The Novel Cure: From Abandonment to Zestlessness: 751 Books to Cure What Ails You (9 page)

Malcolm escapes his carapace of flesh in the end. But unless you want to be living in your parents’ bedroom at age forty-three, unless you want blisters and sores on parts of your body that you can’t even see, unless you fancy being unable to even meet your hands together to pray for escape, read this. Then get up, out of bed, right now.
*

See also:
Ambition, too little
•
Lethargy
•
Read instead of live, tendency to

See:
Broken heart
•
Death of a loved one
•
Widowed, being
•
Yearning, general

See:
Children, not having
•
Children, under pressure to have
•
Shelf, fear of being left on the

Midnight’s Children

SALMAN RUSHDIE

S
o you’re about to be one year older and you don’t like it at all. You may fear the loss of your looks (see: Vanity; Baldness). You may fear the loss of your health and marbles (see: Senile, going). Well, you’re not the only one (see: Aging, horror of; Old age, horror of). In fact, at this very moment, one million seventy-six thousand two hundred and eighty
*
other people on this planet are also experiencing the birthday blues. Just like Saleem Sinai, the hero of
Midnight’s Children
, who shares his
birthday (midnight on August 15, 1947) with the birth of a newly independent India and one thousand others, so you too took your first breath on the same day in the same year as an awful lot of other people around the world.

You don’t have to believe in astrology (or magical realism) to see that you have a special connection to these people—just as Saleem’s life is yoked to the history of his country, and to the other “children of midnight” with whom he shares a strange telepathy and magical gifts. Think of it this way: it’s already an uncanny coincidence to be alive on this planet with anyone else at all, given how long the universe has been in existence and how long it is likely to remain so into the future. To think that there are other people born the
very same day, the very same year
—well, they’re practically your siblings! Doesn’t it make you want to rush out into the world and wish them all a happy birthday?

On the eve of your big day, tuck in to
Midnight’s Children
along with all the other birthday boys and girls your age. Raise your glass to your extended family. Experience, simultaneously, the vibrancy and color of this delightful novel, chuckle in tandem at its goofy humor and attention to the craziness of life. As you laugh, you will feel young again, together. Keep reading all night, as you used to do years ago. It’s a long novel. From over the top of the page, watch those blues turn pink with the dawn.

See also:
Dissatisfaction

Oroonoko

APHRA BEHN

I
f you feel you have been dealt an unfair hand and deserve better, that everybody else but you has it easy, if you are outraged when things do not go your way, you may have succumbed to the scourge of bitterness. It may well be true that you were dealt a bad hand. But life is what we make it and nobody said it would be fair. Besides, people tend to shun bitter characters—in life as well as literature—as they exude anger and ill will. Unless you want to make your life even harder, we urge you to take a lesson from the magnificent Prince Oroonoko, hero of a tale of betrayal, true love, and stoicism published in 1688.

Prince Oroonoko, tall, proud, and strikingly regal, loves Imoinda. She
loves him too—and marries him—but she is so beautiful that the King of Coramantien (present-day Ghana) falls in love with her as well and forces her to join his harem. She and Prince Oroonoko manage to escape together, but are caught and sold into slavery. Miraculously, they find each other, in Surinam, and even conceive a child, but their plea to return to their homeland is ignored. Abandoned and betrayed, they tackle head-on the political forces that keep them enslaved, and things go from bad to worse—and then to even worse still.

No one has greater reason to be bitter than Oroonoko. Not only is his wife taken from him, but he is caught up in the terrible injustice of slavery. Right at the end, when all is lost, Oroonoko faces a final, horrific ordeal: the dismemberment of his limbs, one by one. But having recently discovered the consolation of the tobacco pipe, he bears the torture by calmly smoking, sanguine and pensive. We don’t recommend that you take up smoking. But we do recommend that you emulate Oroonoko’s ability to rise above life’s unfairness and live his life without a grudge.

See also:
Anger
•
Cynicism
•
Hatred
•
Jealousy
•
Regret
•
Scars, emotional
•
Schadenfreude

See:
Constipation
•
Writer’s block

Lady: My Life as a Bitch

MELVIN BURGESS

B
lushing is something we dread. Occurring when adrenalin generated by a rush of embarrassment makes the blood vessels just under the surface of the skin expand, it turns the visage a bright, unnatural crimson that nobody can fail to notice. We all suffer the horror of blushing as teenagers, and it can happen occasionally as adults (see: Shyness). But a few continue to suffer from it chronically through adulthood, to the point where it becomes a vicious circle—fearing the blush so
much that the fear creates it.
*
The truth is that blushing is something we respond to warmly; recent research has shown that those who blush are seen in a positive light by their peers. But if you feel that your blushing is a hindrance to your enjoyment of social situations, we prescribe one of Melvin Burgess’s unashamedly dirty teenage novels,
Lady: My Life as a Bitch
.

Sandra Francy is a girl of seventeen who is seriously hot for boys. She’s been hanging around with a lot of them recently, loving every minute. But two pages in, she loses her feminine charms in a rather shocking way. It happens by accident. An “alchie” in the street whom she annoys by knocking over his beer calls her a “bitch.” Suddenly she’s down on all fours, baring her teeth at him, and when she runs away, she’s delighted by her unaccustomed speed. She has lived up to his accusation—not that she realizes it for a while. Wondering why her family keeps shouting at the mad dog that seems to be just behind her, she finally sees a mongrel in her bedroom mirror—and realizes it’s her.

Burgess handles the weirdness of the situation with consummate skill. Sandra tries to speak to her parents, and they can half hear her trying to form words. She does her best to walk on her hind legs to show them she’s really human, and while they begin to believe her, they are still creeped out by the freak before them. Soon she finds herself out on the street.

And so Sandra discovers the joys of canine fun. “Life at the edge tastes so sweet! It’s steal or starve, life or death . . . Glorious days!” She fluctuates between doggy hilarity, hunting cats in clever half-human ways, and trying to find a way back to humanity. When she sees the picture of her human self on a
MISSING
poster, she remembers her past and longs for home. But might she in fact be better off as a dog?

Certainly a constant blusher might. Immerse yourself in the uninhibitedness of this novel. Get hairy. Lose that self-consciousness that is unique to humanity. Run with the pack, clatter through deserted streets, take no heed of human laws. Dash until your pads bleed, then lick them dry. Discover your doggy nature and your roseate cheeks will no longer concern you.