Can books affect your mood?

Can the kind of book you’re reading at the moment affect your mood?
For the past few weeks I had been reading a book by Naipaul called Magic Seeds.
The protagonist of the book, Willie Chandran, is a guy who goes through life like driftwood, being swept around by the will of fate or of other people. It is a sort of depressing read. Middle-aged, he is coerced by his sister to join a revolution in India, which ultimately fails, then ends up in an Indian jail for several years and finally lands up in London with nothing on his hands but endless time. I thought the book was going at an incredibly slow pace but I persisted nonetheless because I love Naipaul and the dark way in which he manages to be accurate. I think that darkness transferred itself from the pages of the book and into my head for I felt sad for many days after that. I couldn’t actually pinpoint what the cause was and for a moment wondered if I was suffering from depression. Then unable to continue any longer with the book, I decided to start afresh. I began reading Bridget Jones’ Diary, a book I’d never imagined I would read simply because I thought it would be full of the usual girly stuff like office crushes and wild sex and fashion dilemmas and the rest. And I was right by the way. But I’m surprised that the way in which all this was presented wasn’t so obnoxious as it usually is. At least I’m glad that I find myself looking up from the book to giggle and not to go into those long, pessimistic flashbacks of my life as I used to with Magic Seeds. Of course I still love Naipaul but I feel much better now.

This is an interesting question. A great novel, poem, or play can certainly be filled with rich emotional content. But then, many powerful texts express pessimistic world-views or depict disturbing situations. Kafka, Saramago, Dostoevsky, certain poems by Emily Dickinson, some Shakespeare such as King Lear, The Good Soldier by Ford, Madame Bovary, Blood Meridian by McCarthy, and Heart of Darkness are a few examples. But we don't need to reject these works for their darkness. It takes a certain maturity to be able to withstand such harshness, to recognize that the text is (ultimately) an observation of reality as the author sees it and not a participation in the creation of a new reality. Do we feel sad when we read such works? Perhaps that is due to the text exposing us to something that was already there, in the world or in us. Literature can tell the truth in peculiar and sometimes discreet ways (though the relationship between truth and art is really a different, and vast, conversation).

My mother for example prefers to select only films and books which are obviously humorous. To me, at least, this seems a very drab and fear-filled way of life. We would do better to decide a work's merit not on its thematic content but on the skill with which that content is presented.

"Books are well written, or badly written. That is all."
-Oscar Wilde

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Originally Posted by tshering

Can the kind of book you’re reading at the moment affect your mood?
For the past few weeks I had been reading a book by Naipaul called Magic Seeds...

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That put me in a depressed mood. For a cure, I recommend Pickwick Papers.

Lykren - I don't see that choosing an exclusive diet of humorous books would lead to a drab and fear-filled life. There are many humorous literary works, for instance: Dickens, Cervantes and Wodehouse. Shakespeare gave us (roughly) as many great comedies as great tragedies, e.g., A Midsummer Night's Dream. Tom Jones, Moll Flanders, Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, Catch 22, are other examples. The Don and Tom are the opposite of "fear filled", and never drab, they are great inspirations to a better life.

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Originally Posted by Lykren

It takes a certain maturity to be able to withstand such harshness, to recognize that the text is (ultimately) an observation of reality as the author sees it and not a participation in the creation of a new reality.

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Hmm. Thanks. That's entirely true.

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

That put me in a depressed mood. For a cure, I recommend Pickwick Papers.

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Thanks for the recommendation. That would help. I guess once you get inside someone's head, an author or character, and see their world view and perspective, it is quite difficult to forget it completely. Sometimes when you find yourself in a similar situation in life you might find yourself unconsciously borrowing that world view, good or bad.

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

Lykren - I don't see that choosing an exclusive diet of humorous books would lead to a drab and fear-filled life. There are many humorous literary works, for instance: Dickens, Cervantes and Wodehouse. Shakespeare gave us (roughly) as many great comedies as great tragedies, e.g., A Midsummer Night's Dream. Tom Jones, Moll Flanders, Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, Catch 22, are other examples. The Don and Tom are the opposite of "fear filled", and never drab, they are great inspirations to a better life.

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Sorry, I think I wasn't clear. I think the opposite, that a fear-filled and drab outlook could lead to choosing only humorous books.

But by no means should one avoid the great humorous works! They should be embraced for their quality as much as the great tragic works. Ignoring either category would be to try to ignore part of life.