Word: insomnia
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...forget One Hundred Years of Solitude, and thank goodness for that. Instead, Garcia Marquez, 60, * offers a spacious mirror image of the novel that made him famous. This time out, surface events largely conform to the dictates of plausibility. No one ascends bodily into heaven; the famous plague of insomnia that swept through Solitude here becomes literal, recurrent ravages of cholera morbus. The bizarre and outlandish are relegated to the domain of private lives, to characters who must construct for themselves elaborate fictions to follow in order to stand the shocks and tedium of being alive...
...three to six hours a night, perhaps with a nap during the day, is typically all that is necessary. The quality of sleep changes, becoming lighter and more fitful. Shorter, restless nights lead many who recall the easy slumber of youth to complain of insomnia. As a result, half of elderly women and one-quarter of elderly men take largely unneeded sleeping pills...
...mattress sales. Last year 4 million water beds were sold (price: $100 to $600), nearly three-quarters of them to buyers over age 30. About one-fourth of purchasers now cite health reasons for choosing a water bed. The most common complaints are back pain, arthritis and insomnia...
What, however, has this to do with art? The sprawling, sometimes rambling narrative indulges in an uncomfortable amount of kitchen psychoanalysis ("The only thing that can explain this man, with his chain smoking, pills, liquor, insomnia, and need for crowds, is incredible pain") in arguing that Bernstein's background has forged the schizoid musician, from slick tunesmith to leonine conductor, that he has become. In Peyser's view -- formed with the partial cooperation of Bernstein, who gave her permission to use some personal letters -- the works of the artist cannot be understood without taking into account the character...
...after his bag was stolen at the dental clinic, Andrei met me at the train station. He looked haggard, as if he were suffering from insomnia or prolonged illness. His lips were trembling and his voice broke: "Lusia, they stole it." He spoke with acute pain...