The Novel Cure: From Abandonment to Zestlessness: 751 Books to Cure What Ails You (78 page)

One day Heathcliff holds Catherine prisoner at Wuthering Heights until she marries Linton. Soon after, Catherine’s father, Edgar Linton, dies and then so does Linton, perhaps in revenge against Heathcliff for forcing him to marry Catherine. Heathcliff therefore inherits Thrushcross Grange and forces Catherine to live at Wuthering Heights with him and Hareton.
*
While Catherine and Hareton fall in love, Cathy’s ghost continues to take revenge on Heathcliff by driving him mad. One wild night Heathcliff dies, presumably in revenge against Cathy, but also in revenge against himself. Hareton and Catherine inherit Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange and decide to get married and the reader takes revenge on Emily Brontë by
gunning for Heathcliff all the way through because of his overwhelming love for Cathy, despite the fact that he’s been vile and taken revenge on absolutely everybody ever since Hindley first took revenge on him for something that wasn’t, in fact, his fault.

Do you see? Don’t do it. The revenge that comes back to you will be worse than the revenge you inflicted in the first place. And it may start a cycle of vengeance that goes on all your life.

See also:
Anger
•
Bitterness
•
Murderous thoughts
•
Rage

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

•   •   •

Musashi

EIJI YOSHIKAWA

T
here is violence from without and violence from within. Let’s deal with the latter first.
Most of us are aware that every now and then in a flash of rage we have a brief fantasy of committing a violent act. Most of us quash it immediately. But if you find it hard to resist the urge to lash out physically, and harder still to stop thinking about,
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
will allow you to explore and reflect upon your inner violent streak.

Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous novel is a deep excavation of the latent possibility of violence within us. Dr. Jekyll, a respectable doctor and experimental scientist living in London, has long been fascinated by the opposing natures of man, and so he decides to divide his own two natures using a homemade drug. The temporary schism will allow his dark side to operate independently of his moral, respectable self. And because he looks completely different when he transforms into Mr. Hyde—shorter, hairier, younger—Jekyll need not answer to the consequences of Hyde’s actions.

We don’t actually witness most of what Hyde gets up to; his ominous disappearances, sometimes lasting several months, remain shrouded in mystery. But we soon gather that he is a monster capable of the utmost depravity. As Hyde begins to dominate Jekyll, making it harder and harder for Jekyll to maintain his respectable facade, soon he can no longer control whether he’s
Jekyll or Hyde. It’s a powerful message about what happens when our own darker natures begin to take over.

If it’s the violence of others you fear, acquire the strength of a samurai by reading Eiji Yoshikawa’s epic novel
Musashi.
This nine-hundred-page masterpiece about the noble pursuit of samurai swordsmanship takes you on a journey from punishing mountaintop training rituals with Zen Buddhist teachers to the battlefields of sixteenth-century Japan and thence to the discovery of love, humility, and wisdom. Our impressive hero eventually realizes that committing a violent act is the last thing he ever wants to do. But the knowledge of his inner strength means that he’ll never need to. Absorb the legend of Musashi. Let his fearlessness—if not his martial art prowess—inspire you. Show the kind of inner confidence and unconquerable demeanor he does, and would-be aggressors will leave you well alone.

See also:
Confrontation, fear of
•
Murderous thoughts
•
Rage

See:
Alcoholism

The Stars My Destination

ALFRED BESTER

W
aiting rooms mean hospitals, doctors, dentists, train stations, bus depots, airports. Joyless, drab, stained with worry, echoing despair. It is crucial to be armed for this dead zone with the perfect novel cure.

Which is Alfred Bester’s hugely influential 1956 novel
The Stars My Destination
. What makes it perfect fodder for a waiting room is Bester’s unique “jaunting.” Jaunting, developed unintentionally by a man named Jaunte, is the technique of transporting yourself to another location. As long as you have the coordinates of where you are now and where you are going, and you can visualize your destination, you can jaunte anywhere on this planet, either instantly or in stages. The only limit is that it must occur within space: it is impossible to jaunte through a vacuum. Jaunting is all about the mind: it works by focusing very clearly and
willing
the leap through space. Once Gully Foyle comes along, the entire jaunting system is challenged by his dauntless roaming through the galaxies.

The novel is set in the twenty-fifth century, when Gully, the sole survivor of an unexplained catastrophe, is clinging to life in the only airtight room left intact in the wreck of his spaceship, the
Nomad
. His locker is four feet wide, four feet deep, and nine feet high—a “lightless coffin” in which he’s been incarcerated for five months, twenty days, and four hours. When a ship appears in space that could save him, Gully is galvanized into action. But
Vorga
passes him by. Gully swears vengeance, and this is what drives him to survive. When we next see Gully, he is at a jaunte training school back on Earth, playing AWOL with his coordinates and going countries farther than he is strictly allowed.

As you read this in your waiting room, be grateful, at least, that it is (we hope) a little bigger than “four by four by nine.” Harness the power of your mind and feel possibilities surge through you as you imagine all the places you would jaunte to if you could. You may not get your full jaunte certification, but you may discover, like Gully, new skills waiting to be used in the chambers of your mind.

