The Novel Cure: From Abandonment to Zestlessness: 751 Books to Cure What Ails You (69 page)

T
he fact that Douglas Cheeseman and Harley Savage get together in the course of Kate Grenville’s
The Idea of Perfection
gives hope to anyone who fears failing to find a partner with whom to share life. Douglas has zero confidence and a face that makes him “look stupid.” Harley is convinced from her third husband’s suicide that she’s not only a dud but actually dangerous to be with. Both are in middle age and dragging a deadweight of emotional baggage behind them.

But get together they do. And in a novel that’s all about learning to accept imperfections—first in oneself and then in others—their experience helpfully points out a possible way in which you might be sabotaging your chances beyond that first date. Be sure to keep the novel’s epigraph, from Leonardo da Vinci, in your mind: “An arch is two weaknesses which together make a strength.”

See also:
Mr./Mrs. Right, looking for

Tender Is the Night

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

•   •   •

American Psycho

BRET EASTON ELLIS

T
he modern compulsion to spend, spend, spend has seen many an overexcited acquirer of nice things go under, credit card gripped between their teeth. Either we end up in debt (see: Broke, being) or strapped to the hamster wheel of earn, earn, earn in order to stay afloat (see: Workaholism).

One of our favorite shoppers is the beautiful, damaged Nicole in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s
Tender Is the Night
, whose ability to spend—wantonly, guiltlessly—cannot but be admired. And while we are the first to admit that the sheer act of purchasing can give a high, it’s not hard to see that if women such as Nicole were less dependent on looks and dresses for a sense of their own worth, they might not need to spend quite so recklessly (see: Self-esteem, low).

The profusion of designer labels splattering the pages of
American Psycho
, Bret Easton Ellis’s groundbreaking and nerve-shattering foray into the head of a mass-murdering psychopath, is presented as an early warning sign of a world that has lost its values. And, indeed, if you are brave enough to tough this one out, it will put you off designer goods forever.

Patrick Bateman is a stickler for the rules. You have to be manicured, coiffed, perma-tanned, hard muscled, and wearing the right clothes. You have to eat—that is, be seen eating—at only the hottest restaurants. You have to own the nicest things. So it doesn’t strike us as obvious that Pat Bateman is telling the truth when he mutters to his girlfriend that, far from being the “boy next door,” as she likes to call him, he is in fact a “fucking evil psychopath.” But once we start to witness this for ourselves, with random killings,
mutilations, and torturings, we see it as a chillingly convincing extension of the contemptuous, controlling, inhumane facade we have seen in him all along.

At one point, Bateman makes a list of things he intends to buy as Christmas gifts for his Wall Street colleagues—and if you’re anything like us, you won’t be able to look at a silver-plated wine carafe, or anything else from this lunatic’s list, in the same light again. We’re not, of course, suggesting your buying habits make you a psychopath too. But do watch that spending. Don’t fix your gaze so much on the starry labels that you lose sight of what really matters. One last warning: the scenes in this book are truly horrific and will stay with you for a lifetime; perhaps the association of obsessive consumerism with these grisly images alone will be enough to cure you of your shopaholic ways.

See also:
Book buyer, being a compulsive
•
Extravagance
•
Greed
•
Tax return, fear of doing

The Tin Drum

GÜNTER GRASS

•   •   •

The Hobbit

J. R. R. TOLKIEN

F
or the vertically challenged, it’s endlessly gratifying to read about characters who are powerful, immensely charismatic, and
short
. Here, we give you two such heroes, whose stories will thoroughly weaken any hang-ups you may have about your succinct stature.

Oskar Matzerath is a bundle of compressed energy, a man who makes up for his curtailed growth by becoming a galvanic force of myth creation. His subject is himself, and he narrates Günther Grass’s
The Tin Drum
from within a mental asylum, where he has been incarcerated for the murder of Sister Dorothea. He is, we quickly realize, an unreliable narrator, claiming as he does that he was fully cognizant at his own birth. On his third birthday, he tells us, three pivotal things occurred: he deliberately ceased to grow; he was given a tin drum, from which he henceforth refused to be parted; and he stopped speaking, communicating now only by drum.

This drum becomes Oskar’s voice for the next twenty-seven years, and although he is a character with many faults, he gives off an energy as compelling as a jazz solo. But it’s his mastery over his physical destiny that really sets him apart. His self-willed shortness stands as a symbol of strength—and defiance.

The quiet, dignified essence of Bilbo Baggins in
The Hobbit
could not be more different. Bilbo belongs to a race of creatures about half the size of your average human, with big, hairy feet and soles so thick they make footwear redundant. Hobbits love comfort, warmth, and at least six meals a day, and they much prefer the predictability of staying at home. Bilbo, however, is destined for an epic adventure. When thirteen dwarves come to his door and ask him to help them in their quest to regain their rightful treasure from the dragon Smaug, something awakens in Bilbo’s breast, something mad and magical handed down from his ancestors.

Take heart, O ye of little loftiness, and consider these sturdy heroes. They may be scant of skeleton, but they are huge in heroism and influence. Never let it be said that to be short is to be slight.

See also:
Self-esteem, low

The Dud Avocado

ELAINE DUNDY

B
eing shy can be paralyzing. School, work, social occasions, even running errands can fill sufferers with dread. While we wholeheartedly encourage the obsessive reading of novels as a general rule, we are also aware that burying your nose in a book may not be the best way to break free of shyness—it may in fact be more symptom than cure. So restrict your reading hours, then, and use novels to prepare yourself to get out more. One character who will nudge you into the realm of the extroverts is the
jolie
heroine of
The Dud Avocado
, Elaine Dundy’s fifties classic.

A woman who has an orgasm in a café in Paris while holding the hand of a man she barely knows can hardly be accused of being shy. Sally Jay Gorce is a champagne cork of a woman who flies through life with a gush of bubbles in her wake. At twenty-one, she has gone to Paris just after the Second World War, having made a deal with her uncle Roger, who told her to go and discover herself, then come back and tell him all about it. She makes the most of her journey by dying her hair a rainbow of colors, becoming a mistress to Teddy, working as an extra on a film set, posing nude for an artist, and losing her passport in circumstances that lead her to discover that she can’t trust all the menfolk in her life.

Her voice is sassy, knowing, and cool; she is a woman on her own in the
world’s most beautiful city. And she is clear about a thing or two: that she’s here to fulfill her childhood dreams (“staying out late and eating what she likes”), that she’ll meet people all on her own, that she’ll live in a house “without a single grown-up,” that when she walks around Paris no one will be keeping tabs on her, that her goal is to get to a point where she can “guess right about people.”

With her sardonic tone and disdain of convention, Sally Jay is simply fabulous company for the shy. After spending three hundred pages with her, you may just find yourself adopting her breezy attitude toward life.
À l’enfer
with what
tout le monde
thinks of you. Learn to believe in
toi-même
.

See also:
Blushing
•
Dinner parties, fear of
•
Loneliness, reading induced
•
Seduction skills, lack of
•
Self-esteem, low
•
Words, lost for