The Book
Since the book was intended to be a manual, the author did not spend too much space on discussing the reasons and philosophy behind suicide. Although he does rhetorically pose the question "Why must one live?" Wataru simply lays out the methods of suicide one by one and then analyzes each of them in detail.
He covers 11 categories of suicide methods:
- Overdosing
- Hanging
- Self-defenestration
- Slashing the wrist and carotid artery
- Car collision
- Gas Poisoning
- Electrocution
- Drowning
- Self-immolation
- Freezing
- Miscellaneous
Each chapter begins with a graph assessing the method in question in terms of: the pain it causes, effort of preparation required, the appearance of the body, the disturbance it may cause for others and its deadliness. Each of these matters is also rated by skulls, with 5 skulls indicating the highest rating.
Read more about this topic: The Complete Manual Of Suicide
Famous quotes containing the word book:
“The demonstrations are always early in the morning, at six o’clock. It’s wonderful, because I’m not doing anything at six anyway, so why not demonstrate?... When you’ve written to your president, to your congressman, to your senator and nothing, nothing has come of it, you take to the streets.”
—Erica Bouza, U.S. jewelry designer and social activist. As quoted in The Great Divide, book 2, section 7, by Studs Terkel (1988)
“A big leather-bound volume makes an ideal razorstrap. A thin book is useful to stick under a table with a broken caster to steady it. A large, flat atlas can be used to cover a window with a broken pane. And a thick, old-fashioned heavy book with a clasp is the finest thing in the world to throw at a noisy cat.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)