World Book Day: The comforts of reading during a pandemic & confinement to our homes |24 April 2020

World Book Day is observed annually on April 23 to celebrate books and to promote reading. This year, the day is even more special as many people across the globe are now, more than ever, feeling the power that books have in comforting us, in preventing us from being lonely and bored, and in improving our mental health.

In seeking recommendations for books that reflect our current times and which could bring comfort to the readers, Seychelles NATION spoke to Phil Brown, English teacher at the International School of Seychelles. Following is the interview with Mr Brown.

Seychelles NATION: What are your thoughts on the role of books during this pandemic and at a time when people are confined to their homes?

Phil Brown: ‘There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.’ So begins one of the finest novels ever written – Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. Like the best lines in literature, it gains meaning and potency as the years go on... and it’s a line which many of us feel the weight of in these pandemic days when there quite literally is no possibility of taking a walk. But the Brontë sisters, just like Jane Austen and Emily Dickinson and Gustave Flaubert, knew the frustrations and joys and boredom and imaginative exhaustion which comes when life largely consists of having to stay at home.

Books really can be a salvation in times of global crisis. Beyond the understandable medical fear we have all felt during the recent pandemic, many of us have also felt the sadness and discomfort that comes from being forced to stay indoors without a clear end in sight. With the hot Seychelles sun beating down on our houses, and the inviting blue of the Indian Ocean never far away, it can seem a torture having to resist being out in the world among people and events and variety.

This is one of those situations where people who read lots of books have always had an advantage, because through reading we are not just taken to other times and places, but we have a very real sense of companionship with the writers and the characters which they create.

Like a lot of people, I have sought comfort from some of my favourite books and writers during this ‘stay-at-home’ period and have recommended many to my students. We need the company of others to help preserve our mental health, and at times like these perhaps the best companion is a book.

Seychelles NATION: You mentioned that there are some titles and writers that have been there for you and which you’re glad to have on your bookshelf during this particular crisis; can you recommend some of these to our readers?

Phil Brown:

Emily Dickinson – The Collected Poems

There can be no better poet to turn to during these locked down times than Emily Dickinson. Staying at home and living her life through letters exchanged with an intimate circle of friends and family members, Dickinson developed her own unmistakable style and precision for writing.

Graham Swift – Mothering Sunday

A short melancholic novel which mostly takes place with a woman alone in her lover’s house, moments after he has left. I adore this novel and feel like it perfectly captures the feeling of trying to return to a sun-bathed, nostalgic, innocent ‘time before’. Just as we have all been thinking back to a few short months ago when we could enjoy parties and crowds and social gatherings, before the world shifted in an instant, Graham Swift perfectly captures a world at its ‘last moment’ before an important change.

Daphne Du Maurier – Rebecca ... or ‘And His Letters Grew Colder’

One of the great novels about claustrophobia and the seeming malevolence of an inescapable house. One of the great Gothic novels, Rebecca fully encapsulates the feeling of dread as every aspect of a seemingly idyllic house seems to turn against our protagonist as the ghosts of the past resurface. If you want a quick read however... please read Du Maurier's beautifully executed short story ‘And His Letters Grew Colder’ for a short burst of epistolary heartbreak. If you have found yourself writing more emails and written communications with people over the last few months, then this is one for you.

John Berryman - The Dream Songs

No conversation about mental health and literature is complete without John Berryman. A troubled, alcoholic, volatile but brilliant academic mind – Berryman's most confusing work, ‘The Dream Songs’ is a gift to us all. Centered around the character of ‘Henry’, the poet interrogates all his fears, his jealousies, his loves, his lusts and his shame in this important confessional work. I turn to some of these truly puzzling poems on a weekly basis. If I had to pick one perfect one for these quarantined days however, I would choose Dream Song 14.

World War Z – Max Brooks

Most of us have thought about the zombie apocalypse in one way or another... most of us only going as far as thinking where we would hide and what weapons we would manufacture out of household items. Max Brooks however, really did the thinking work in envisioning how the zombie uprising might pan out. In World War Z we have a tapestry of accounts of the world after The Event, and how economies and cultures and personal circumstances change in a world locked down.

Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë

I started with the novel, and will have to finish with it. There is never a bad time to read or re-read Jane Eyre. There is so much to love in this novel, and in the woman who gifted it to us in the 19th Century. Jane Eyre explores the life and growth of a young woman forced to spend most of her life indoors, she does not have the power of status or the power of beauty, and so she uses the brilliance of her mind to survive and thrive in a world full of restrictions. She captures the love of a vampiric, wealthy married man, but Brontë does not let any relationship begin between these two until Jane has gained her own independence, discovered who she is and established an identity for herself. Jane Eyre was one of the great novels for mapping out the landscape of a personality and for interrogating the relationships that are cultivated in households cut off from the outside world.

F.P.