Het vormeloze ongemak: een jaar lang niet slapen

by Samantha Harvey, Kitty Pouwels (Translator)

De slapeloosheid van Samantha Harvey kwam schijnbaar uit het niets; een jaar lang brengt ze haar nachten door met het najagen van slaap die zelden komt. Ze
heeft alles geprobeerd om het te verhelpen. Niets werkte. Wat gebeurt er als een van de basisbehoeften van de mens niet wordt vervuld? Voor Samantha Harvey leidde extreem slaaptekort tot een rauwe helderheid over het leven zelf. Het vormeloze ongemak is een verrassend inzichtelijke verkenning van herinneringen, schrijven, dood en verdriet, en de wil om te overleven.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Essays, Psychology, Mental Health, Biography, Audiobook

144 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 9, 2020

About the author

Samantha Harvey has completed postgraduate courses in philosophy and in Creative Writing. In addition to writing, she has traveled extensively and taught in Japan and has lived in Ireland and New Zealand. She recently co-founded an environmental charity and lives in Bath, England.

Her first novel, The Wilderness, was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2009, longlisted for the 2009 Man Booker Prize and won the 2009 Betty Trask Prize.

Reviews

[Varsha Ravi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoughts on a reread: Still holds up. Still an immensely thought provoking, moving and gorgeous book.

-

Where do I even begin with The Shapeless Unease. It’s an amalgamation of personal memoir, essays, snippets of fiction that have been birthed from the author’s period of extreme sleep deprivation. One would assume the complete lack of such a fundamental need would result in something hazy and confused, but instead, it’s the polar opposite. Harvey’s musings, that span grief, death, philosophy and more are startlingly clear, profound, moving and deeply insightful. It really got under my skin. The ideas she ponders ping-ponged in my head, rattling my brain, looping, filling me with a kind of restive energy and making me consider things I haven’t ever before.

Harvey’s insomnia takes root after the sudden, untimely demise of her cousin whose body wasn’t found until a few days after. What begins as a meditation on grief, gradually unravels, and touches on various other topics ranging from personal anecdotes and incidents from Harvey’s childhood to philosophical musings and the nature of creativity. The narrative is dotted with stunning aphorisms like, “fiction is the laundering of experience into the offshore haven of words”. There are phrases of such well-worded truths, “If the mind is a cacophony, the subconscious is silent theatre; here are the players from the conscious mind, the fears, the desires, the ought and ought-not, but they are whittled down to a core cast and they re-emerge in costume.”

A particular section that left me lost in thought was Harvey’s observations on science and faith. She writes, “I don’t see much opposition between science and faith - isn’t science just another form of faith - the faith in reason? It struck me once that I can never be faithless, I am always putting my faith in something - be that agnosticism, atheism, violence, kindness, money, cynicism, writing, love, politics, compassion. Faith is a precondition for science, a precondition for everything.” She elucidates further, “The more the believer in science holds up reason as the arbiter of all things, the more the reason starts to look like a god being worshipped. Reason is a thing that proves only itself. If you use reason to work out what is valid, you’ll find that the only valid things are those you can reach by reason.”

Her condition of sleeplessness lands her in a vertiginous state, where the recursive nature of her thoughts loop into one another and play out on the page. There’s almost this pervasive quality to her writing, the stream of consciousness style of her narration allowing you to experience her thoughts in the closest way possible. I have quoted Harvey a great deal in this review because sometimes there just isn’t a better way to explain than by example. Particularly, when an author is that good, you just need to get out of the way.

[K.J. Charles]

This started brilliantly as a memoir of insomnia. There were some absolutely terrific observations about insomnia logic, eg how she won't do certain things because that would be being superstitious about insomnia, and once you start being superstitious you've jinxed it you fool. Given I read the whole book with a sick feeling that I was jinxing my own sleep simply by entertaining the subject, this was highly relatable.

