When I am really down there have always been books and stories to cheer me up. One of the darkest times of my life was after I had finished school. More than a year of torment and suffering found a break in an exam! Alevel literature, taken in three months, required strict discipline and a long list of reading. I relished it.
King Lear by Shakespeare, Chaucer's tales, Volpone, Age of Innocence, Mansfield Park, Frost, Emily Dickinson, Heart of Darkness and so much more.
I remember sitting by a spluttering gas heater and a bowl of water with a book on the thickly carpeted floor. Losing myself in fictional places and characters, forgetting the real. What a pleasure it was.
Then another dark time years later. Tolstoy was discovered to put a nice bandage on myself. Nasim Hijazi, Phillipa Gregory, Sophie kinsella peopled my sad world with their stories and characters.
These days are not so dark. They are simply tiresome and lonely. I have bumped into Jane Austen again. A film I watched in 2005 Pride and Prejudice, I watched again. It was comforting like hot chocolate. I love the plot, the dialogues and the people in it.