of the one you tried to escape except that it is more mundane and detestable. What this says to me is you can not escape existence by any act of your own free will. Leehee is the champion of this point of view. She clings to life, and rather than see the negative aspects of life she is able to find happiness and pleasure despite the monotony of existence. She is the epitome of Albert Camus's statement "one must imagine Sisyphus happy." This story seems to say that you must find a way to be happy or at least content in this life because there is nothing better.

This notion that there is nothing better than this life to me is purely cultural socialization and survival instinct at work. To assume that suicide is always condemnable and life is always the better alternative leaves far too much grey area and this does not even broach the topic of how to decide what is a suicide and how do motives and/or intentions contribute to the definition of a suicide. Is a person who volunteers repeatedly to go to war and is finally killed considered a suicide? If a man who mistakenly believes he can save humanity and allows himself to be captured and killed is a suicide then surely the man who is willing to sacrifice himself for his country is no less suicidal. Further, what about those people with terminal illnesses, those cancer patients who have no hope of life, who live in constant pain, and decide death is better than this current existence? Even more complicated, what about those people who kill themselves for economic reasons? Look to the example of Father Time in Jude the Obscure, who kills himself and his siblings because his parents cannot afford to feed them. In these cases are not the intellectual gymnastics one would have to perform to find happy meaning in this life more delusional than deciding to end your life?

I feel we as humans often cling to life assuming it is the most desirable state of existence; the correct statement would be it is the only known state of existence. I further find that those who most condemn suicide are those who do not suffer with enough afflictions to be able to comprehend that nothingness, nonexistence, and the unknown hold the only hope of relief from the current state. I am not suggesting that suicide should not viewed as a tragedy and that those who are depressed should kill themselves instead of seeking help. I am, however, contesting that we should also look at whether our point of view on how suicide is understood is not just socialization and that further those who do commit suicide of any manner and for any reason are also victims of a socialization, it is just a different shade of socialization. Perhaps we should employ empathy in an effort to understand the motivations of suicide, thus we can either attempt to alleviate the hardships or understand the reasoning. Condemnation or judgment of suicide seems to me to be more a moral projection of an individuals cultural conditioning than a statement about the nature of suicide.