When you're not feeling too well, slipping into a hot bath with a good book can do miracles. The hard part is choosing what book to read.
It’s good to remember that sometimes, when things aren’t going so well or your feeling a bit under the weather, books are there to offer comfort. Not any book, mind you. Novels are usually good, although it’s important to make sure the that subject matter isn’t closely related to what’s bothering you, and you wouldn’t want to pull something too hefty or difficult off the shelf. Ulysses is a great read in some contexts, but when you need to bundle up with a blanket, a cuppa, and a good book, I don’t think it offers the right kind of escapism. Mind you, I usually go for particularly light — or at least highly readable, which isn’t quite the same thing — books when I need comfort lit because I usually seek these books out as a break from school work, in which my principal task is reading fiction (yes, these are the woes of an English major).
The excellent Sarah Crown, from The Guardian, recently posted an article on her blog on sick lit, or the kind of literature she goes to when she’s ill (apparently, she has years of experience). The number one rule, according to her, is never to read something for the first time. I agree. Your mind, confounded by disease or simply troubled with other things, won’t have the capacity to cope with anything new to read, or at least it won’t be able to appreciate it. A visit from an old friend can do a lot of good when you’re not feeling well, but having to make the effort of conversing with someone new most certainly won’t. Revisits are therefore ideal, and Sarah Crown adds that revisiting anything is not necessarily the best idea either (once again, Ulysses comes to mind). As she puts it: “A crucial balance of familiarity, likeability and narrative propulsion must be struck.”
For readability and escapism, one of the most satisfying types of books I fall back on is of course YA or fantasy novels (I know G. would agree — how many times have I seen her reach for The Lord of the Rings after a stressful day of studying during exam periods). The Harry Potter books have changed my mind off dreary thoughts many times and invariably color sick days in bed with more fun and excitement than the TV ever could, and I’ve always told myself that my next bad cold would be the perfect opportunity to plunge once again into Philip Pullman’s engrossing His Dark Materials.
Non-fiction of the most confessional and charming kind also features prominently on my list of Comfort Lit. As already mentioned on this blog, Diana Athill’s memoir Yesterday Morning and a hot bath once saved me from a dreadful November flu. In the same vein, I revisit Anne Fadiman’s brilliant, funny, moving “confessional essays” — collected in Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader and At Large and at Small: Confessions of a Literary Hedonist — whenever I need to quiet down and cheer up. Speaking of Anne Fadiman, a bibliophile if there ever was one (her husband once offered her 19 pounds of used books for her birthday, to her delight) my preferred Comfort Lit is books about books — those rare, wonderful volumes that treat of literature and reading. I am always enchanted by their eccentricity, their passion, and their inevitably charming prose. The best writer on the subject is certainly Alberto Manguel, whose History of Reading and The Library at Night — readable, magical — are bibles for bibliophiles.
So that’s what I pull out when I need some Comfort Lit. What about you?
