I wish I could have gone on reading it for ten years
True confession: I hate December. It's dark, where I live. The sun comes out about once every two weeks, looks around, thinks the better of it, and then goes away again. December's also cold, and very frequently icy/snowy/slushy/slishy/bone-breakingly slippery yech. And did I mention that it's dark?
At times like this I turn to comfort reading -- books, fics, movies, whatever that not only keep me entertained but make me feel better about the universe. There's a great example of this kind of reading in C.S. Lewis's Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Lucy has just learned something hurtful and she's understandably upset. Fortunately she happens to be reading a magician's spellbook, and the next thing she reads is a spell "for the refreshment of spirit." Lewis's description of it always makes me smile, because it captures so perfectly what reading your favorite book is like:
"Before she had read to the bottom of the page she had forgotten that she was reading at all. She was living in the story as if it were real, and all the pictures were real too. When she had got to the third page and come to the end, she said, "That is the loveliest story I've ever read or ever shall read in my whole life. Oh, I wish I could have gone on reading it for ten years. At least I'll read it over again."
Unfortunately Lucy finds the magic spellbook can't be reread -- but we're luckier than she is, and can reread our favorite anti-December books whenever we want.
What makes for a good anti-December book? Many of you gave me a good idea last week: in comments on a post about books that revolve around hatred, you pointed out that many books include characters who feel hate at one time or another but who eventually, as hyel put it, find themselves "letting go of pain and anger." These are NOT little-goody-two-shoes stories that pretend we don't have problems or don't feel rage. These are books, instead, that are explicitly ABOUT what Lewis called "the refreshment of spirit." That means the characters often are very angry at the beginning -- or sometimes, and this is even more interesting, they're just bored -- bored in that deadly way that's a prelude to depression, to that dark, Decembery condition where everything looks gray and blank because you just can't see the universe any more.
These books, stories, and movies understand the dark December of the mind -- understand it, and show people who learn to extract themselves from it and see again. A lot of you gave me suggestions about books/movies/fics like that in my post last week, and then I thought of a few more. I thought I'd make a list. Here they are, in no particular order: anti-December stories. I'd love it if you could tell me about any more that spring (so to speak) to mind.
Norman Juster - The Phantom Tollbooth (Children's book) Milo thinks he has nothing to do. A magic tollbooth arrives and lets him find out otherwise in a dazzlingly clever magical universe. Among other joys: escaping from the Doldrums, jumping to Conclusions, Subtraction Stew.
Neil Gaiman - Coraline (Children's book, sort of, but I think adults would get more out of it) Coraline, like Milo, also thinks she has nothing to do. I cannot even begin to describe how terrifying her adventures are, but they change the way she sees. Great, clever heroine, gobstoppingly amazing (if at times petrifying) fund of invention from everyone's favorite science-fiction rock star.
C.S. Lewis - The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Children's book) There's a religious subtext, but you can take it or leave it as you please. All of Lewis's books are concerned with "the refreshment of spirit" in one way or another, but this one shows different characters doing it in different ways: Caspian learning to be King, Lucy learning to be a woman, the unlovable Eustace learning to get rid of his dragonish tendencies.
Miyazaki (Director) - Spirited Away Look, if you haven't seen any Miyazaki films because you think, ugh, anime -- run, don't walk, to your nearest video store. Amazing visual invention in every movie, terrific female protagonists, and just about every plot revolves around finding joy rather than wreaking vengeance. In this one, a little girl slips into sort of hotel for the gods in an abandoned theme park, and gets embroiled in a conflict between two witches. Nothing is quite what it seems, and everything and everyone, particularly the little girl, is different in the end.
Terry Pratchett - Guards! Guards! AND Night Watch There's been some horribly sad news about Terry Pratchett lately. If you've never read him, do: his hilarious, witty Discworld books both embrace and transcend a panoply of genres (comedy, fantasy, science fiction, mystery, political satire). These two books capture key moments in the career of Sam Vimes, head of Ankh-Morpork Night Watch, a job that makes him responsible for dealing with everything from drunks to dragons. Without rubbing your face in it, Pratchett makes it clear that Vimes' worst enemies are cynicism and despair. Vimes wins, but never cheaply. Serious ethical subtext somehow embodied in comedy lighter than air.
