Reading for the End of Days

It falls to me to write the first Novel Points of View blog post of the current apocalypse. 

How are you getting through it? Many people, and almost certainly most of the readers of this blog, will be turning to books, either as a prop to get through the long days of social distancing and self isolation, or as a means of escape from the long hours spent working to preserve our health and welfare (for which, by the way, many, many thanks). But which books? 

I read according to my mood and yet, because I’ve never experienced anything like the current situation, I don’t quite know what my mood is. Dystopian fiction seems somehow appropriate, right? Well, that’s always been right there among my least favourite genres, and to be honest the last thing I need is another layer of misery and a depiction of a coming hell. So, no thank you to that. 

That said, I am reading much more fiction and non-fiction that has a gothic twist. It’s doom-laden, certainly, but somehow the twist of the supernatural and the tendency for a historical setting in fiction takes the edge off the brutal modernity of the news. Alongside these I’m increasingly enjoying books about the natural world and many associated traditions and superstitions. Maybe reading about how we connect to nature is making me think more about the simpler life we’re all being forced to live. Who knows? 

Romance is, of course, a big yes, as is the new(ish) genre of uplit. The appeal of this genre is obvious. It’s escapist and it offers us the happy ending none of us can currently guarantee. Times will get tough for our protagonist but it’ll all turn out all right in the end. So yes, this is very much the fuel I need for my inner optimist. And if you can add an exotic setting into it, then so much the better. It’ll make up for the holidays we aren’t going to have this year. 

There’s crime, of course, but I find myself screening my crime reading and increasingly opting for the cosier mysteries. I recently failed to finish a crime novel (unusually for me) because the level of graphic detail was more than I wanted. It wasn’t particularly gruesome, as these things go, but what I want just now has changed. So, cosy historical. They’ll do nicely. 

And finally, the re-read, the book I’m going to turn back to and interpret in a new light. Though I’m not much of a fantasy reader I have always loved Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien fought in the First World War and the book was published after the second, so it’s no surprise that it carries a sense of doom, of disaster and yet of heroism and nobility. It has an optimistic ending, too, though not what you might call a happy one. 

But these are only my thoughts. Everyone reads differently, everyone responds differently. What’s your genre?