That said, it rather fell apart for me, ironically for insomnia reasons: stream of consciousness; felt frustratingly like it was going somewhere and didn't; lots of dwelling on awful things that happened to or adjacent to her. Which, fair, it's a memoir, but I was here for the insomnia. I also did not get on with her philosophy of writing, which is rather more mystical than mine, but here we are.

For me this was a brilliant essay about insomnia that didn't need to be a book; others will doubtless take away a great deal more/different.

[fatma · Rating 4 out of 5]

". . . my friend looks at me with infinite compassion and says, une petite nuit? Oui, I say, une petite nuit, encore. In this expression, French has it all wrong; nights awake are the longest, largest, most cavernous of things. There is acre upon acre of night, and whole eras come and go, and there isn't another soul to be found on the journey through to morning."

The Shapeless Unease is, as its subtitle puts it, about its author's year of not sleeping. But to say that this book is about insomnia is to miss the soil that that insomnia grows in: the anxiety, the existential panic, the sheer exhaustion with life. This is what Harvey writes about: insomnia as an all-encompassing thing, an ouroboros eating its tail, sleeplessness breeding anxiety, anxiety pushing a full night's sleep further out of reach.

Harvey's book is more than anything, I think, a series of meditations on her insomnia, anxiety, and existential panic. It has no structure as such, but is moreso fluid in its movement from one subject to the other. In many ways Harvey's writing mirrors her condition throughout the book: slightly stream-of-consciousness, introspective, sometimes painfully aware of her physical being and sometimes transposing herself onto vivid snippets of memory. Because the book so inextricably follows her states of being and trains of thought, it reads as particularly organic in its layout, lending its writing a distinct feeling of being unfiltered and spur-of-the-moment. And this is not even to mention the absolute beauty of Harvey's writing. "Beauty" almost feels like the wrong word to use here, given the searing intimacy of Harvey's account, but her writing really is just exquisite. It's the kind of writing style that enhances rather than buries meaning—that is, it's not superficial or flowery for the sake of being flowery, but actually gives you a more intimate sense of Harvey's experiences.

The Shapeless Unease is a book that has some of the most beautiful, painfully honest writing I've read in a while. I think everyone will find something in this book that will speak to them in some measure. Highly recommend giving it a chance when it comes out on May 22.

Thanks to Grove Press for providing me an e-ARC of this via NetGalley!

[Valerity (Val) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was so hoping to relate to this one, having myself suffered for years from insomnia due to a condition that is now (CSA) Central Sleep Apnea. This author's year of insomnia led her to express it in this book, but I must be too sleep deprived to get into her stream of consciousness delivery. It may be lovely for well-rested readers, but I threw in the towel. It caused me to be unconscious. I tried more than once, but had to give up. DNF.

[Serena · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was given an ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

DNF @ 26%

I'll say very little about this.
I'm a psychology student. This book NEEDS trigger warnings. I didn't have any in the info page at the beginning, the Goodreads synopsis, the NetGalley synopsis or ANYWHERE. This book WILL give people panic attacks. You can't just write whatever the fuck you want and not be responsible for it because it's a book and it's art and it can't ever be wrong. So, TRIGGER WARNINGS:
-death
-second person narration of how you'll die
-death of a loved one
-second person narration of how your corpse will rot
-anxiety, REALLY BAD, UNFILTERED, SPIRALLING-DOWN ANXIETY
-epilepsy
And that's only counting the quarter of the book I read. It's nasty as fuck, and the author tries to downplay it by making it "poetic" (and failing imo) or quirky or funny but it isn't any of those things. IT'S HIGHLY IRRESPONSIBLE TO PUT THIS KIND OF UNFILTERED STUFF OUT THERE WITHOUT ITS PROPER TRIGGER WARNINGS.

Second, there's literally medical misinformation here. YOU CAN'T SWALLOW YOUR TONGUE WHILE HAVING A SEIZURE. This thought has lead to many epileptic people BITING THEIR LITERAL TONGUES OFF. Who THE FUCK beta read this, who is her agent, who is her editor, how many people DID NOT KNOW THIS?