Dorothy Sayers - Gaudy Night A Peter Wimsey/ Harriet Vane novel. Harriet revisits her old college and finds a mystery, true love, the wisdom of other women, and herself. Indescribable, perfect, required reading for any woman who wants to live the life of the mind AND life in general.
Francis Hodgson Burnett - The secret garden (Children's book) This one's a touch too heavy-handed for my taste now and then, but its heart is in the right place, namely: OUTSIDE, where people are doing things, rather than INSIDE, where people are soaking in rage and misery. Two unhappy, frustrated children help each other come back to life.
Ursula K. Leguin - The ones who walk away from Omelas What would you do if you discovered that all your happiness was based on some else's pain? LeGuin asks this question in this justly famous short story. I'm still trying to figure out what the ending means, but I think that's her point, and that figuring out the ending is supposed to be a lifetime project.
Ingmar Bergman (Director) - Fanny and Alexander A family convulses and recovers after the death of the father and after the self-hating, self-punishing remarriage of the mother to a dour minister. Long, slower than most Hollywood movies, but oh, so worth it for the gloriously happy ending. Said ending comes about by way of a mystical dream sequence inflected by the young hero's Christian AND Jewish family traditions. Incidentally one of the best Christmas movies ever.
Michael Curtiz (Director) Casablanca -- Deservedly classic movie whose cynical, saturnine hero, Rick, comes to terms with his past and finds the idealism he thought he'd lost -- all WITHOUT what ninety-nine movies out of a hundred would have gone for as the conventional happy ending to his story. Sometimes you have to give up in order to get up; that's what Rick does. It works because of fantastic performances, a great script, and some of the best story-telling in movies EVER. Every minute is perfect. (There's even a significant slashy subtext for those of us who think about these things -- has anyone ever seen fic for this?)
Those are some of my favorites. As I said above, more suggestions always welcome! There can't be enough anti-December art.
At times like this I turn to comfort reading -- books, fics, movies, whatever that not only keep me entertained but make me feel better about the universe. There's a great example of this kind of reading in C.S. Lewis's Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Lucy has just learned something hurtful and she's understandably upset. Fortunately she happens to be reading a magician's spellbook, and the next thing she reads is a spell "for the refreshment of spirit." Lewis's description of it always makes me smile, because it captures so perfectly what reading your favorite book is like:
"Before she had read to the bottom of the page she had forgotten that she was reading at all. She was living in the story as if it were real, and all the pictures were real too. When she had got to the third page and come to the end, she said, "That is the loveliest story I've ever read or ever shall read in my whole life. Oh, I wish I could have gone on reading it for ten years. At least I'll read it over again."
Unfortunately Lucy finds the magic spellbook can't be reread -- but we're luckier than she is, and can reread our favorite anti-December books whenever we want.
What makes for a good anti-December book? Many of you gave me a good idea last week: in comments on a post about books that revolve around hatred, you pointed out that many books include characters who feel hate at one time or another but who eventually, as hyel put it, find themselves "letting go of pain and anger." These are NOT little-goody-two-shoes stories that pretend we don't have problems or don't feel rage. These are books, instead, that are explicitly ABOUT what Lewis called "the refreshment of spirit." That means the characters often are very angry at the beginning -- or sometimes, and this is even more interesting, they're just bored -- bored in that deadly way that's a prelude to depression, to that dark, Decembery condition where everything looks gray and blank because you just can't see the universe any more.
These books, stories, and movies understand the dark December of the mind -- understand it, and show people who learn to extract themselves from it and see again. A lot of you gave me suggestions about books/movies/fics like that in my post last week, and then I thought of a few more. I thought I'd make a list. Here they are, in no particular order: anti-December stories. I'd love it if you could tell me about any more that spring (so to speak) to mind.
