The Novel Cure: From Abandonment to Zestlessness: 751 Books to Cure What Ails You (29 page)

But it is too late: you are hooked. You have to
know
. You wind down the windows to let in the air, not caring about the rain and, cautiously, you press “play.” After a while you resume the journey, windows wide open.

It’s a close thing. You are almost swallowed up by mist, feeling yourself beginning to turn to wax as Will and Jim so nearly do. But when a powerful secret in the novel is divulged, your dread, quite suddenly, disappears. And it does not come back.

By the time you arrive at your destination, you are cackling with glee. And as you pull up outside the house, you notice that it is the sort of house that would previously have filled you with a nameless dread . . . But this time you are armed.

See also:
Angst, existential
•
Anxiety

See:
Monday morning feeling

See:
Nightmares

See:
Broken dreams

Trainspotting

IRVINE WELSH

•   •   •

Brave New World

ALDOUS HUXLEY

•   •   •

Less Than Zero

BRET EASTON ELLIS

F
or Sherlock Holmes, the use of cocaine three times a day in a 7 percent solution was “transcendently stimulating and clarifying to the mind.” But Watson was appalled by Holmes’s habit, noting his punctured forearm with dismay. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was ahead of his times in realizing there might be an addictive and dangerous side to the use of, for example, laudanum,
*
heroin,
*
and cocaine.
*
In any era there are substances that creep up on us with their addictive qualities, whose negative properties are not at first understood. And there are the drugs we might consider “recreational” until they become, for some, more than just a diversion. What are the signs that an experimental or occasional habit is becoming something more sinister and life-threatening? When does dabbling becomes depending? Read the following to help identify your symptoms and cut your supplies off before it’s too late.

A far cry from Baker Street, where the syringe came in a leather-bound case and the user lay back on a velvet armchair, are the users and abusers of
Trainspotting
, Irvine Welsh’s journey into modern-day heroin hell. Here the highs and the horrors of heroin addiction are spelled out blow by blow, from
the death of baby Dawn, who asphyxiates while her parents are out cold, to the amputation of a needle-infected leg, and the disintegration of friendships, family, and, it seems, the entire run-down district of Edinburgh in which the novel is set. “It’s all okay, it’s all beautiful; but ah fear that this internal sea is gaunnae subside soon, leaving this poisonous shite washed up, stranded up in ma body,” reports Sick Boy, predicting the horror after the high. Because even while he shoots up, he knows that it is a “short-term sea” and a “long-term poison.” Welsh’s novel makes for gruesome reading and offers a compelling case for going cold turkey—or steering well clear in the first place.

The alarm bells truly ring out when we become so addicted that we can’t recognize the need for help. In Huxley’s dystopian
Brave New World
, the entire framework of society is dependent upon
soma
—a drug described as “like Christianity without the tears” by the “science monitors” who legislate this world in which babies are made in hatcheries and raised in factories. Taking
soma
—a mild hallucinogenic that leaves the taker on a blissed-out high—is mandatory: two grams on weekdays, six on Saturdays. When Lenina and Bernard meet John, the “Savage,” who lives on a reservation where
soma
is unknown, their dependence on the drug appalls him. He urges them to throw away their poison and be freed. But they are too far gone to hear him. Be chilled by their example: they’ve reached the point of no return.

Bret Easton Ellis’s
Less Than Zero
reveals the pivotal role drugs play in a generation characterized by nihilistic popular culture. Clay is the dispassionate and deadpan observer of his classmates, all in their late teens, who have turned to hedonism, drugs, and meaningless sexual encounters to spice up their lives. Ignored by their parents, dropping out of their colleges, they lack direction and conviction. “You have everything,” Clay says to a friend who is heading down the road to self-destruction. “No. I don’t,” replies Rip. “I don’t have anything to lose.” And with that he returns to the distraction of having sex with a barely conscious eleven-year-old girl. Could a scene like this do anything other than drive the last nail in the coffin for those tending toward excess?

See
also:
Broken dreams
•
Cold turkey, going
•
Concentrate, inability to
•
Insomnia
•
Irritability
•
Nightmares
•
Paranoia
•
Rails, going off the

See:
Anger
•
Appetite, loss of
•
Breaking up
•
Broken heart
•
Cry, in need of a good
•
Insomnia
•
Lovesickness
•
Murderous thoughts
•
Sadness

Pearl

THE GAWAIN POET

•   •   •

Metamorphoses

OVID

D
eath cannot be deferred forever, and when the time comes, we need to be ready. In the West, we have a tendency to avoid thoughts or conversations about death, yet it is essential to live in the presence of this unpleasant inevitability—at least so that we may always be fully alive. To prepare ourselves and maintain a healthy acknowledgment of death, we must look to some appropriate literary companions—works that console and still, while gently encouraging acceptance. The following, written in language that rises above the ordinary, have a timeless serenity and great beauty that will achieve both these things, whether read in silence or aloud to an ailing family member or friend.