See also:
Anxiety
•
Boredom

The Alexandria Quartet

LAWRENCE DURRELL

S
o you are gripped by the desire to go to Africa.
*
For the sake of argument, let’s say that you want specifically to go to Egypt. And within Egypt, the city that enthralls you, calls to you, is Alexandria, the city founded by Alexander the Great.

Reader, consider the expense. First of all, there are all the things you will have to buy in advance: luggage, digital camera, safari trousers, etc. It all adds up. Then there’s the cost—and let’s not forget the environmental cost—of the flight. At either end there will be trains, taxis, trams, camels, feluccas. Then there are the hotel bills—and if you’re anything like us, you’ll convince yourself you should stay in the nicest room you can find, so you can make the most of it,
splurge a bit, now that you’ve come all this way. And we haven’t even begun to add up the cost of the food—three meals a day, in restaurants and cafés—and the mosquito repellent and the medicines. And what about the shopping? You will almost certainly want to buy an expensive shawl or rug or bowl as a souvenir. And go on excursions—to the pyramids, the Red Sea, the desert. Again, now that you’ve come all this way.

Consider, also, the discomfort. Alexandria in the height of summer is stiflingly hot. And at night it can be freezing cold. And that’s not even to start on the winds.

And finally consider the strain of all this on your relationship with your traveling companion(s). Hot, tired, perhaps suffering from digestive troubles, you will be at your most irritable—and so will they. Only the naive would expect to come home from such a trip with their marriage/friendship intact.

Now consider the alternative. Stay at home and read about Alexandria in the first three volumes of the Alexandria Quartet:
Justine
,
Balthazar
, and
Mountolive
(skipping, for now, the fourth, which is set in Corfu). Together with the narrator, Darley, your guides to the city will be Alexandrian natives: the vain, goddesslike Justine, magnificent with her dark skin and white dresses, every particle the Alexandrian society woman; her husband, the humorless but faithful Prince Nessim; the fragile, sickly Melissa; the serene, solitary artist Clea; and Balthazar, with his “deep croaking voice of great beauty,” yellow goat eyes, and monstrous hands. Darley himself, an itinerant schoolteacher, falls in love with them all.

And as you visit every corner of this dusty city in their company, wandering aimlessly from the cafés to the sandy beaches in the fast fading afternoon light, so will you. The best way to know Alexandria is to know its people. Durrell believed we are formed by the place we’re from, but also that we then inform that place further. These richly drawn characters make this city what it is. Luxuriate in the layers, then, of the characters and the city they cannot exist without. By the time you emerge, not only will you intimately know this ancient city, but you’ll have saved yourself a bundle in time, hassles, and discomfort.

Save the planet and your pocket by traveling the world from your armchair.

Guyana:
The Sly Company of People Who Care
RAHUL BHATTACHARYA

Burma/India:
The Glass Palace
AMITAV GHOSH

Spain:
For Whom the Bell Tolls
ERNEST HEMINGWAY

Japan:
Snow Country
YASUNARI KAWABATA

Australia:
Kangaroo
D. H. LAWRENCE

Trinidad:
Is Just a Movie
EARL LOVELACE

Libya:
In the Country of Men
HISHAM MATAR

United States:
The Razor’s Edge
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

France:
Good Morning, Midnight
JEAN RHYS

Honduras:
The Mosquito Coast
PAUL THEROUX

See also:
Itchy feet

Fabulous Nobodies

LEE TULLOCH

M
any of us face this ailment at the start of every day. Gazing at a chaos of bobbly, hole-ridden, ill-fitting, and faded relics, alongside a few classy numbers completely unsuitable for everyday wear, we shiver in our undies trying and discarding random alternatives one by one. As we slip resignedly into whatever we had on the day before, we dream of that ideal outfit—comfortable yet well made, flattering yet relaxed—that can take us anywhere. Or, even better, a perfectly thought-out collection of stunning, coordinated pieces for every occasion, plus lots of clever accessories. If this fantasy strikes a chord,
Fabulous Nobodies
is the novel for you.

Reality Nirvana Tuttle has a huge responsibility. As fashion enforcement officer at the Manhattan club Less Is More, she must let in the fabulous and turn away the drab. Reality, known as Really to her friends, is infallible on the subject of fashion fabulousness. Anyone wearing angora, acrylic, or peach chiffon is
out
. Anyone wearing Thierry Mugler or an old Pucci print is
in
. And on top of that, Reality has to recognize the Somebodies who look like unfabulous Nobodies, and let them in too.

Reality may come across as an insufferable fashion victim, but her love affair with frocks is endearing, and she does show genuine concern for her style-challenged acolytes. Like them, you’ll learn a lot from her. Not only
will she steer you through common fashion mistakes, but she’ll also open your eyes to the potential for the clothes already in your wardrobe. As with friends, you’ll need to choose well—and then look after them, appreciating their special qualities, and finding ways to support and encourage what they do best. Ultimately, the novel acknowledges the folly and absurdity of fashion, but let’s face it: clothes are a fact of life. So get to know your own wardrobe inside and out. Identify and source any omissions. Give the useless ones away. Your mornings will be forever easier.