 Replenishing the Bookish SoulbyGillian PolackI want to write you a deeply moving analysis of a book. Or I want to write you something wildly insightful that makes you rethink the way you read. This is neither of those. The truth is that I’ve been overworking. I doubt I’m capable of anything particularly deep or witty or emotional today. Maybe not this week, even. The good news is that I’m never the only person to overwork. Let me guess that if you haven’t been doing so yourself, you know someone who has. If we don’t all need time out, then we all at least know someone we know does. I have books that I use for my time out. Different books for different types of time out. It’s time for me to share some of them with you. Only some of them: a lifetime of reading means that I have a wide range of books that I use and could write 10,000 words on them. Since I’m already guilty of overwork, this is merely a select introduction. The most obvious category of comfort books for many people (and I am no exception) are the books of my childhood. Certain of the books I loved when worryingly young are more comforting than others. Some, in fact, are downright frightening. Let me give you just three sets of books right now, all at the comfort end of the scale. Maybe another day I’ll write about wonderful books that consistently terrify me. Richmal Crompton wrote a long series of books about an idyllic childhood for a child who was less than virtuous. I never wanted to be related to William or even to know him (although now I suspect I would be one of those undesirably antisocial adults who secretly encouraged his shenanigans), but I often look at my bookshelves and wonder why I don’t have more of these books. William books were some of the first books I bought using my very own pocket money, the moment my very own pocket money amounted to enough for such things as books. The very first book I was given for a birthday, on the other hand, was an Enid Blyton Secret Seven book, which is odd, because I no longer find them comforting at all. The reason I have only a few of the William books is that friends forget to return them. This is why the William books are listed first; quite obviously they are a secret addiction shared by many. Elizabeth Beresford was one of my Grand Introductions to children like myself (in a perfect universe where I lived in a comfortably middle-class nineteenth century England) who could have magical adventures. Cosy magic, with a sense of danger. My favourite Beresford books all had this profile and these are they ones I turn to when I’m tired or grumpy. I know they’ll work out fine and I know that the children will make stupid errors and that siblings don’t always have to smile sweetly at each other and agree. I can’t remember when I first encountered a Beresford book, but it was so very early in my existence that I can’t imagine life without them Patricia Wrightson’s books are almost the opposite of Beresford’s. Australian. Not safe at all. Her The Nargun and the Stars, where a boy encounters some very old magic indeed, is one of my near-perfect novels, along with Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. The story is exquisitely told. It’s not safe, because it’s places I know and people I could be. It’s comforting, however, because it’s a tale I would tell, if I had that kind of talent. It was one of my early writing dreams, to write something that discomforting about a place I knew and people who could be people I knew. Not all comfort books come in single volumes. There is also the comfort of the long series of books. When I know that my mood is going to last for more than an hour, I will turn to one of these, for then I can escape just as long as the series endures. Some of these series endure quite a long time! Generations and dozens of volumes. These series include Elinor M. Brent-Dyer’s Chalet School books (of which Chaz Brenchley is also a fan—I shall never read one of his books in quite the same way again) where very British schoolgirl adventures happen at a school that starts off on the Continent; the Abbey Girl books (where Elsie J. Oxenham combines the folk movement, the Arts, and the landed gentry in a series that still sees Australian fans crowning May Queens); Arthur Ransome's series that begins with Swallows and Amazons. I have to admit that I made myself buttered eggs in the style Susan knew, while I was in Europe, just to prove I could. Then, of course, there is the Billabong series. Quintessentially Australian and very dated, Mary Grant Bruce's books always take me back to the happiest places of my childhood. I grew up in and still love the Melbourne her main character so detested. I had almost nothing in common with Norah or her lifestyle: and yet … this is my comfort reading. I can see the racism and the lament for an Australia that never really existed and yet, comfort reading takes no note of that. These are the books that set themselves up for my emotional safety when I was young and so now, that I am older and more sophisticated and life is no safer, they are still there for me. Mind you, the lack of rational reasons for comfort apply to some of the books I discovered in my teens and early twenties as well. The Darkover series by Marian Zimmer Bradley, P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves books, Dorothy L. Sayers and her Wimsey, almost anything by Georgette Heyer, books by Mercedes Lackey and Anne McCaffrey and others. All have enough volumes to keep my mind from wandering too far into places it should not go, and I’m happy. I even have a special secret place where I store a selection of these series, just in case. If I need to escape for just a few minutes, however, I have a different stash. Cookbooks, mainly. In my lounge room. Hiding in plain sight. I can take out a volume by Claudia Roden or I can reach for the Alice B Toklas cookbook and I can put it back again, a short while later, refreshed. Sometimes I need more than that. Sometimes I need a special volume. One that doesn’t just take me away somewhere, but which has a particular heart and soul. I suspect that The Nargun and the Stars ought to be in this category. George Gissing’s books always are, and Patricia McKillip’s, as is To Kill a Mockingbird and Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita. For other types of time out I have other sorts of books, of course, but I could write forever on the subject and that would mean, of course, that I’d be guilty of overwork again. I will say, however, that if any of you have favourite books for times of stress and of overwork and would like to share the titles and authors and maybe a bit about them with me, I’d be very happy to share them with the readers of this column next time I need time out. Books mentioned in this column:
Gillian Polack is based in Canberra, Australia. She is mainly a writer, editor and educator. Her most recent print publications are a novel (Life through Cellophane, Eneit Press, 2009), an anthology (Masques, CSfG Publishing, 2009, co-edited with Scott Hopkins), two short stories and a slew of articles. Her newest anthology is Baggage, published by Eneit Press (2010).One of her short stories won a Victorian Ministry of the Arts award a long time ago, and three have (more recently) been listed as recommended reading in international lists of world's best fantasy and science fiction short stories. She received a Macquarie Bank Fellowship and a Blue Mountains Fellowship to work on novels at Varuna, an Australian writers' residence in the Blue Mountains. Gillian has a doctorate in Medieval history from the University of Sydney. She researches food history and also the Middle Ages, pulls the writing of others to pieces, is fascinated by almost everything, cooks and etc. Currently she explains 'etc' as including Arthuriana, emotional cruelty to ants, and learning how not to be ill. She is the proud owner of some very pretty fans, a disarticulated skull named Perceval, and 6,000 books. Contact Gillian.
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