Word: insomnia
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...curious affection, as he did Piet Hanema, the star-crossed archadulterer in Couples. The fact seems curious, since most of the sense in the book is given to Ruth. During the marriage she has cared well for Jerry and the children. But she has never taken seriously his asthmatic insomnia and an accompanying sense of the moment-by-moment fleetingness of life. "Dust to dust," she murmurs complacently and goes to sleep...
...that made it seem more than that. They were exaggerators, both of them." The reader agrees, and is inclined to root for Ruth who wants to save her marriage. He is also inclined to reflect on what appear to be similar- ities between Jerry and Updike himself: that galloping insomnia, for instance. Like Updike's own recently divorced wife, Ruth is a Unitarian minister's daughter. Like Updike and his wife, Ruth and Richard once went to art school together: "Cadmium yellow danced boldly through her pears," Updike reports. "His gift was for line...
...Hartman before finding out what is really on Updike's mind in Marry Me. Through the evident clash between sense and sympathy, Jerry Conant emerges as one of Updike's ambiguous truth carriers. It is by no coincidence, comrades, that being with Sally symbolically cures both his insomnia and his fear of death. All of Jerry's apparent follies-the reversion to calf love, the dramatic moral posturings, the delusive passion-are meant to be regarded as signs of life, as useful gestures in the long holding action against death which everyone loses eventually...
Janet's case of insomnia is something new ("possibly physical, possibly emotional," she thinks), but her late night hours have been part of her way of life ever since high school. She used to fall asleep doing homework on the kitchen table at five in the morning. In those days, she didn't begin work until 2 a.m. because there were other important matters to attend to before starting homework. She also had her mother, a chronic insomniac, to keep her company when she worked until sunrise...
...doctor's work consists of treating minor complaints and giving reassurance. Common colds, minor injuries, gastrointestinal upsets, back pain, arthritis and psychoneurotic anxiety states account for the vast majority of visits to clinics and doctors' offices. One out of four people is "emotionally tense" and worried about insomnia, fatigue, too much or too little appetite and ability to cope with modern life. At least 10% of the population suffer from some form of mental illness, and one-seventh of these receive some form of psychiatric care. Meanwhile, the figures for longevity are the highest and for infant mortality...