Last year I read an article on something called ‘bibliotherapy’. It’s basically the idea that you can use great literature as therapy. There are even experts who will recommend a specific classic for a specific problem (if you’ve just had a row with your mother in law, for example, try such and such a novel).
Anyway, in the new year I decided to stop reading newspapers, stop watching the news and stop going on social media. Instead, I vowed to read more. I printed off a copy of Harold Bloom’s list of the great books and have been working my way through them. I haven’t enjoyed everything of course. Some books were boring, or difficult, and some I just gave up on (Henry James, Cormac McCarthy and the vile Philip Roth, for example), but my god it really works. If you discipline yourself and make yourself read, it really does comfort and heal you. (Like I said, it takes discipline. I’m a very lazy person, and also quite a slow reader, so it has been an effort.)
So far this year, I have read ‘Pride and Prejudice’, ‘Wuthering Heights’, ‘My Antonia’, ‘Wolf Hall’, ‘Robinson Crusoe’, ‘Brideshead Revisited’ and ‘The Picture of Dorian Grey’. I’ve also been listening to a lot of audiobooks at the same time. Instead of listening to the radio when I drive, I hire CDs from the library. Some novels are perfect for audio. I would massively recommend Stephen Fry reading Sherlock Holmes, and also P G Wodehouse and Douglas Adams. Oh, and Dickens. A good reader (like Martin Jarvis) really brings Dickens to life. Right now, I’ve got Virginia Woolf in the car.
Does anyone else read the classics as a kind of therapy? I’ve even started reading out loud when I’m alone, which is also incredibly therapeutic. Reading P G Wodehouse out loud is probably the single best cure for a low mood that I’ve found.