Volume 10 Number 1 1997
Nils Retterstol's study is less a European work than one by a Norwegian Norse from Norway, originally written in one of the many variants of the language that divides Norway. The English translation is, however, rather better written than most sociology texts composed in English, and though the author is a clinical psychiatrist, his book will be very useful to sociology students as it provides them with a clearly expressed basic text on suicide: definitions, statistical tables and graphs should prove especially valuable. Dr. Retterstøl has brought together data from many sources and disciplines which can be used to test generalisations subscribed to by sociologists.
I only wish Durkheim were alive to be confronted with data that seems to show a sustained fall in the English suicide rate following the detoxification of the gas supply, and a rising suicide rate in psychiatric institutions in Scandinavia, together with studies that would have delighted Tarde, for they show that suicide stories on T.V. soaps produce an increase in the suicide rate. If this finding is confirmed as correct, it will provide a splendid reason for censoring such T.V. programmes very drastically indeed to prevent them from dealing with contentious social problems. East Enders will be emasculated, Neighbours knackered and Granada will produce Abdication Street.
This argument should appeal to the Norwegians who have a much stricter, more traditional and more religious moral tradition than elsewhere in Scandinavia, especially in the 'dark coastal strip' where religion is strongest (p.73).
The lower suicide rate in Norway in the past relative to the rest of Scandinavia (except for the Faroes) rested on this relative religiosity and also on the maintaining of whole and unseparated nuclear families (with strict fathers and affectionate mothers quite unlike the degenerate Danes, Swedes, etc) as the central basic structure in society, together with decentralised parish and village communities (p.79). The low incidence in Norway compared with the other Scandinavian countries of many contemporary problems such as divorce, drug and alcohol abuse, feminism, and crime and violence as well as suicide, is very striking. Retterstøl rightly perceives the low Norwegian suicide rate in Durkheimian terms, but unfortunately conflates it with the Gibbs and Martin theory of status integration. He has grasped Durkheim's concept of egoistic suicide as the key to the current rapid rise in suicide in Norway (especially among young males) as local ties start to crumble, but fails to see that this happened after the Norwegians discovered oil and rapidly became rich in a way that fits Durkheim's theory of anomic suicide. Likewise, he fails to see that the Durkheimian explanation of the fall in the suicide rate in wartime is superior in its explanatory power to alternative theories, rooted in the psychology of aggression, less reliable recording of suicides in wartime or suicide disguised as heroic daring. From his own figures it is clear that the Norwegian suicide rate fell both during World War I and during World War II and rose again after the wars were over. In the First World War Norway was neutral and in the Second World War quickly occupied by the Germans, after an initial desperate struggle, so the poor recording and dare-devil heroism arguments fail. Rather, individual Norwegians cohered in a national society more strongly when there was a potential or real external threat.
Though the most fascinating and detailed data in the book is about Scandinavia, it is interesting but puzzling to note the contrasting patterns of increases or falls in the suicide rates in the rest of Europe in recent decades. There has, for instance, been a very large increase in the Roman Catholic Republic of Ireland, despite attempts by the Supreme Court to make recording more difficult, so that the male suicide rate in Ireland is now higher than in England and Wales, and the Irish female suicide rate similar to the English and Welsh one.
Retterstøl's book is a good source of information, even about Britain, but, as suggested earlier, the most interesting sections are the comparative studies of Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Greenland, Iceland and the Faroes. He is able to show that differences in suicide rates in Scandinavia is not the result of differences or changes in reporting and recording, and provides an interesting range of explanations that will make for excellent seminar discussions.
Christie Davies