Pearl
is one of the most exquisite poems in the English language, thought to be written by the fourteenth-century poet who penned
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
.
Pearl
describes the loss of a “pearl of great price,” which many critics believe represents the two-year-old daughter of the poet, while others maintain it to be entirely allegorical, representing the loss of the soul. This ambiguity is what makes the poem so rich and irresistible. The agony of loss, the purity of love, the beauty of the pearl—all are wrought intricately into a remarkably complex poem. Don’t be alarmed by the
olde
English—you will soon get your tongue around it, and you can read it in a modern translation if you prefer. Composed of 101 stanzas of twelve lines each, link words cleverly tie verse to verse, and thematic links create a connection between the two ends of the poem, producing a structure that is itself circular—much like the cycle of life and death.

Believers and nonbelievers alike can take comfort from the concept of transformation at the time of death. For even if we believe that death is the end, we can still see that, in some sense, death is merely a change in form.
To help you feel part of the eternal wheel of life, read Ovid’s great work
Metamorphoses
,
and see how one thing becomes another, ad infinitum. There is all of life within these pages, from the myths of creation to the lives of the philosophers, from Chaos to Eros, from the coming of the gods to the trials of Hercules and Prometheus. But Ovid’s central theme is love: the power that transforms all things. Because of his desire, Zeus transforms himself into a swan, a bull, a shower of light. By his attempts on their honor, his victims become trees, water nymphs, birds, or beasts. Diana turns Actaeon into a stag because he fatally spied her naked. Narcissus metamorphoses into a flower out of his own self-love. And Echo lives forever as a repetitive sound, having pined away from lovesickness. Arachne is turned into a spider because she loved to weave.

In these mesmerizing myths of love and loss, we see that we abide in wildflowers, olive trees, streams, our lives flowing from one form to another in never-ceasing metamorphoses. Everything is mutable, nothing remains static, all beings pass from one state into another—not dying, but becoming.

Second Star to the Right

DEBORAH HAUTZIG

•   •   •

Life-Size

JENEFER SHUTE

E
ating disorders come in many forms. Self-starvation (anorexia nervosa) and bingeing and purging (bulimia) are the most common. Lesser-known but no less damaging disorders include orthorexia nervosa (an obsession with ingesting only the purest foods) and pica (an obsession with chewing and eating nonfood items). The jury’s out on what causes these obsessive behaviors. Some can perhaps be traced back to a root cause of abuse, neglect, or trauma. And, of course, many people point the finger at the pervasive media culture of toothpick-thin catwalk models. A need to feel in control is likely another major cause. Whatever the trigger, literature has solace, comfort, and wisdom for both the victim and those with the painful, frightening task of watching, and trying to help, from the sidelines.

Leslie, the talented fourteen-year-old in Deborah Hautzig’s
Second Star to the Right
, has a happy home life in New York with a mother who loves her “to the moon and back.” But when she begins to diet because she feels too fat, she becomes addicted to the thrill of losing weight and ends up hospitalized. As the novel spans the whole of her adolescence, we follow her desire to reach her goal weight of seventy-five pounds amid a recognizable teen world of boyfriends, clothes, and uncomprehending grown-ups. Her loyal,
intelligent best friend, Cavett, supports her unquestioningly throughout her illness.

The title comes from Peter Pan’s instruction to Wendy that Neverland is “second to the right and straight on till morning.” But the phrase resonates on a more complex, shocking level too. For it refers also to Leslie’s mother’s cousin, Margolee, who died as a teenager in Auschwitz along with her own mother. Given the choice of going “to the right” and living, or “to the left” to die in the gas chamber along with her mother, Margolee chose to go to the left. The tragedies of their deaths echo through the novel and provide a profoundly moving backdrop to the plot.

Despite the seemingly selfish solipsism of the anorexic, the question of whether Leslie herself chooses to go to the right or left—for it is, in the end, a choice—captures our sympathy absolutely.
Second Star to the Right
explores the immense psychological complexities of anorexia with clarity and compassion—and may offer hope for a way out.

