List Books To Sleep
| Original Title: | ねむり |
| Edition Language: | English |
Haruki Murakami
Paperback | Pages: 80 pages Rating: 3.52 | 10831 Users | 1587 Reviews
Declare Containing Books Sleep
| Title | : | Sleep |
| Author | : | Haruki Murakami |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 80 pages |
| Published | : | (first published 1987) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Short Stories. Cultural. Japan. Asian Literature. Japanese Literature |
Ilustration Conducive To Books Sleep
Sleep can be a blessing.
Or,… otherwise.
By the time I was reading this Murakami’s it just happened I watched a tape by famous Sleep researcher, psychiatrist W. Dement. His research on REM (rapid eye movements) and dreams had been long and very enlightening. He started in the 1950’s at the Chicago University.
One of the key concepts is that of REM sleep: though muscles are turned off, the brain activity continues. If people are awakened in the REM phase, 80% of them will have a vivid recall of the dreams experienced.
Dement read Freud’s Interpretation of dreams and acknowledged dreams can be psychologically significant. In that tape Dement pointed out experiments made in animals: cats deprived of REM sleep would become more aggressive towards rats.
What about humans? What would happen if a person had been for 17 days with no sleep at all? “Insanity” is the likely word that comes up to any lay or non-lay mind,…likely.
That’s what this book is about. An unidentified 30 year-old female goes through that experience and registers her own inner and outer life. The record is meant for the reader solely, since she tells nobody about. Neither to her dentist-husband, nor to her school-kid son. This is a kind of pre-scientific paper.
She reported having had a “kind of insomnia” prior to those 17 days. Some of her observations follow: “it’s hard to tell distance from objects or the weight of things”; she had lost 15 kg; she felt as she was “inside her own shadow”. But that episode was gone.
Later came the 17-days phase. Initially, she got worried and pondered a medical consultation. Then she resigned and came to the resolution: “I don’t care about sleep”. She knew all-too-well about the sleep positive side: “the excess of energy produced by thoughts is then eliminated via dreams”. She knew sleep could be therapeutic, refreshing. Yet it didn't happen.
Murakami surely had to read scientific papers about sleep; that’s obvious in some instances of the text. For example when experiments made by the Nazis are evoked. They used, in WWII, sleep deprivation as torture… coupled with “lights-on always”; insanity ensued; death next.
How about "she"?
She had a degree in English literature and a thesis on Catherine Mansfield. She’s been a housewife though. Now that sleep does not happen, she reads compulsively, over the nights; she sips cognac…and bites chocolates. She reads Ana Karenina…reflects on her image at the mirror, her perfect body well worked out.
At night she watches her husband sleeping un-interrupt as always (he looks like "an idiot"; she’s irritated by the fact that her son has got that type of face: like dad’s).
During daytime, she prepares meals for her family; does the shopping; and works out,… swimming.
No insanity reported. Only an “enlarged consciousness”; a sense of “über” woman; a sort of 1/3 life-amplification…”time was all mine”.
Nevertheless, the paper got interrupted. We don’t know the rest. In my view that's the negative side of the Murakami's paper. We got to know only that she went out, while family sleeps, for a car ride…she’s parked, she cannot start the car, she’s locked inside and two shadows are about to flip her car over.
No conclusions drawn, as they are in scientific papers. So, it’s just pre-scientific.
Just fiction.
UPDATE: "The Spooky Effects of Sleep Deprivation"
in: http://www.livescience.com/52592-spoo...
Rating Containing Books Sleep
Ratings: 3.52 From 10831 Users | 1587 ReviewsAssess Containing Books Sleep
Such an amazing book. Such an amazing end. I'm dazed and fascinated.Suddenly, a woman can no longer sleep and this for days and weeks at a stretch, without feeling tired.Her husband and son do not know anything about her sleepless nights, and they also do not notice anything when the first-person narrator starts to pursue her forgotten interests again.It feels like as if the woman is living two lives: On the one hand the normal life during the day rather unspectacular. Then there is the secret life at night which is not very exciting either, but for other
Reading for the second time...This is my third book from Murakami and every single word can perfectly describe absolutely every emotion I can feel . "This is how people change. But nobody realizes it. Nobody notices. Only I know what happens. I could try to tell them, but they wouldnt understand. They wouldnt believe me. Or if they do,they would have absolutely no idea what Im feeling. They would only see me as a threat to their inductive world view. I am changing, though. Really changing. How
Sleep was an interesting read in that the prose was so crisp and clean that I couldn't turn away from the book for a second, but the story itself was boring and monotonous. Murakami has this interesting parallel between his tale and Anna Karenina that he manages to pull off without seeming pretentious. Beside that and the prose, though, I didn't find much else to enjoy.
Sleep can be a blessing. Or, otherwise. By the time I was reading this Murakamis it just happened I watched a tape by famous Sleep researcher, psychiatrist W. Dement. His research on REM (rapid eye movements) and dreams had been long and very enlightening. He started in the 1950s at the Chicago University. One of the key concepts is that of REM sleep: though muscles are turned off, the brain activity continues. If people are awakened in the REM phase, 80% of them will have a vivid recall of
Such an amazing book. Such an amazing end. I'm dazed and fascinated.
Wow! I fast fall asleep while reading this story of an unnamed woman who can't sleep. Then I woke up and re-read the end part and guess what! It still didnt make any sense. Although I didnt get the ending I gave it 4star because of Murakami's surreal and enchanting writing style.
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