by Antonio di Benedetto (1969)
2025 reads, 11/25:
I have a yesterday. I don’t know if I’ll have a tomorrow.
I finally finished February’s NYRB book club pick, The Suicides: the thrilling conclusion of Antonio di Benedetto’s unofficial “trilogy of expectation.” While both Zama and The Silentiary followed similar main characters (men who did not know what they wanted but expected the world to figure it out for them), The Suicides gives a slightly more complex version of di Benedetto’s lonely, whiny protagonist.
The plot of The Suicides is also a bit more structured than its predecessors. Our main character, a reporter for a local paper, is tasked with investigating and preparing a column on two different suicides that occurred around the same time. They are unconnected, but that doesn’t stop him from finding similarities between them, and extrapolating things that aren’t there into his own life. He takes his time writing the column, which I believe is just him using this as an excuse to remain on assignment and further immerse himself in these feelings, which are emphasized every time he looks at the case files of these suicides.
His coworker doesn’t help, either. She is constantly sending him letters and memos filled with how philosophers and cultures regard suicide, in an almost humorous way. I can’t help but think that this was something that di Benedetto was into at the time; you could even think of this book as some sort of secondary nonfiction text on how these different religions, philosophers, and thinkers regard suicide. It was interesting, to say the least.
I walk for a bit, looking for a restaurant with two characteristics: grilled fish and people I don’t know, who won’t talk to me about things I’m fully aware of because they’re in all the newspapers and our opinions are all formed by the same magazines.
In addition to the dimension added to the unnamed main character in The Suicides, the side characters were also much more fleshed-out compared to the previous two novels. I could imagine their lives outside of the novel, which is a good litmus test for how well a character is portrayed. I was able to differentiate them from one another, while also appreciating their “function” in the novel, whether it was comic relief, enabling the main character, or foiling him.
Di Benedetto’s trilogy is remarkable, and the style steadily creeps into you. While I liked The Silentiary the best overall, I think that this book’s ending had the most impact, specifically because it is the final in a trilogy. I should have seen it coming all along though – from the first lines of Zama, there’s a rhythm to di Benedetto’s work, and once you’re on it, it’s very hard to leave.
I think about death, I resist it, I prefer to live. But I think about it.