The Novel Cure

Indrajit Hazra, Susan Elderkin, Ella Berthoud

Description

Whether you have a stubbed toe or a stubborn case of the blues, within these pages you’ll find a cure in the form of a novel – or a combination of novels – to help ease your pain. You’ll also find advice on how to tackle common reading ailments – such as what to do when you feel overwhelmed by the number of books in the world, or if you have a tendency to give up halfway through. When read at the right moment in your life, a novel can – quite literally – change it, and The Novel Cure is a reminder of that power. Written with authority, passion and wit, here is a fresh approach to finding new books to read, and an enchanting way to revisit the books on your shelves.

Sujets

• Literary Criticism
• Books
• Literary
• Literature
• Writer
• Author
• Collection
• Guide
• Classics
• Reading

Informations

• Publié par: Roli Books
• Date de parution: 01 août 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789351940173
• Langue: English

Extrait

About the book
Whether you have a stubbed toe or a stubborn case of the blues, within these pages you’ll find a cure in the form of a novel – or a combination of novels – to help ease your pain. You’ll also find advice on how to tackle common reading ailments – such as what to do when you feel overwhelmed by the number of books in the world, or if you have a tendency to give up halfway through. When read at the right moment in your life, a novel can – quite literally – change it, and The Novel Cure is a reminder of that power. Written with authority, passion and wit, here is a fresh approach to finding new books to read, and an enchanting way to revisit the books on your shelves.
About the authors
Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin met as English Literature students at Cambridge University, where they began giving novels to each other whenever one of them seemed in need of a boost. Ella went on to study fine art and become a painter and art teacher, while keeping up her intravenous diet of literature through reading and listening to books. Susan became a novelist ( Sunset over the Chocolate Mountains and The Voices , both Fourth Estate) and in 2003 was listed by Granta as one of the Twenty Best of Young British Novelists. She also teaches creative writing and writes travel pieces and book reviews for various newspapers. In 2008, they set up a bibliotherapy service at The School of Life in London, and since then have been prescribing books either virtually or in person to patients all over the world. Though they are now divided by an ocean (Ella lives in England and Susan lives in the States) they still regularly send each other fictional cures to keep them on the straight and narrow and ensure that they are living life to the full. The Novel Cure is their first book together.
Indrajit Hazra is a writer and journalist. He is the author of numerous novels including The Garden of Earthly Delights (Roli). His columns appear in the Times of India, the Sunday Guardian and the Khaleej Times . He lives in New Delhi and reads more than he writes.

ROLI BOOKS
This digital edition published in 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the publisher.
First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Canongate Books Ltd., 14 High Street. Edinburgh EH1 1TE
Published in India in 2014 The Lotus Collection An imprint of Roli Books Pvt. Ltd M-75, Greater Kailash II Market New Delhi 110 048 Phone: ++91 (011) 4068 2000 E-mail: [e-mail] Website: www.rolibooks.com
Copyright © Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin, 2014 Additional material for this edition: Copyright © Indrajit Hazra
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic, mechanical, print reproduction, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of Roli Books. Any unauthorized distribution of this e-book may be considered a direct infringement of copyright and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Cover: Jagriti Khirwar
ISBN: 978-93-5194-017-3
All rights reserved. This e-book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated, without the publisher’s prior consent, in any form or cover other than that in which it is published.
To Carl and Ash
and in memory of Marguerite Berthoud and David Elderkin who taught us to love books – and build the bookshelves

CONTENTS
Introduction

A-Z of Ailments

Epilogue

Index of Reading Ailments

Index of Lists

Index of Novels and Authors

Acknowledgements
INTRODUCTION
This is a medical handbook – with a difference.
First of all, it does not discriminate between emotional pain and physical pain; you’re 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/Mrs Right, or having a midlife crisis. Life’s bigger challenges such as losing a loved one or becoming a single parent are in here too. Whether you’ve got the hiccups or a hangover, a fear of commitment or a sense of humour failure, we consider it an ailment that deserves a remedy.
But there’s another difference too. Our medicines are not something you’ll find at the chemist, 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.

bib•lio•ther•a•py
noun \ bi-blē-ə- ’ther-ə-pē, -’the- rə-py:
the prescribing of fiction for life’s ailments (Berthoud and Elderkin, 2013)
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 salves – either consciously or subconsciously – for centuries. Next time you’re 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 it’s the story that charms; sometimes it’s the rhythm of the prose that works on the psyche, stilling or stimulating. Sometimes it’s an idea or an attitude suggested by a character in a similar quandary or jam. Either way, novels have the power to transport you into another existence, and see the world from a different point of view. When you’re 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 you’re sitting on the sofa in your living room, but the important parts of you – your thoughts, your senses, your spirit – are 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 André 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 audio book, 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 and what to read when you can’t sleep; the ten best books to read in each decade of life; and the best literary accompaniments for important rites of passage, such as being on your gap year – or on your death bed. *
We wish you every delight in our fictional plasters and poultices. You will be healthier, happier and wiser for them.

* As PJ O’Rourke said, ‘Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it’.
A–Z OF AILMENTS
‘One sheds one’s sicknesses in books — repeats and presents again one’s emotions, to be master of them.’
DH Lawrence ( The Letters of DH Lawrence)
A
abandonment

Plainsong
KENT HARUF
If inflicted early, the effects of physical or emotional abandonment – whether 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 you’re 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 realise that those who abandoned you were most likely abandoned themselves. And rather than wishing they’d buck up and give you the support or attention you yearn for, put your energy into finding someone else to lean on, who’s better equipped for the job.
Abandonment is rife in Plainsong , Kent Haruf’s account of small-town life in Holt, Colorado. Local school teacher 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 back-handed punishment to the man who’d 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 organically – though in fact Maggie Jones, a young woman with a gift for communication, orchestrates most of it – other people step into the breach, most astonishingly 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 both Victoria and the reader transforms them overnight. As we watch the communit