Norman Juster - The Phantom Tollbooth (Children's book) Milo thinks he has nothing to do. A magic tollbooth arrives and lets him find out otherwise in a dazzlingly clever magical universe. Among other joys: escaping from the Doldrums, jumping to Conclusions, Subtraction Stew.
Neil Gaiman - Coraline (Children's book, sort of, but I think adults would get more out of it) Coraline, like Milo, also thinks she has nothing to do. I cannot even begin to describe how terrifying her adventures are, but they change the way she sees. Great, clever heroine, gobstoppingly amazing (if at times petrifying) fund of invention from everyone's favorite science-fiction rock star.
C.S. Lewis - The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Children's book) There's a religious subtext, but you can take it or leave it as you please. All of Lewis's books are concerned with "the refreshment of spirit" in one way or another, but this one shows different characters doing it in different ways: Caspian learning to be King, Lucy learning to be a woman, the unlovable Eustace learning to get rid of his dragonish tendencies.
Miyazaki (Director) - Spirited Away Look, if you haven't seen any Miyazaki films because you think, ugh, anime -- run, don't walk, to your nearest video store. Amazing visual invention in every movie, terrific female protagonists, and just about every plot revolves around finding joy rather than wreaking vengeance. In this one, a little girl slips into sort of hotel for the gods in an abandoned theme park, and gets embroiled in a conflict between two witches. Nothing is quite what it seems, and everything and everyone, particularly the little girl, is different in the end.
Terry Pratchett - Guards! Guards! AND Night Watch There's been some horribly sad news about Terry Pratchett lately. If you've never read him, do: his hilarious, witty Discworld books both embrace and transcend a panoply of genres (comedy, fantasy, science fiction, mystery, political satire). These two books capture key moments in the career of Sam Vimes, head of Ankh-Morpork Night Watch, a job that makes him responsible for dealing with everything from drunks to dragons. Without rubbing your face in it, Pratchett makes it clear that Vimes' worst enemies are cynicism and despair. Vimes wins, but never cheaply. Serious ethical subtext somehow embodied in comedy lighter than air.
Dorothy Sayers - Gaudy Night A Peter Wimsey/ Harriet Vane novel. Harriet revisits her old college and finds a mystery, true love, the wisdom of other women, and herself. Indescribable, perfect, required reading for any woman who wants to live the life of the mind AND life in general.
Francis Hodgson Burnett - The secret garden (Children's book) This one's a touch too heavy-handed for my taste now and then, but its heart is in the right place, namely: OUTSIDE, where people are doing things, rather than INSIDE, where people are soaking in rage and misery. Two unhappy, frustrated children help each other come back to life.
Ursula K. Leguin - The ones who walk away from Omelas What would you do if you discovered that all your happiness was based on some else's pain? LeGuin asks this question in this justly famous short story. I'm still trying to figure out what the ending means, but I think that's her point, and that figuring out the ending is supposed to be a lifetime project.
Ingmar Bergman (Director) - Fanny and Alexander A family convulses and recovers after the death of the father and after the self-hating, self-punishing remarriage of the mother to a dour minister. Long, slower than most Hollywood movies, but oh, so worth it for the gloriously happy ending. Said ending comes about by way of a mystical dream sequence inflected by the young hero's Christian AND Jewish family traditions. Incidentally one of the best Christmas movies ever.
Michael Curtiz (Director) Casablanca -- Deservedly classic movie whose cynical, saturnine hero, Rick, comes to terms with his past and finds the idealism he thought he'd lost -- all WITHOUT what ninety-nine movies out of a hundred would have gone for as the conventional happy ending to his story. Sometimes you have to give up in order to get up; that's what Rick does. It works because of fantastic performances, a great script, and some of the best story-telling in movies EVER. Every minute is perfect. (There's even a significant slashy subtext for those of us who think about these things -- has anyone ever seen fic for this?)
Those are some of my favorites. As I said above, more suggestions always welcome! There can't be enough anti-December art.