Wolf Hall or Wolf Blitzer?

The news is on my nerves. I'm feeling sad for the world, and for my country. By now the sights that emerge around the clock from Haiti don't teach me anything more than I already know about the suffering; the only thing they do is drive up my anxiety level. I have read that disasters are good for ratings, and so I suspect that they're looking for the audience again. Cable TV news is no different from prime time entertainment -- it's the ratings, stupid.

Then there's the political analysis (read Massachusetts Senate election). I am up to here with bad news, liberal that I am. I know a lot about what's happening, I have my own ideas about who is to blame, and I am in a funk. I love Rachel Maddow, and the sad look on her face from the Boston bar on election night broke my heart.

These long January evenings are not for television news, I tell myself, they're for good books. Curl up with a novel, I think, and you'll feel better in the morning. I am one of the millions of readers for whom a good read is the best therapy, for anxiety, depression, or a head cold. Forty-five minutes with what my husband calls my "nose in a book," and I'm restored.

Fortunately for me, I have the perfect remedy for the January blues, Hilary Mantell's Wolf Hall. It's a book about Thomas Cromwell (and, of course Henry VIII). I am not the first to praise its brilliant prose and superb research. But I may be the first to prescribe it for the January politics blues. So let me tell you that it has as much politics and religion as our cable news, and more coverage of human foibles than you'll find in today's tabloid press.

I'm just about halfway through the novel, and I realize that I have to slow down my reading, so the book will last me through the weekend. I know it won't get me through the health care reform misery of the coming weeks. I think that Anthony Trollope's magnificent Palliser Novels is my next drug of choice. There's plenty of politics in those books, I remember, and I expect to be breathless all over again about passage of the Corn Laws. Bliss.

So when you're up to here with bad news, and when you care too much and feel so helpless, a finely wrought novel may be the answer. Wolf Hall beats Wolf Blitzer for my money, at least this month.

 

Follow Jane Isay on Twitter: www.twitter.com/janeisay@yahoo.

Comments

[Widmerpool]

10:02 AM on 01/25/2010

I, too, have been rationing this book. It's a wonderful read.

[garyd63]

12:33 AM on 01/25/2010

How smart is Mantel's book? Here's a sample. In _Wolf Hall_ , men barge around doing what men do in standard historical works, but Mantel has the intelligence to throw in insights such as this: [Thomas Cromwell, thinking about his wife's news that in town women are talking about the possibility that Henry VIII will throw over Katherine and take a new wife, Anne Boleyn] ". . . why should my wife worry about women who have no sons? Possibly it's something women do: spend time imagining what it is to be each other. "One can learn from that, he thinks."

[NHBill]

12:30 PM on 01/22/2010

Send as much money as you can to help Haiti, then shut off the TV news.
Reading is a good idea. But frankly anything would be better for your personal mental health than CNN 24/7.

[Jane Isay]

05:48 PM on 01/22/2010

I couldn't agree with more.

[larry278]

11:02 AM on 01/22/2010

This blog works very well as a book review. It teases you to buy the book & read it.

[Amy Hertz]

09:26 PM on 01/23/2010

Yes it does--love seeing inventive ways to review a book.

[momstudent]

01:00 AM on 01/22/2010

I agree..there is only so much of the tragedy in Haiti that a emotionally healthy person needs to observe. I say donate the amount of money you are able to and then move on to more productive ACTIONS in life. Spend time with your family, read, clean a closet and donate to your local charity. These ACTIONS are more helpful than sitting and watching the same pain and heartache over and over again. If a person cannot stop watching maybe they can do some of their own research about Haiti and become educated as why this country was a disaster prior to the earthquake.

[Dink]

07:35 PM on 01/21/2010

The problem is that no one has any reporters. They repeat the same story hour after hour and night after night. Talking heads say the same thing. The last week has been nothing but Haiti and MA elections.

If there are no reporters..... no one is going out and finding out what is really happening.

I stood in front of a grocery store and asked people..... I got completely different answers than what the press releases were sending out... 65 percent wanted "a choice" not mandatory health care.

NEWS = North + East + West + South

That means all around you there are things happening that affect us.... not just the talking heads spin...

[addisonsteele]

06:45 PM on 01/21/2010

Reading a great novel is more likely to provide you with both the ideas and the strength to cope in the modern world than reading all of the newspapers and news magazines in the world.