I have been reading Cesare Pavese (1908-1950), This Business of Living, Diaries 1935-1950, Transaction Publishers, 2009. I gather that Pavese was obsessed life-long with the thought of suicide. Entry of 8 January 1938:
There is nothing ridiculous or absurd about a man who is thinking of killing himself being afraid of falling under a car or catching a fatal disease. Quite apart from the degree of suffering involved, the fact remains that to want to kill oneself is to want one's death to be significant, a supreme choice, a deed that cannot be misunderstood. So it is natural that no would-be suicide can endure the thought of anything so meaningless as being run over or dying of pneumonia. So beware of draughts and street corners. (71)
From the entry of 16 January 1938:
Here's the difficulty about suicide: it is an act of ambition that can be committed only when one has passed beyond ambition. (73)
The last line of his journal, 18 August 1950:
Not words. An act. I won't write any more. (350)
Nine days later Pavese killed himself in a Turin hotel room with an overdose of sleeping pills. Apparently because of the ending of his relationship with the American actress, Constance Dowling.
Who among us has not been played for a fool by the illusions of romantic love?
Our restless hearts seek from the finite what the finite cannot provide.
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