by Nina George
Dates, to represent the regions where Christ lived and died;
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Four different types of fresh fruit, which may include plums (traditionally from Brignoles), winter pears, melons, apples, oranges, grapes and tangerines;
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Candied fruits;
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Light and dark Turkish honey, white and black nougat. The light variety is made from hazelnuts, pine nuts and pistachios, and symbolises goodness and purity; the dark or black nougat stands for evil and impurity;
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Fougasse (or fouace), a flat cake made with olive oil (which must be broken, not cut!);
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Oreillettes: light, thin waffles flavoured with lemon zest;
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Roulés: cinnamon-flavoured brioche rolls;
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Ratafia, a mixture of juice and brandy, or cartagène, a sweet fortified wine;
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Calissons d’Aix: sweets similar to marzipan made from almond paste and candied melon;
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Biscotins;
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Marinated goat’s cheese.
JEAN PERDU’S EMERGENCY LITERARY PHARMACY FROM ADAMS TO VON ARNIM
Fast-acting medicines for minds and hearts affected by minor or moderate emotional turmoil.
To be taken in easily digestible doses (between five and fifty pages) unless otherwise indicated and if possible, with warm feet and/or with a cat on your lap.
Adams, Douglas. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy in Five Parts.
Effective in large doses for treating pathological optimism or a sense of humour failure. Ideal for sauna-goers with exhibitionist tendencies.
Side effects: An aversion to owning things, and a potentially chronic tendency to wear a dressing gown all day.
von Arnim, Elizabeth. The Enchanted April.
For indecision and for trusting one’s friends.
Side effects: Falling in love with Italy; a yearning for the South; a heightened sense of justice.
Barbery, Muriel. The Elegance of the Hedgehog.
An effective cure in large doses for if-such-and-such-happens-ism. Recommended for unacknowledged geniuses, lovers of intellectual films and people who hate bus drivers.
Cervantes, Miguel de. The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha.
To be taken when your ideals clash with reality.
Side effects: Anxiety about modern technology and about the destructive effects of machines, which we fight as though they were windmills.
Forster, E. M. ‘The Machine Stops’, a short story first published in The Oxford and Cambridge Review, 1909.
Handle with care! Highly effective antidote to internet technocracy and blind faith in iPhones. Also cures an addiction to Facebook and dependency on The Matrix.
Directions for use: Small doses only for members of the Pirate Party and web activists!
Gary, Romain. Promise at Dawn, trans. John Markham Beach.
For a better understanding of motherly love and protection against nostalgia for one’s childhood.
Side effects: Daydreaming; lovesickness.
Gerlach, Gunter. Frauen von Brücken werfen (Throwing Women Off Bridges – unpublished in English).
For authors with writer’s block and people who think that murders are an overrated feature of crime novels.
Side effects: A loss of your sense of reality; a broadening of the mind.
Hesse, Hermann. ‘Stages’, a poem, in The Glass Bead Game, trans. Richard and Clara Winston.
Cures grief, and inspires you to trust.
Kafka, Franz. ‘Investigations of a Dog’, a short story in The Great Wall of China, trans. Malcolm Parsley.
A remedy for the odd sensation of being generally misunderstood.
Side effects: Pessimism; a longing to stroke a cat.
Kästner, Erich. Doktor Erich Kästners Lyrische Hausapotheke (Dr Erich Kästner’s Lyrical Medicine Chest – unpublished in English).
According to the poetic Dr Kästner, it treats a variety of ailments and disturbances, including know-it-alls, an urge to break up with someone, everyday irritations and the autumn blues.
Lindgren, Astrid. Pippi Longstocking, trans. Edna Hurup.
Effective against acquired (rather than innate) pessimism and a fear of miracles.
Side effects: Diminished numeracy skills; singing in the shower.
Martin, George R. R. A Game of Thrones. The first in a series of five novels.
Helps one to kick a TV habit and to cope with lovesickness, the hassles of daily life and tedious dreams.
Side effects: Insomnia; unsettling dreams.
Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick; or, The Whale.
For vegetarians.
Side effects: A fear of water.
Millet, Catherine. The Sexual Life of Catherine M., trans. Adriana Hunter.
Helps you answer the great question of whether you jumped into a relationship too quickly. NB: Things could always be worse.
Musil, Robert. The Man Without Qualities, trans. Sophie Wilkins and Burton Pike.
