Has a book ever saved your life or your sanity?
I tend to remember my life in books. “What were you reading when the shuttle blew up?” “What were you reading on 9/11?” “What were you reading while in labor?” “What were you reading when you went to your son’s wedding?” “What were you reading….”
I’ve read my way past heartbreak. I’ve taken time to read to calm myself down in the middle of hectic happy times. I’ve read to pull myself out of deep depression…
There’s usually a book in my pocket, particularly if I know I’m going to be at a difficult family get together or a fraught meeting. And I’ve been known to get news of a good friend’s death, and just take a day to read.
The thing is… what do you read at such times?
Today a friend posted this on tweetex:
She’s right you know? She is right that the right way to approach difficult issues is to put them in the past or the future, where you can approach them without the strange accruing politicization and the other issues that have added to it.
But more importantly getting away from the hot topic buttons of the day is the way to bet immersed in fantasy or futurism.
There is nothing wrong with writing fiction that isn’t immediate and has the issues of “right now”” first and foremost. On the contrary.
All those books ahead, which saved my life, or at least my sanity a number of times? None of them had anything to do with what was going through.
What they all were, from Good Omens to Puppet Masters, from Fer de Lance to mysteries with Jane Austen as the investigator was immersive stories that took me away from the problems obsessing me. Just far enough away that I could recover my equanimity and be able to think clearly again.
I’ve written a lot of things in my time, and some of them were difficult and supposed to make people think.
But as I read over my own stuff to resume some series, I find what really grabs me is stuff like Dyce, which was determinedly its own thing, and just fun escapist nonsense.
It’s immersive, and it pulls me in and now a few years away from it, it heals me, in a way.
So, what do you write in difficult times?
Well, whatever you want to.
I’m not saying your books shouldn’t be allegories or metaphors or whatever you want. But make sure it’s occluded enough that they that are, first and foremost, their own thing.
And that they are fun.
Because at least for me? Enjoyable, immersive books are the ones that have saved me.
Save a life today. Write something enjoyable.
Mad Genius Club 
20 responses to “Fiction for difficult times!”
Having just finished the umpteenth reread of This Old Shades and Black Sheep, I hear you.
I got into Bollywood films (and writing vaguely Indian-influenced fantasy) at a period where the structure of our federal government was getting really blatantly corrupt, as opposed to discreetly corrupt, and in retrospect I think watching (and then writing about) people who had been operating for a long time under the assumption that most people in government were obviously untrustworthy, and the exceptions were rare unicorns in danger of assassination, was my way of dealing with what was going on in the world.
Georgette Heyer beats Prozac any day of the week.
Absolutely 🙂
No question. 🙂
absolutely none.
I wrote the two and a half (thus far) plus fragment stories of the Founders War series in 2016, as a way to vent and to remind myself that the good will win.
I read “exotic” fantasy and archaeology and science to escape. Things like The Blue Sword, The Bridge of Birds, fantasy set in something besides purely Amer-European traditions. (Although it has gotten harder and harder to find those that don’t have PCness crammed in somehow to the point that it breaks the world building or characters.) Oh, and histories about places I kinda know a little about, but not too much – I want a bit of grounding for my escapism. I want to get away, not break my brain laboring to understand the material.
When I was recuperating from surgery several years ago, I reread the Archy McNally series (light caper mysteries set in Palm Beach, Florida). I then decided that my writing goal was to write that kind of book: something people could read after surgery or during chemotherapy, etc. Or when mourning the loss of someone they loved. I’d much rather write that, or read it, than the Great American Novel sort of thing.
And has anyone noticed that Great American Novels date very rapidly? There are so many forgotten bestsellers in libraries. It’s kind of depressing.
Conan the Barbarian, Solomon Kane, and Sherlock Holmes were the first to save my life. I still go back to all of them, because they have a grounding principle: There is good, and there is evil, and sometimes evil needs to make a satisfying THUMP when it hits the floor. (Or get eviscerated with a broadsword. Tomato, to-ma-toh….)
Bridge of Birds is another must-read. (There’s a great Harry Dresden fanfic in that style, The Ballad of Joyful Wing, up on Archive of Our Own.) Also near anything by Andre Norton, Charlotte MacLeod’s Peter Shandy mysteries, Janet Kagan’s Mirabile, the Ciaphas Cain books, the Star Commandos series.
When I’m stressed and trying to survive, I definitely want my mind to go somewhere and Somewhen Else. A lot of times that’s fantasy and SF, but I also like a bunch of history books. Stephen Turnbull’s books on the samurai are cool!
I’m currently writing an isekai where the main characters end up with entirely new problems to deal with, which is emotionally very good for them even if life-threatening.
Though that one is a lot of research, and the plotbunnies are vaguely toying with one that might be less research-intensive, about a young man doing something desperate to save his little sister and getting sort of adopted by some onmitsu elves….
I don’t have a lot of use for British humorists newer than him, but PG Wodehouse helped me through a rough patch in my teens.
I’ll leave a herring in the window for you.
Yeah, I like the Peter Shandy books as well.
Aw, thanks!
I don’t know about saving my sanity, but I definitely gravitate towards certain genres depending on my mood. I don’t know what I was reading during any particular historical events. But I can generally tell you where I was living when I read something, and sometimes what I was listening to.
I like the art today, very cool looking.
It’s the classics for me, along with authors that I know will write good stories when times are bad.
I’ve reread every Heinlein novel I have, and there are still things that I enjoy about those stories.
It doesn’t hurt that I can’t find any new books that are good “bad times” books.
About the only one I remember is The 13 Clocks while I was in the hospital after surgery. I read a lot and I read for comfort but I don’t remember the connections.
When I am troubled, sick, or the world is very difficult, I reach for the ‘fluff’ classics – Christie, Dick Francis, light mysteries/romance/cozies. I just cannot concentrate sufficiently for heavier reading.
I won’t say I deliberately write to themes, because the subconscious is totally in control. But I seem to have a lot of ”Society/government treats people like things” vs “People are all individuals who control their own destiny” sorts of conflicts, lately.
My escape reads? Some old, some new. Been on a superhero kick lately.
I’m hitting a lot of that, too.
Yeah. My characters are forever escaping, ducking, getting around the rules . . . and occasionally getting violent.
I just hope my subconscious realizes that at 70 years of age with crappy knees, this is strictly a mind exercise..
I’m also hoping mine realizes at 61 I ain’t going to personally do any of these things.