The consolation of literature

Sometimes good literature can make your life better, in more than the pleasure-giving sense.
Take Mark Helprin’s In Sunlight and in Shadow, which I reviewed the other day.
Harry, the hero, is haunted by his experiences as an airborne ranger in World War II. There’s a particular scene where he tells his fiancée about one incident he can’t get out of his head. “There was nothing I could do,” he says. “But I feel responsible.”
That, friends, is The Song of My People – my people being trauma victims of various sorts. Due to circumstances of a very different kind, I too am haunted – bedeviled – by memories. Memories of bad things that happened – often things I did that I’m ashamed of – that just won’t lie down and die.
It’s comforting to me to tell myself, “Think about Harry, and people like him. Whatever you’ve done, it didn’t involve anybody dying.”’
This doesn’t mean my flashbacks are going to disappear. My Complex PTSD (not actually a disorder currently recognized by the professionals) is, I know very well, capable of infinite adaptation.
But for now it helps. Thank you, Mark Helprin.

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