INSOMNIA
One of my favourite novels is a glorious obscurity. No-one has ever heard of it. It was a triumphant find in a tiny public library. Written in the '80s by a Frenchwoman, the action concerns a young woman who starts overeating and then decides to continue overeating until she dies. So it’s a form of suicide. Her heart eventually buckles under her own weight but it's the dying that's important, not the death itself.
It might sound a bit like anorexia in reverse, but anorexics generally do not want to die (they just want to be thin). This, on the other hand, is a calculated act. With a lack of self-pity, she only eats sweet/sickly/greasy/ food, in ever-increasing quantities. Naturally, the woman becomes very obese. Learning to deal with others' reactions to her is another part of the process and this is a major theme – the discrepancy between other people’s assumption that she lacks self control, and her own self control in continuing to consume mountains of food.
So it’s not the happiest book. But it’s exceptionally vivid and well-written.
A line that I’ve never forgotten is this. I’m not sure where in the book it comes, but I think it is a thought that she has at the end, lying down in her room while she is close to death. She is looking forward to being dead and to the release it will bring her, but then this nightmarish scenario suddently occurs to her: “And what if death were merely eternal insomnia in the heart of a slumbering city?”
I think that’s such a great line! I remembered it last night because I couldn’t sleep while the city (when you are sleepless it feels like the whole world) slumbered on. The novel is called 'Sweet Death' and it is by Claude Tardac.
One of my favourite novels is a glorious obscurity. No-one has ever heard of it. It was a triumphant find in a tiny public library. Written in the '80s by a Frenchwoman, the action concerns a young woman who starts overeating and then decides to continue overeating until she dies. So it’s a form of suicide. Her heart eventually buckles under her own weight but it's the dying that's important, not the death itself.
It might sound a bit like anorexia in reverse, but anorexics generally do not want to die (they just want to be thin). This, on the other hand, is a calculated act. With a lack of self-pity, she only eats sweet/sickly/greasy/ food, in ever-increasing quantities. Naturally, the woman becomes very obese. Learning to deal with others' reactions to her is another part of the process and this is a major theme – the discrepancy between other people’s assumption that she lacks self control, and her own self control in continuing to consume mountains of food.
So it’s not the happiest book. But it’s exceptionally vivid and well-written.
A line that I’ve never forgotten is this. I’m not sure where in the book it comes, but I think it is a thought that she has at the end, lying down in her room while she is close to death. She is looking forward to being dead and to the release it will bring her, but then this nightmarish scenario suddently occurs to her: “And what if death were merely eternal insomnia in the heart of a slumbering city?”
I think that’s such a great line! I remembered it last night because I couldn’t sleep while the city (when you are sleepless it feels like the whole world) slumbered on. The novel is called 'Sweet Death' and it is by Claude Tardac.
