Death Be Not Proud by, John Gunther. Just finished it.

[Hiraeth]

When he walked down the aisle to get his diploma is when I finally started crying and I continue to cry now.

This is what we mean when we, as medical professionals, talk about Quality of Life.

Anyone else here read it?

[sinkingfeeling]

1. I read it about 55 years ago in high school. I can only remember it was about the death of his son.

[Hiraeth]

2. Maybe, this feeling will fade but right now, I have to rank this in my Top ten books ever read.

It is an American Classic, I think it is fair to call it that.

The impact.

So glad his father told him he got a letter from Harvard that day.

The foresight to say it. He knew.

[SheilaT]

3. I read it a very, very long time ago, back when I was in high school,

I think, and I graduated in 1965.

I ought to reread it. I think I was too young to understand and appreciate it fully back then.

[Hiraeth]

4. If you are a parent now, I think you will read it with a fuller understanding

and may also have a greater appreciation for Johnny's very dry, sardonic wit.

Talking about grace in the face of danger, this boy had it.

[SheilaT]

5. Yes, I am a parent.

And even though my two sons are as healthy as two humans can possibly be, there is always lurking in the background a small, evil voice that say, "What if?"

[Hiraeth]

7. Mr. Gunther writes so matter of factly about the events. Daily tidbits. Not an ounce of false

sentimentality. Starkly. Johnny, in his essence, shines through. And the family unit dealing each one in their different ways.

Their quiet strength.

wow.

[polly7]

6. I read it years ago ... I can't bring myself to do it again. But it was very, very good. nt.

[Hiraeth]

8. I can't quit crying. Silly me. The unfilfilled potential is one thing but, there is something else

about how he DID reach his potential. He squeezed potential out of every precious moment.

I think that might be the point of it all.

the moments of life.

[Neoma]

9. I read it a very long time ago.

Was a tear jerker. Remember that much.

[Hiraeth]

10. It is written so simply, directly and matter of factly. Subtle. Gut Punch.

Sad and at the same time, life affirming. Redeeming. Even joyous.

One of our best.

A true American Classic.

Has to make any serious critic's top 100, I would think.

[SheilaT]

11. Okay, so I read it again.

Excellent book.

However, two things stand out. First is how incredibly little could be done for Johnny. The second is how the parents fell for someone who is clearly a quack, who claims the brain tumor can be cured by diet. I know that I do not know how it feels to have a child diagnosed with a terminal illness, how desperately the parents would grasp at any possible cure. But in the light of what we know now, I'm so sorry they fell for that.

I am very glad this thread got me to reread this book. And yes, the most heartbreaking part is when Johnny gets to graduate with his class.

[Hiraeth]

12. Thank you for re-reading it.

I guess the tumor went into remission coinciding with the time of the diet. Remember though this was in the 1940's and the other doctors were on board with this.

What do you do as a parent? Desperate for hope. Anything.

So sad.

and they divorce, too. Such a strain on the marriage.

But, also:

1. Do you consider the book to be well written enough to be considered an American Classic?

2. Do you think you were affected differently from reading it through the eyes of an adult vs. reading it as a teenager?

Thanks again for re-reading and replying.

[SheilaT]

13. They were already divorced before Johnny got sick.

They came together to help him.

Yes, I was affected quite differently as an adult compared to when I was a teen. Especially now that I have children of my own. It's almost impossible to imagine losing a child.

What stands out most to me is that it is a period piece. It's about a time and way of life that isn't much with us any more. Catcher in the Rye is the same way for me. We've had discussions here about that book, and some maintain that it is absolutely a classic, one that everyone should read, while I feel that although it's definitely worth reading, Holden Caulfield is a representative of a class system that is essentially gone: he attends and gets kicked out of many private boarding schools, and that boarding school system is not as influential as it once was. Most kids today can't identify with him. It's also in relatively recent years that Catcher has become one of the books high school students read. Back when I was in high school in the 1960's it was all but banned, mainly because of the language.

In Death Be Not Proud the private boys' boarding school Johnny attends is one of those that in those years could simply send the boys they wanted to Harvard, to Princeton, to Yale. Yes, they needed to take their college boards, but the recommendation of the headmaster would almost invariably clinch it. Notice that Johnny isn't applying to several schools, but is simply planning to go to Harvard.

The book was totally worth the reread, and I'm glad your mention of it here got me to do so.

So for me this book is mostly a window into a long-ago world. One in which almost nothing could be done for cancer. Notice that they did surgery, then radiation treatment, and finally one of the earliest versions of chemotherapy. Now there would be so many more things that could be done. A child with the exact same brain cancer would at the very least live much longer, and perhaps could be cured.

Another thing that for me was quite weird was that the many insightful or odd things that Johnny said kept on sounding to me very much like the son of a close friend of mine. My guess is that the two very intelligent young men, separated by two generations, simply have a lot in common. Nonetheless, I kept on hearing Brian's voice when Johnny was quoted. Brian, for what it's worth, is now 32 years old and has never, so far as I know, had any serious illness of any kind.

[Hiraeth]

14. Yes, it reads like a snapshot of a long ago era. Times were so different then.

And the comparison to Cather in The Rye is apt. Now, that is a book I read as a teenager. Wonder if it is worth the time to re-read that one ....

I wonder how young people now "relate" to books like these two.

Good to hear about Brian. Sounds like an exceptional young man.

[SheilaT]

15. It's my observation that young people don't relate

very well to those books. My younger son read Catcher in the Rye in high school and totally hated it. He was pretty articulate about what a complete jerk he thought Holden was, and how nothing in his life connected in any way to my son's life. And, in case this matters, my son was attending a secular private school, although it wasn't a boarding school. Holden and Johnny are children of a particular kind of privilege, and even though one is fictional and the other real, they have a great deal in common in terms of the place they occupied in society in their particular era.

Catcher was published in 1951, so of course Johnny never read it.

I read that book sometime in the early or mid-1970s, as a young adult. I was somewhat underwhelmed by it, but I recall thinking I was supposed to like it, as it was such a classic. In the years since, I've gotten better at figuring out my own opinion about things, even the ones that everyone else seems to love.

I don't think my older son had to read it. Same school, but four years older and the assigned books change from year to year.

[Hiraeth]

18. I can understand why young people of today can not relate to Catcher in the Rye -

I wonder what they would think of Death Be Not Proud.

[SheilaT]

16. And I just got a text from the older son.

He did read Catcher in the Rye and here's his take:
Pros: J D Salinger remembered what being a teenager was like.
Cons: One gets that sufficiently early on, and the story just drags on with nothing really happening.

He's right about that.

[Hiraeth]

17. I thought I was watching a young mans descent into mental illness of some type. Or, at least

self absorption to such a degree that I feared for his mental health.

I must be misremembering.