A book for men who’ve forgotten what they wanted from life. A remedy for aimlessness.
Side effects: The effects are gradual: after two years, your life will have changed forever. The main risks are that you will alienate all your friends, develop a predisposition to social satire and suffer from recurring dreams.
Nin, Anaïs. Delta of Venus.
Will cure listlessness and restore sensuality within days of your starting treatment.
Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Reduces gullibility and apathy. Old home remedy for chronic optimism, but past its sell-by date.
Pearce, Philippa. Tom’s Midnight Garden.
Effective for those who are unhappy in love. (PS: Sufferers from this particular illness may read anything, as long as there is no mention of love, splatter fiction, thrillers and steam-punk novels.)
Pratchett, Terry. The Discworld Novels. Terry Pratchett published forty novels in the Discworld series, beginning with The Colour of Magic.
For the world-weary and the dangerously naïve. Mind-warping stuff, even for novices.
Pullman, Philip. His Dark Materials trilogy.
For those who occasionally hear imaginary voices and believe they have an animal soul mate.
Ringelnatz, Joachim. Kindergebetchen (Little Bedtime Prayers – unpublished in English).
For agnostics who for once are moved to prayer.
Side effects: Flashbacks to evenings when you were small.
Saramago, José. Blindness, trans. Giovanni Pontiero.
Helps you to tackle overwork, to prioritise and to see your purpose in life.
Stoker, Bram. Dracula.
Recommended for those susceptible to boring dreams and those who sit, paralysed, by the phone (‘Will he ever ring?’).
Surre-Garcia, Alem and Françoise Meyruels. The Ritual of the Ashes. An Occitan invocation from the dead to the living. The original was published as Lo libre dels rituals, 2002.
Helps in cases of recurring grief for a loved one, and as a secular grave-side incantation to be said by people who do not believe in prayer.
Toes, Jac. De vrije man (The Free Man – unpublished in English).
For tango dancers between milongas and for men who are too scared to love.
Side effects: Makes you look again at your relationship.
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
To overcome adult worries and rediscover the child within.
NB: The authors Sanary (Southern Lights), P. D. Olson and Max Jordan (Night) exist only as characters in this novel.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
From the initial idea and first notes (9 August 2010) to printing (early April 2013), this novel has been through many stages: research and despair; writing some pages and then screwing them up; numerous drafts and great bursts of creativity; and an enforced one-year break due to illness.
Those people who stood by me during this intensive process have left their stamp on my work. Ten professionals or so (most of whom are invisible to the reader) are involved in ensuring that a book becomes a piece of art that is entertaining, pleasurable and enchanting. Some I shall mention by name; others, whom I have never met, were responsible for designing, proofreading, producing and selling the book, and they have also earned my gratitude. Culture is the result of teamwork, and a lone writer will never be as good as her back-up team. I feel the story and nurture it into written form, but it is this team that delivers it safely into the world and makes it worth reading.
Readers also play their part. I was extremely touched by the many lovely letters I received while I was writing. There are messages for some of those readers woven into the novel.
So merci beaucoup to:
My husband, author J. Unfortunately, I cannot reveal entirely what for, but it’s partly about food, comfort and love. Your urge to write makes it easier for me to spend so much time under the same roof with fictional characters and not find it remotely unusual;
Hans-Peter, for being so patient for a year;
Adrian and Nane, for kneading the pain out of my body for eight months and enabling me to sit and start to write again; and to my ‘drill instructors’, Bernhard and Claudia, for the torturous gym routine;
Cecile, my smart agent;
Mrs K., a wonderful proofreader who doesn’t only put the commas in the right places, but also reins in my creative spelling;
Brigitte, the charming host at my dovecote in Bonnieux, and Dédé, the owner of the guesthouse in Sanary-sur-Mer;
Patricia, for your trust and enthusiasm;
Elbgold coffee roasters: this book is powered by coffee;
Doris G., because you allowed me to spend all those weeks in your garden writing Manon’s diaries. Those fertile surroundings permeate the entire text.
Last but not least, however, I would like to thank my editor, Andrea Müller, who makes good books better. With her keen eye she culls out superfluous text and intensifies the drama of heartbreaking scenes. She asks challenging questions and never seems to sleep. Such professionals turn good writers into more powerful storytellers.
Nina George
January 2013
PS: Thanks also to all the booksellers who help the magic to work on me. Books help me breathe better – it’s that simple.
