Haruki Murakami
Paperback | Pages: 80 pages Rating: 3.52 | 10831 Users | 1587 Reviews
Particularize Epithetical Books Sleep
| Title | : | Sleep |
| Author | : | Haruki Murakami |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 80 pages |
| Published | : | (first published 1987) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Short Stories. Cultural. Japan. Asian Literature. Japanese Literature |
Interpretation Toward 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...Declare Books During Sleep
| Original Title: | ねむり |
| Edition Language: | English |
Rating Epithetical Books Sleep
Ratings: 3.52 From 10831 Users | 1587 ReviewsAppraise Epithetical Books Sleep
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.I feel rather at home with this book. No, I havent been wide awake for the past 17 days, but Ive always had trouble sleeping. Ironically enough, the fact that I couldnt sleep was the reason why I decided to start reading this book. Lets just say that I didnt stop until I reached the very last page. Just like the main character, I find myself thinking too much too much about the strange ending the author decided to give to this book. It could mean so many different things. There are currently a
This book had a really cool premise. A woman who can't sleep. But this is not a case of insomnia, she just does not need it. At all.She spends all her nights READING BOOKS. From 10 pm to 6 am, that's all she does. Every day, for seventeen days. Isn't that a dream come true?I was enjoying it very much. But then, that ending... That was NOT an ending.I understand it is supposed to be a short story, but still... Nothing was explained.Maybe the last few pages of my copy went missing. That is the
Ok this was so quick read I find myself finishing this book and flipping the pages to find more , it's so short but so good absolutely I'm gonna read more to Haruki murakami
The pictures saved it. I couldn't imagine getting through this if I didn't know there'd be a new one every page I turned.Haruki Murakami's Sleep is a short story from one of his other novels which was published separately. I haven't read The Elephant Vanishes yet (even though I will. I will read all of Murakami's eventually) so I can't quite frame the story in the original novel but, to me personally, Sleep felt pointless.It comes about a woman in her 30s - it is narrated by her, actually -
I read this short story once, years ago... and still find it soporofic. I struggle staying awake while reading, trying to finish it.In breif, it's a first person story about a married woman who has a wealthy family and suffers from insomnia and inner loneleness. She has a very active soul which try to find life out of her dull life.Thus, she searched for some activities such as reading... she chose Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, because it reflects her dull life just like Anna's.Moreover, the woman in
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