In the Face of Death

When the author, a Swiss jurist and professor of criminal law, learned he had terminal cancer, he rejected surgery and other treatment, refusing, as was noted in his funeral oration, ``to die as a disabled object of medicine.'' A pastor's son schooled in Protestant thought, Noll began a logbook in which he noted not only his physical decline, but his thoughts about personal relationships and reflections on the mystery of death and immortality. In the clear straightforward translation, the author's cerebral approach to questions about the meaning of life and death and his effort ``to imagine eternity as eternity,'' are presented in the language of a vigorous, sophisticated man who articulates the process of dying for his own solace and, perhaps, that of others. Noll died in 1983. (Dec.)