Perhaps we need ‘book doctors’ now!

There are some conditions which traditional drugs can’t cure and which may require a literary prescription.

I READ in the Wall Street Journal recently about “book doctors” – those who prescribe books, not medicines, as over-the-counter remedies for an array of “conditions”. They scribble titles of books instead of sending their clients to the phar­macy.

You are depressed? They recommend a particular novel. Stressed out? Another work of fiction.

These are “bibliotherapists” – they listen to “clients” and recommend which title is best for them. It is a growing movement, apparently, taking root in Britain, Germany, the Netherlands and many advanced countries.

According to the WSJ report, their presence was felt at the recent Frankfurt book fair. Mano Bouzamour, a book doctor, was there with his white coat and a stethoscope.

Understandably, he was attracting a lot of attention. People were queueing to see him. He recommended various titles, including his own. And he was paid for his services.

Bouzamour, a Muslim, is a Dutch novelist known for his controversial novel, De belofte van Pisa (The Promise of Pisa). The autobiographical novel is about a teenager living in a close-knit and conservative immigrant community in the Netherlands.

Samir, the protagonist in the novel, is him. When the book came out there was an outcry among the Moroccan community about his depiction of a society trapped within the old values and construct in modern Netherlands. Nonetheless, it was a hit debut novel of 2014.

Perhaps he has a point to prove as a bibliotherapist. He understands trauma. He was mercilessly condemned by his own people for his depiction of the community. He understands what it means to face hatred and prejudices.

There is also The Book Pharmacy, based in Berlin, that acts as an agent to bring the right books to people. According to its founder Paul Leworthy, The Book Pharmacy dispenses a range of “detox” books to clients.

It offers something like the almost impenetrable classic, The Odyssey by Homer. There are of course books “especially selected for their cleansing, soothing and revitalising qualities”.

In Britain, there is The Reader that is doing therapy in a different way. It hosts reading groups for people with dementia and chronic pain. Literature is something that everyone can relate to and connect with, according to its founder. Patients with chronic pain are responding well to the session, rather than living on the traditional drugs prescribed by real doctors.

Bibliophiles believe that modern medicine alone is not enough to help patients with certain conditions. Works of literature are a powerful tool to address some of the problems facing humanity.

The world is moving at a giddying speed. The Internet is changing the way we live, work, play and communicate. Social media is redefining humanity, for better or for worse.

We need books now more than ever before. In most cases, we have lost even the desire to read.

David L. Ulin’s The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter In A Distracted Time is an eye-opener. He asks a very pertinent question: does reading even matter now? He is recommending that we disengage from the “super-connected digital world” and immerse ourselves again in the world of letters. A tall order now, perhaps, but necessary.

There are people who believe there is no necessity to read at all. Just browse the Net for anything. The compendium of knowledge is not found in libraries or even books anymore but on sites like Wikipedia.

The issue about the “disappearance of reading” as argued by Robert Alter in The Pleasures of Reading in An Ideological Age is real. His contention is that we are being surrounded more and more by electronic texts that distract more than engage us.

The fact that Harvard Business School (HBS) is using literature to teach moral leadership speaks volumes of the current sentiment about how corporate leaders should not lose their moral compass. Number crunching is good for the bottom line. But we have seen too many corporate leaders who make it a point to cross the line of propriety and decency in their dealings.

One of the text books used at HBS is The Moral Leader: Challenges, Tools, and Insights by Sandra Sucher. The four points raised in the book are: what is the nature of moral challenge, the need to reason morally, how do leaders contend with the moral choices they face and how different is moral leadership from leadership in general.

Moral leadership is particularly critical in the political realm. There are many instances when political leaders use their positions without remorse to abuse power and to enrich themselves and their families. There is no sense of guilt at all.

But more importantly, as evident in our country, a number of top civil servants too are amassing wealth and living beyond their means. The “Watergate” in Sabah is a case that shocked our conscience about the level of corruption in the country.

Perhaps we need Bouzamour to prescribe these people with works that remind them of humility, fairness, of why evil acts will be punished, why we need love and laughter and humour, and why caring matters and loving one’s country is important.

That is why we have to go back to our fiction writers to remind us that greed, vanity and being corrupt, among many other “sins”, are bad for us and the country.

We need Usman Awang, A. Samad Said, Abdullah Hussein, Adibah Amin, Lloyd Fernando, Tan Twan Eng and Tash Aw, among others, to remind us of our destiny and the pages of our past and present. We need Miguel de Cervantes, Herman Melville, Leo Tolstoy, Charles Dickens, Emily Bronte and Mario Puzo too. We need them all.

Let’s us go back to the books, with or without the help of book doctors!

Johan Jaaffar was a journalist, editor and for some years chairman of a media company. He is passionate about all things literature and the arts. The views expressed here are entirely his own.