Symptom: Feeling London
Cure: Books to give comfort and companionship
“When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.” Jane Austen – Pride and Prejudice
No matter who we are, or where we live or what we do, we will all feel lonely at one time or another. Perhaps in a world where we are always on and have immediate access to so many intimate details of others life, loneliness can be especially acute.
Loneliness is often associated with being isolated or on ones own. For some though, being surrounded by people and activity can be lonelier still; especially if you are not part of the activity. I can think of occasions in my own life when I have certainly felt lonely, for all sorts of reasons. It’s not a nice feeling and it can be difficult to know what to do with it. What I do know though is that at all these times I have always sought and found solace in books.
It is commonly said, (at least I think it is!), that if you have a room full of books you are never alone. I whole heartedly agree with this. Books are always there, they are dependable and filled with characters who can become your companion. Who hasn’t felt the warm embrace of a book or a story when you need it most.
With that in mind I think all of these books will provide comfort and friendship and companionship. They will draw you in and you will be able to hold them close as you navigate the rocky and sometimes lonely road we call life.
The Old Man and The Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Hemingway won the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Old Man and the Sea. It is a short, perfectly formed 99 pages joy of a read. It tells the tale of an old man, a young boy and a giant fish. The old man is alone but is joined by the young boy and a beautiful and compassionate friendship unfolds. It is a story of courage and overcoming immense challenges and shows how friendship can appear in the most unexpected places. Apart form the story it self, each word is so carefully chosen and sparse it is an absolute literary treat. It could be easily devoured in one go, on any lonely evening.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
This is a book full of terrible things, violence, shocking racism, narrow mindedness and cruelty. Atticus Finch is a lawyer and a single father bringing up Jem and Scout. He is older than most other fathers and mocked by others. And yet he shows immense bravery as he teaches his children morals through the way he conducts himself and defends a black man accused of raping a white woman. He is ostracised for this but stands firm and alone. So many of the other characters in the novel are also alone, and yet each of them eventually find comfort and support in other people who believe in them
Matilda by Roald Dahl
Sometimes when we are feeling lonely and out of sorts a trip down memory lane can be just what we need to comfort and soothe. And where better to go for that than the stories of our childhood. Roald Dahl will have been a big feature of so many childhoods. His stories have comforted and brought laughter and stirred imaginations for decades. With this in mind, it is Mathilda who I would recommend reacquainting your self with. Mathilda was a small girl who was lonely and bullied and different from everyone else. Her parents mostly ignored her and then sent her to a school with a terrible headmistress! She was clever though and found solace and inspiration in books and learning.
‘All the reading she had done had given her a view of life they had never seen’.
So rather than disappearing into her self or relying on other people to rescue her, she was able to find the power and strength inside her to confront those around her and win in the end! Who wouldn’t be comforted by that!
I hope you too can find companionship and comfort in the pages of a book.
