Ella Berthoud - The Novel Cure

bibliotherapynoun

\bi-ble---'ther--pe-, -'the-r-py

: the prescribing of fiction for lifes ailments

Berthoud and Elderkin, 2013

T his is a medical handbookwith a difference.

First of all, it does not discriminate between emotional pain and physical painyoure as likely to find a cure within these pages for a broken heart as a broken leg. It also includes common predicaments you might find yourself in, such as moving house, looking for Mr. or Mrs. Right, or having a midlife crisis. Lifes bigger challenges, such as losing a loved one or becoming a single parent, are in here too. Whether youve got the hiccups or a hangover, a fear of commitment or a sense of humor failure, we consider it an ailment that deserves a remedy.

But theres another difference too. Our medicines are not something youll find at the drugstore, but at the bookshop, in the library, or downloaded onto your electronic reading device. We are bibliotherapists, and the tools of our trade are books. Our apothecary contains Balzacian balms and Tolstoyan tourniquets, the salves of Saramago and the purges of Perec and Proust. To create it, we have trawled two thousand years of literature for the most brilliant minds and restorative reads, from Apuleius, second-century author of The Golden Ass, to the contemporary tonics of Ali Smith and Jonathan Franzen.

Bibliotherapy has been popular in the form of the nonfiction self-help book for several decades now. But lovers of literature have been using novels as salveseither consciously or subconsciouslyfor centuries. Next time youre feeling in need of a pick-me-up or require assistance with an emotional tangle, reach for a novel. Our belief in the effectiveness of fiction as the purest and best form of bibliotherapy is based on our own experience with patients and bolstered by an avalanche of anecdotal evidence. Sometimes its the story that charms; other times its the rhythm of the prose that works on the psyche, stilling or stimulating. Sometimes its an idea or an attitude suggested by a character in a similar quandary or jam. Either way, novels have the power to transport you to another existence and see the world from a different point of view. When youre engrossed in a novel, unable to tear yourself from the page, you are seeing what a character sees, touching what a character touches, learning what a character learns. You may think youre sitting on the sofa in your living room, but the important parts of youyour thoughts, your senses, your spiritare somewhere else entirely. To read a writer is for me not merely to get an idea of what he says, but to go off with him and travel in his company, said Andr Gide. No one comes back from such a journey quite the same.

Whatever your ailment, our prescriptions are simple: a novel (or two), to be read at regular intervals. Some treatments will lead to a complete cure. Others will simply offer solace, showing you that you are not alone. All will offer the temporary relief of your symptoms due to the power of literature to distract and transport. Sometimes the remedy is best taken as an audiobook, or read aloud with a friend. As with all medicines, the full course of treatment should always be taken for best results. Along with the cures, we offer advice on particular reading issues, such as being too busy to read or what to read when you cant sleep, along with the ten best books to read in each decade of life; and the best literary accompaniments for important rituals or rites of passage, such as being on vacationor on your deathbed.

We wish you every delight in our fictional plasters and poultices. You will be healthier, happier, and wiser for them.

A

ABANDONMENT

Plainsong

KENT HARUF

I f inflicted early, the effects of physical or emotional abandonmentwhether you were left by too busy parents to bring yourself up, told to take your tears and tantrums elsewhere, or off-loaded onto another set of parents completely (see: Adoption)can be hard to shrug. If youre not careful, you might spend the rest of your life expecting to be let down. As a first step to recovery, it is often helpful to realize that those who abandon you were most likely abandoned themselves. And rather than wishing theyd buck up and give you the support or attention you yearn for, put your energy into finding someone else to lean on whos better equipped for the job.

Abandonment is rife in Plainsong, Kent Harufs account of small-town life in Holt, Colorado. Local schoolteacher Guthrie has been abandoned by his depressed wife, Ella, who feigns sleep when he tries to talk to her and looks at the door with outsized eyes when he leaves. Their two young sons, Ike and Bobby, are left bewildered by her unexplained absence from their lives. Old Mrs. Stearns has been abandoned by her relatives, either through death or neglect. And Victoria, seventeen years old and four months pregnant, is abandoned first by her boyfriend and then by her mother, who, in a backhanded punishment to the man whod abandoned them both many years before, tells her, You got yourself into this, you can just get out of it, and kicks her out of the house.

Gradually, and seemingly organicallyalthough in fact it is mostly orchestrated by Maggie Jones, a young woman with a gift for communicationother people step into the breach. Most astonishing are the McPheron brothers, a pair of crotchety and ignorant cattle-farming bachelors who agree to take the pregnant Victoria in: They looked at her, regarding her as if she might be dangerous. Then they peered into the palms of their thick callused hands spread out before them on the kitchen table and lastly they looked out the window toward the leafless and stunted elm trees. The next thing we know they are running around shopping for cribs, and the rush of love for the pair felt by Victoria, as well as the reader, transforms them overnight. As we watch the community quicken to its role as extended familyfrail Mrs. Stearns teaching Ike and Bobby to make cookies, the McPherons watching over Victoria with all the tender, clumsy tenacity they normally reserve for their cowswe see how support can come from very surprising places.