Superstitions

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Write in with your dilemmas and our dynamic duo will suggest remedies for the head and heart, drawn from novels, poetry and prose collections.

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Fiction prescribed in this episode:

Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
‘Pilate’s Wife’ (poem) from The World’s Wife by Carol Ann Duffy
Godwin by Joseph O’Neill
The Ibis by Justin Haynes
Helm by Sarah Hall
Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West

Isabelle Dupuy (ID): Hi, everybody. Welcome to Fiction Prescriptions. Our episode today is about superstition. I’m Isabelle Dupuy, and I’m a writer.

Ella Berthoud (EB): And I’m Ella Berthoud, and I’m a bibliotherapist.

ID: We have a question about superstition and magic from Baptiste in Milan. And he’s asking what books have brought superstition and magic to the forefront of our lives?

EB: It’s a great question. Well, there’s been a few books that have come into my life like magic, really from childhood, but the ones that come to mind with that magical feeling are ones that I—that came to me during my gap year in between school and university. And one of those was Jitterbug Perfume, which is a book that we’ve talked about on a previous podcast, which is one of my favorite books of all time, and it was given to me while I was traveling around Thailand.

ID: And what effect did—did you read it over and over again? I mean, what effect did Jitterbug Perfume have on your life?

EB: It probably transformed the way I looked at the world completely because it’s all about the quest for immortality and it’s about making anything happen, really. And the characters are just fantastic. It also made me look at writing in a completely different way because I love the way Tom Robbins writes and I had never encountered that kind of writing before then. What about you? Have you had—?

ID: I was thinking that this question probably has two parts to it because the question I was also asking myself when I read the question was: does the magic fade with age? So, when I was in my 20s, I was working in business; I was not at all in the literary world. And I missed it. And I started reading Anna Karenina by Tolstoy. And I discovered that I would read this book at least twice a year. And I knew the book almost by heart, although it’s a very big book, and I was in love with Vronsky on and off.

EB: Aren’t we all [both laugh].

ID: And it was a bit like a lifeline for me. It was a lifeline to a life that I wasn’t part of but that I somehow missed without really knowing it, and just knowing that I loved the emotion, the fantasy, that it was enriching my own perspective in ways that I can’t even describe. Because I liked my job, I was very busy, it’s not like I—I wasn’t bored, but I was missing something, and that was the magic in those years that literature brought to me.

EB: So, do you still go back to Anna Karenina every year?

ID: No.

EB: Why not? You said you would twice a year.

ID: Yes.

EB: Forever.

ID: Well, that’s what I’m saying, if this sense of magic fades with age? It’s hard for me now to go reread a book. Although, now that we’re talking about this, I’m wondering if it’s not something to revisit.

EB: I think you should, definitely. It’s something I talk a lot about with bibliotherapy clients, actually, is to revisit books they read in their childhood or teens because you get that sense of time travel when you read a book that you read at a formative age and you’re 10, 20, 30, 40 years older. Then you go back and read it again, and it takes you back to your younger self, which I think is a really valuable experience.

ID: It is. So, what have you reread lately?

EB: Well, Jitterbug Perfume I go back to a lot.

ID: You still do?

EB: I do, yeah. And there’s—one of the books we’re going to talk about today is one I reread often too. But before we get to that, I wanted to also mention this idea of bibliomancy. So, one of the ideas in terms of thinking about books as magic is you can treat them as a kind of fortune telling device. I met this guy the other day at the Catalyst Club, who was telling me that whenever he’s at a crossroads in his life, he stands by his bookshelf with all his favourite books on it and sends out his left arm randomly [ID laughs] without looking at the shelf to a book, grabs the book, opens it, whatever page it falls on tells him what he needs to do at this time in his life. And he’s a believer in that, and he said it’s often given him really fantastic profound advice.

ID: That is a fantastic idea.

EB: Yeah [laughs].

ID: But that would only work if you’re the kind of person who has very well curated bookshelves.

EB: That’s true.

ID: And not full of half rubbish books.

EB: Yes, and I think it’s a difficult thing to curate because do you allow yourself to put random books on there, or do you put all your favourite books on that shelf, which is what I would do? I’d have Jitterbug Perfume and The Master and Margarita [both laugh]. So, that’s another book that, actually, I was given on the same trip when I was in Thailand and what was then Burma, travelling around, and this guy handed me Master and Margarita.

ID: As I’m about to hand it to Ella right now.

EB: And that is a book that I read with my then boyfriend, Hugo, and we were both completely obsessed with the book at the time and read it over the next few weeks and shared it. And it also then became a very important book in my marriage because me and my husband read it as well. And it’s one of those books that is a bit of a cult.

ID: It’s a cult, but it’s also a magical book about—for a couple. It’s true, because the same thing happened to me. We were talking about this earlier how I also bumped into this book completely by accident about 25 years ago, and it became really important in my marriage, in my relationship. We both shared this book just like you did.

This is a preview of the show. The full text is available as a PDF here: Fiction Prescriptions: Superstitions

Next time on Fiction Prescriptions: Money.

(Playful book chat only – not medical advice. If you need serious support, contact samaritans.org)

Ella Berthoud

Ella Berthoud is a bibliotherapist, visual artist and novelist.

Isabelle Dupuy

Isabelle Dupuy is a writer and broadcaster.