Word Havens: Reading One’s Way out of Trauma in Contemporary Fiction

Lucia Opreanu

doi:10.31178/ubr.9.2.10

Abstract

Prompted by the attention received in recent years by the collateral benefits of reading and the growing prominence of bibliotherapy in the literary marketplace, this paper aims to investigate the therapeutic effects of books as they emerge from the experience of fictional characters, a perhaps less scientifically sound endeavour than empirical studies and clinical trials targeting real-life readers but one likely to occasion interesting perspectives on reading as a coping mechanism in the face of trauma. By focusing on a variety of reading experiences gleaned from a selection of novels ranging from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to William Styron’s Sophie’s Choice, Graham Swift’s Waterland, Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient, Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, Lloyd Jones’ Mister Pip and Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows’ The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and targeting acts of solitary communion with narrative as well as illicit seminars, informal book clubs and impromptu public readings, the analysis intends to highlight the extent to which literature can provide more than a mere pastime or intellectual challenge to its most vulnerable readers. Whether such benefits entail a sense of community, a temporary shelter from the hardships of war, a reprieve from the abuses of a totalitarian government or sanctuary from the less brutal but nevertheless haunting scars of broken relationships, parental disapproval or social rejection, the ultimate goal is to identify and assess the various survival strategies employed within these fictional universes. The

Highlights

The last decade has witnessed renewed interest in the elusive link between the consumption of high literature and the development of enhanced “moral and social sensibilities” (Currie, “Great Literature”), as well as in “spiritual” reading’s perhaps less illusory abilities to foster thoughtfulness and compassion and “transcend the immediacy of the material, the moment, or even the moral choice at hand” (Swallow Prior, “Reading Human”)
While the more academic segments of the reading public had hopefully long been aware of the unfeasibility of living “by the ethics of the Iliad, or by the politics of Plato” (Bloom 40) and the serious threats posed by illiteracy, “insensitivity in the well-to-do” (Weldon 94) and “purported defenders” of “aesthetic and cognitive standards . . . who blather to us about moral and political values in literature” (Bloom 40) alike, recent revisitations of such issues have the undeniable merit of promoting the need to “practise the art of empathy” (Weldon 94) through reading to a considerably wider and quite likely younger audience
Ogden, “Need Bibliotherapy”), and that the novels of Jane Austen were used by an Oxford tutor to alleviate the symptoms of severely shell-shocked World War I soldiers: “Who better to soothe minds unhinged at Passchendaele or the Somme? In the therapeutic calm of her pages history’s victims could escape from their nemesis.” (Fowler 275) while bibliotherapy only received official recognition as a mental health treatment in 1941, some of its principles probably go as far back as the “House of Healing for the Soul” set up by King Ramses II for his book collection

Summary

Introduction

The last decade has witnessed renewed interest in the elusive link between the consumption of high literature and the development of enhanced “moral and social sensibilities” (Currie, “Great Literature”), as well as in “spiritual” reading’s perhaps less illusory abilities to foster thoughtfulness and compassion and “transcend the immediacy of the material, the moment, or even the moral choice at hand” (Swallow Prior, “Reading Human”).

Objectives

Results

Conclusion