Which literature consoles and cheers you up?

[WICKES]

I always find the literature of the ancient world cheers me up somehow. Especially the Greeks. I don't know why. By contrast I find 20th century literature often has a depressing effect on me- Beckett, Sartre, Camus of course, but not only them. So, when you feel low where do you turn? Which period of literature do you really like to immerse yourself in? Which type of literature (i.e science fiction) ? Which authors?

[LitNetIsGreat]

I tend to turn to Wordsworth or Keats if it is summer, at any other time I may turn to the thoughts of Epicurus or Buddhist philosophy (only the basic stuff). When coming to the correct assumption that work is evil, I may skim through the likes of Kerouac or Tom Hodgkinson’s How to be Idle/How to be Free books. Other than that, just anything by Oscar Wilde.

[WICKES]

Epicurus or Buddhist philosophy (only the basic stuff).

Yes, Epicurus is a v. good choice. I like the Greeks generally. I guess it is all to do with association. I associate them with blue seas, white marble, togas, beautiful vases, olives, wine, films like Jason and the Argonauts and cheery conversations about philosophy while reclining on couches...etc

Buddhist and Indian philosophy also brings up positive associations: sitting under mango trees listening to a holy man. The Tao Te Ching I associate with misty Chinese mountains and wrinkly faced wise men.

When I think of 20th century European lit I think of despair, of urban isolation, of fragmentation etc. When I think of 18th and 19th century lit I think social injustice and poverty. On the whole I find the lit of pre or non Christian cultures more consoling.

[LitNetIsGreat]

I think maybe the world of the ancient Greece appears to be the complete opposite of the world we live in today, the ugly industrialised world. Such a civilisation certainly comes across as a beautiful time, and I like your thoughts on those beautiful elements, though in reality I am sure that there were just as much misery and social injustice around then as there is today.

However, I am more than happy to think otherwise and live for those beautiful things: the sun, the wine, philosophy the architecture etc, it all helps to provide an antidote to what I see as at times the awful commercialized world we live in today.

[WICKES]

I think maybe the world of the ancient Greece appears to be the complete opposite of the world we live in today, the ugly industrialised world. Such a civilisation certainly comes across as a beautiful time, and I like your thoughts on those beautiful elements, though in reality I am sure that there were just as much misery and social injustice around then as there is today. .

Lol. You are absolutely right of course. I'm sure human beings in ancient Greece were just as repulsive, cruel and unhappy as they are today. Probably more so. Still, I'll stick with my comforting illusions.

[DapperDrake]

Easy, classic English fiction from the 1700 and 1800's e.g. Jane Austen, George Eliot, the Bronte sisters, and others (Oscar Wilde even). The style is so comforting and warming as well as being morally edifying (ok, perhaps not in Wilde's case).
I find all sorts of other classic literature interesting and stimulating but only this period of English literature consoles and cheers me up, other literature that I like tends to do the opposite. literature post 1900 seems to turn introspective and depressing, at least in the books I've liked anyway.

[stlukesguild]

Different authors console or bring me joy in different ways. Off of the top of my head, some of those who succeed for me in such a manner include Emerson, Whitman, Italo Calvino, some of the works of William Blake and Thomas Traherne, Montaigne, Laurence Sterne...

[qspeechc]

For some odd reason I found Dotoevsky's "The Idiot" quite uplifting, perhaps it was Myshkin, I'm not sure.

[WICKES]

As far as individual authors go, P G Wodehouse takes some beating. The beautiful, light language (someone descrided his prose style as being 'like champagne'), the humour, which is never dark or spiteful, the essentially good characters etc. No one is bereaved or depressed and everything is a joke- even death. Get a good audiobook version, lie in a hot bath with a glass of bubbly and drift away.:)

William Blake is a good one. His language is often joyful, even ecstatic.

The lit. of the Elizabethans is bold, dramatic and full of life. Compared to 20th century lit. it is full of energy, colour and takes delight in language itself.

Science fiction cheers me up too- perhaps because I don't like this world much (I guess that's why weirdos and misfits get obsessed with star trek).

Russian literature I find a bit miserable- when I think of Russian literature I think of poverty, exploited serfs, grey skies, alcoholics, brutal peasants etc.

[wilbur lim]

When feeling disillusioned,the optimal way for me is to turn back to is the 1800s and below literature.I speculate that you must have been noticing that modern literature is too simple to read and not noteworhty,don't you?I habour that feeling.
Past literature had reputedly been praised by a raft of modern and past people in light of its outstanding language and their intellectual.

What I wonder is past people write better than modern people.Is it de facto somehow?
This is unequivocal because I read past literautre and perceived that it is more intricate than modern literautre,well generally,not everything.

[kelby_lake]

The Secret Garden

[amalia1985]

Whitman, Austen and Gogol.

[wilbur lim]

Those authors who use bombastic language is one I abhor most.I need to have a dictionary by my side and it is authentically troublesome enough,I couldn't relish my life.

[DapperDrake]

I think the large vocabulary of classic authors is one of the attractions of classic fiction, certainly until your own vocabulary catches up you will find it heavy going. I remember when I first started reading classics, I used to have a book in one hand and a dictionary in the other, now I just need to look up odd words and can just make a mental note and look them up later.
For example in the book I'm currently reading (The Idiot) I've already had to lookup "usurer" as its not a word I've come across before.
If course its likely to be much tougher going if English isn't your first language.

[wilbur lim]

Precisely,and what a coincidence,I am also reading 'The Idiot '.It seems like it is humilating and tiresome to invariably have a dictionary by one's side,thereby I must master a raft of vocabularies and remember them forcefully.What a hard time.

[lavendar1]

Chekhov. His ability to excavate the human heart always consoles me. And I was really taken by Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, too.

[book_jones]

Donald Barthelme and James Joyce always cheer me up. I'll usually read a few pages of them when I'm feeling down.

[lyni]

to cheer me up I like fantasy. mainly Terry Pratchett because of his humour and irony. and the magic of the discworld. you can get totally lost in it.

[mangueken]

to cheer me up, usually it's something from 19th century, Dickens, Dostoevsky, Whitman, Dickens etc. But then again anything I love to read will cheer me up regardless of it's period.