Our second cure,
Life-Size
, is meant for friends and caregivers, taking as it does a character even further down the road of self-harm. In this disturbing novel, a young woman named Josie—described as a “starving organism”—does almost nothing but lie supine, occupying space. In the final stages of anorexia, she maneuvers her skeletal frame out of bed when nobody’s looking and runs on the spot in a frantic attempt to burn calories. She feels that her brain is “closer to the surface” now, that she’s able to see colors and experience smells more vividly than when everything was coated in “a thick aspic of fat”—as if she has attained “the self in its minimal form.” As she rages against the hospital “despots” who try to make her eat, she recites the number of calories in everything from a piece of bubble gum to a slice of cucumber, and reveals her obsessive fascination with food through the imaginary recipes and menus she concocts. We become aware of the extraordinary costs of her triumphing over her appetite. When a new path opens up for Josie, a genuine hope is planted in the reader. A grueling but important read, you’ll glean new insights into the powerful psychologies at play in eating disorders, and come away with the sense that there is light at the end of the tunnel, even in very serious cases.

See also:
Appetite, loss of
•
Hunger
•
Self-esteem, low

See:
Blushing
•
Idiot, feeling like an
•
Regret
•
Shame

Restoration

ROSE TREMAIN

F
or once, you’re on time. You’ve got your best suit on and your notes in your hands. You climb the podium and look down to adjust the microphone. As you do, you notice a dribble of bright yellow egg yolk snaking down your shirt.

Sound familiar? If so, make the acquaintance of Robert Merivel, the hero of Rose Tremain’s
Restoration
, set in the debauched court of King Charles II. Merivel is a glutton for the bawdy pleasures of seventeenth-century life. He’s generally to be found with his stockings around his ankles enjoying a tumble with a juicy wench, or laughing so hard he sends a mouthful of raisin pudding across the table at a banquet. When Merivel is given a rare audience with the king, he messes it up so atrociously that it seems he has squandered his one opportunity for bettering himself. But then he gets a second chance. And it’s on this occasion, just as he’s being offered the illustrious position of court physician to His Majesty’s dogs, that Merivel notices the egg stain on his breeches.

It matters not a bit. The king is delighted by Merivel, by his appetite for life and his ability to fart on demand, and goes on to bestow a string of favors on his feckless new friend. It doesn’t last forever, but the message remains: being a little messy in life can work to your advantage, given the right context.

See also:
Failure, feeling like a
•
Idiot, feeling like an

See:
Arrogance
•
Confidence, too much
•
Dictator, being a
•
Misanthropy
•
Selfishness
•
Vanity

Cruising in Your Eighties Is Murder
MIKE BEFELER

The House in Paris
ELIZABETH BOWEN

Lord Jim
JOSEPH CONRAD

World’s Fair
E. L. DOCTOROW

Parade’s End
FORD MADOX FORD

Across the River and into the Trees
ERNEST HEMINGWAY

The Master of Go
YASUNARI KAWABATA

The Cat’s Table
MICHAEL ONDAATJE

Gilead
MARILYNNE ROBINSON

Sanctuary Line
JANE URQUHART

See:
Egg on your tie
•
Idiot, feeling like an
•
Regret
•
Shame
•
Shame, reading associated

Like Water for Chocolate

LAURA ESQUIVEL

•   •   •

As I Lay Dying

WILLIAM FAULKNER

T
hose who find it difficult to express their emotions—or who share their life with someone who does—should bear in mind that a) an inability to express emotion doesn’t necessarily mean that emotions are absent, and b) there are alternative forms of expression not involving words or gestures that may be (and may be being) used instead.

In Laura Esquivel’s popular novel
Like Water for Chocolate
, Tita is forbidden from marrying her childhood sweetheart, Pedro, because tradition requires her, as the youngest daughter, to remain single and devote herself to
looking after her tyrannical mother instead. And so Tita pours the love she’s not supposed to feel for Pedro into the sumptuous food she prepares. Into the cake for Pedro’s wedding—for Pedro marries Tita’s sister Rosaura in order to stay close to Tita—she whisks martyrdom and bitterness. Into the meringue icing goes her longing. In the way we have come to expect from the Latin American magical realists, the guests digest the emotions along with the wedding cake and are all overcome by grief for the lost loves of their pasts. Tita’s quail in rose petal sauce, infused as it is with her sensuous passion for Pedro, turns her virginal sister Gertrudis into such a frenzy of sexual excitement that she strips off her clothes and runs naked through the streets—to be duly carried off on the back of a horse by an equally horny rebel soldier. If you, too, find it difficult to say “I love you,” try saying it with food. And partners who don’t get to hear those words, look out for the sentiment expressed in other ways.