The Novel Cure: From Abandonment to Zestlessness: 751 Books to Cure What Ails You by Ella Berthoud, Susan Elderkin
Authors: Ella Berthoud, Susan Elderkin
Ads: Link
angle.” She becomes, in short, her genuine, glorious, undisguised self, which her friends turn out to like just as much as her bewigged incarnation. “Own it,” Sunny says to herself. “Own the bald.” If baldness is your bugbear, be like Sunny: Fear it no longer. Accept your shining pate.
See also:
Aging, horror of
BEANS, TEMPTATION TO SPILL THE
Tess of the d’Urbervilles
THOMAS HARDY
F or reasons medical science has never explained (although, naturally, we have our own hypothesis; see below), it’s physically uncomfortable to keep a secret bottled up, and a great relief to let it out. And confessing—or spilling the beans—can bring not only immense relief, but also sometimes a sadistic pleasure. The look on someone’s face during the moment of spillage can be both entertaining and gratifying (see: Schadenfreude). But these positive emotions are usually short-lived, particularly if the spilling of the beans has caused pain or anguish in the spillee, or the beans were not yours to spill. Before such spillages are indulged in, therefore, the short-term gain (for you) of spilling must be weighed against the long-term consequences (for you and others). Because beans, once spilled, cannot be unspilled, and it may be better for everyone if you live with the discomfort of keeping them pent up inside instead.
If Tess Durbeyfield had lived with her beans—as her mother Joan advised her to—her marriage could have been saved and a happy ending secured. Tess’s confession to her husband, Angel Clare, on their wedding night about her tarnished past with Alec d’Urberville is made after Angel owns up to a previous liaison of his own. She, understandably enough, sees this as the perfect moment for them both to clear their consciences. But Angel, to his great discredit, fails to forgive Tess as she has forgiven him. He rejects his sullied Tess and heads off to Brazil in a serious sulk.
All might have been well if Tess had kept her beans inside her and waited until such time as Angel was man enough to see the situation for what itwas—she as the victim, Alec as the assailant. By this time she would also have realized (as she eventually does) that the beans were not hers to feel guilty about in the first place—that they were in fact Alec d’Urberville’s beans and should have been his all along. Tess is an innocent victim of nineteenth-century patriarchy, of course, but the emotional truth still holds: she should have kept those beans inside.
A word of warning, though. If your secret is a guilty one through and through, and having weighed the pros and cons you’ve decided to keep the secret inside, be prepared that the discomfort may get worse over time—whether it indicts you or someone else. Bottled-up beans, like actual beans, give off a sort of gas that expands, producing flatulence and indigestion until they eventually erupt without warning, usually at the very worst possible moment. This is a situation worth avoiding at all costs and indicates that your secret has more guilt attached than you may have realized. If you suspect that your beans might turn gaseous, find an intermediary on whom to off-load them, who can then spill them in a more considered and controlled fashion—or help you to. See: Guilt, for an example of an intermediary at work in this way.
See also:
Goody-goody, being a • Regret
BED, INABILITY TO GET OUT OF
Bed
DAVID WHITEHOUSE
P erhaps you have a headache or a hangover (see: Headache; Hangover). Perhaps you hate your job and have declared a Duvet Day. Perhaps your central heating is on the blink and you can’t get warm. Perhaps everything seems pointless (see: Pointlessness) or you’re depressed (see: Depression, general). Whatever the reason, if you know that sometimes staying in bed seems a much better idea than emerging into your day, keep this volume under your pillow (so you don’t have far to stretch). Read it once, and then during subsequent attacks of the condition you
See also:
Aging, horror of
BEANS, TEMPTATION TO SPILL THE
Tess of the d’Urbervilles
THOMAS HARDY
F or reasons medical science has never explained (although, naturally, we have our own hypothesis; see below), it’s physically uncomfortable to keep a secret bottled up, and a great relief to let it out. And confessing—or spilling the beans—can bring not only immense relief, but also sometimes a sadistic pleasure. The look on someone’s face during the moment of spillage can be both entertaining and gratifying (see: Schadenfreude). But these positive emotions are usually short-lived, particularly if the spilling of the beans has caused pain or anguish in the spillee, or the beans were not yours to spill. Before such spillages are indulged in, therefore, the short-term gain (for you) of spilling must be weighed against the long-term consequences (for you and others). Because beans, once spilled, cannot be unspilled, and it may be better for everyone if you live with the discomfort of keeping them pent up inside instead.
If Tess Durbeyfield had lived with her beans—as her mother Joan advised her to—her marriage could have been saved and a happy ending secured. Tess’s confession to her husband, Angel Clare, on their wedding night about her tarnished past with Alec d’Urberville is made after Angel owns up to a previous liaison of his own. She, understandably enough, sees this as the perfect moment for them both to clear their consciences. But Angel, to his great discredit, fails to forgive Tess as she has forgiven him. He rejects his sullied Tess and heads off to Brazil in a serious sulk.
All might have been well if Tess had kept her beans inside her and waited until such time as Angel was man enough to see the situation for what itwas—she as the victim, Alec as the assailant. By this time she would also have realized (as she eventually does) that the beans were not hers to feel guilty about in the first place—that they were in fact Alec d’Urberville’s beans and should have been his all along. Tess is an innocent victim of nineteenth-century patriarchy, of course, but the emotional truth still holds: she should have kept those beans inside.
A word of warning, though. If your secret is a guilty one through and through, and having weighed the pros and cons you’ve decided to keep the secret inside, be prepared that the discomfort may get worse over time—whether it indicts you or someone else. Bottled-up beans, like actual beans, give off a sort of gas that expands, producing flatulence and indigestion until they eventually erupt without warning, usually at the very worst possible moment. This is a situation worth avoiding at all costs and indicates that your secret has more guilt attached than you may have realized. If you suspect that your beans might turn gaseous, find an intermediary on whom to off-load them, who can then spill them in a more considered and controlled fashion—or help you to. See: Guilt, for an example of an intermediary at work in this way.
See also:
Goody-goody, being a • Regret
BED, INABILITY TO GET OUT OF
Bed
DAVID WHITEHOUSE
P erhaps you have a headache or a hangover (see: Headache; Hangover). Perhaps you hate your job and have declared a Duvet Day. Perhaps your central heating is on the blink and you can’t get warm. Perhaps everything seems pointless (see: Pointlessness) or you’re depressed (see: Depression, general). Whatever the reason, if you know that sometimes staying in bed seems a much better idea than emerging into your day, keep this volume under your pillow (so you don’t have far to stretch). Read it once, and then during subsequent attacks of the condition you
Similar Books
