DEATH COMES TO THE WRITER

In some cases it was expected and welcome, while in others it came as a bolt from the blue




Early one July morning in 1961, Ernest Hemingway, the most well known novelist of his time, rose from bed, went down to his gun room, took his double-barrelled 12 gauge shotgun, put both the barrels deep into his mouth and pulled the triggers.

The explosive news of his suicide made the world sit up and wonder why he had done it.

The death-wish


Hemingway had everything that an ambitious author dreamt about. His bold new way of writing was acclaimed by literary critics, and the public devoured his books. He had won the Nobel Prize, the ultimate accolade every writer aspires for. And while he was on the crest of his popularity the great author had seen fit to take his own life.

I was on the staff of MCC at that time. Many of my friends and I were avid admirers of Hemingway. This was not only because of the way he wrote but also because of his lifestyle. We had already read about his celebrated death-wish. After his dangerous and thrilling experience during World War I, normal life seemed insipid and pointless to him. He had seen the “real thing”. It had wakened his curiosity to know what it really meant for people to die before their time. It must be possible, to get closer to the ultimate truth.

For Hemingway death was the one unescapable reality. And he enjoyed the chance of seeing death “given, avoided, refused and accepted “in the bullring.

And when his writing dried up, that meant the end for him. He sat brooding, just waiting for the last big thrill. And it came on the 2nd of July, 1961. According to Hemingway’s he-man code, life should never end with a whimper, but with a bang. It did for him

Tortoise kills poet


If Hemingway went halfway to meet death, death came to Aeschylus, unexpectedly, dropping out of the sky.

Aeschylus was a Greek poet and playwright who along with Sophocles and Euripedes took Greek Tragedy to great heights and won for it a pre-eminent place for it in World Literature. Born in 525 BC in Athens, Aeschylus started writing plays at the age of 26, and entered them for the annual Athenian Dramatic contests. He is said to have won the first prize on thirteen occasions. He came to be known as “The father of Greek Drama”.

Though he wrote some ninety plays, only seven are now extant.

The most famous of his plays were “Prometheus Bound” and the trilogy “Oresteia”. In addition to being a popular and important playwright, Aeschylus also distinguished himself in the army of his city-state, fighting in the battles of Marathon and Salamis.

Then in 455 BC the tortoise hit him.

The tortoise had fallen from the claws of an eagle soaring high above in the sky. It is said eagles drop tortoises on stones below to break the shell and get at the meat inside.

Aeschylus had been warned that he would meet his death by something falling on him.

So he tried to be in the open fields as far as possible. But an eagle mistook his bald head for a rock, and dropped a tortoise on it, braining him on the spot.

Those of us who have read some of our modern poets may feel like rearing tortoises.