Third, and again, as a psychologist, there truly are some things that should stay between you and your therapist.

I have a lot more to say but don't want to waste more time on this book.

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I tried and failed to read this book several times during the last few months of my pregnancy where I suffered, for the first time in my life, from insomnia myself. But the beginning of this book rang so true that it ended up too much for me. Now that falling asleep really is not a problem anymore, I finally finished the book and I am glad I did, even if it did not often work for me. Samantha Harvey approaches her insomnia from different angles, many of which are experimental in narrative structure. I did not like this as much as I hoped I would – particularly in the middle there were long passages that I found uninteresting and also not as well thought-out as I would have liked. I think the approach would have worked better for me had it either been closer to her own life or more thoroughy researched and cited, this middle ground made me impatient. Harvey plays with perspective in a way that I found inappropriate for non-fiction but that might have worked better in a novel; for example she imagines in great detail the thoughts one of her doctors might have to suit her narrative and I could not get on board with it (I don’t even want to imagine what her point was when she compared a homeless person to a bin bag and imagined their thoughts that she assumed would be filled with self-loathing).

Content warning: death of a loved one, death of a pet, insomnia, suicidal idolation, divorce

I received an ARC of this book courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

[Jonathan K (Max Outlier) · Rating 2 out of 5]

In a word, not my cup of tea. Depressing and failed to engage. While I'm sure it appeals to some, I decided against going further, aka DNF.

[metempsicoso · Rating 3 out of 5]

È quasi un sacrilegio che questo testo sia così bozzoluto. Lo percorro con le dita per tastarlo, ovaloide, e sotto i polpastrelli la superficie è ora ruvida, non finita, ora lustra. A tratti mi spaventa così tanto cosa tocco da volerlo rigettare, poi inciampo in uno sfregio. Premeditato, affilato - mi incide la carne fino all'osso. Maledetto, mi ha maledetto.
Non so a cosa hai pensato, leggendo queste parole. Io a un teschio.
Sarà anche colpa mia, che penso troppo alla morte e mi sono scelto Van Gogh come simulacro, ma Harvey credo sarebbe felice di sapere d'avermi spinto a pensare a una testa mozzata, putrefatta a metà, mentre la leggevo.
Perché quel "il mio anno di insonnia" è allo stesso tempo una descrizione accurata e un'esca per allocchi. Questo breve libro tracima di morte.
Potrebbe sembrare un paradosso, lo so: non dormire, per quanto ti faccia impazzire, ti costringe a vivere più vita. Eppure non sempre è così. Quando ti manca, il riposo bussa alla tua soglia più spesso con l'idea della sua eternità.
È un collegamento strano, che prima non avevo mai fatto e che quando ho ingoiato mi ha fatto inciampare. Perché io penso troppo alla morte, sì, ma dormo anche molto poco da decenni. Funzioniamo per caso tutti così?
Forti di una scrittura diretta e spietata, le prime facciate de Le infinite notti mi hanno lanciato in una bella spirale di rimasticamenti e ansia e angoscia d'intensità tale da farmelo accantonare per alcune settimane. Bitch i'm out, altrimenti cosa la pago a fare la mia psicologa?
Fortunatamente, dopo una tregua dovuta, fin quando il mio umore è uscito dalla fossa, il resto è stato altalenante. Perché per quanto sia un sacrilegio, un testo più levigato di questo sarebbe risultato indigeribile: ha bisogno del suo essere sconclusionato, del livello incostante e delle facciate da sbadiglio affinché quelle frasi perfette, disperse là in mezzo, siano bevibili.
"Caro cugino Paul" [p. 23] è un brevissimo monologo teatrale già pronto per essere messo in scena - ma solo per chi non è debole di stomaco.
Appunto qui sotto solo un paio di frasi su cui so che un giorno vorrò tornare.

Nel corso di quelle erosioni, il dolore si insinuò piano piano, seguito dalla sete e dalla stanchezza. Tornai a sentire il peso del tempo, il suo assillo perenne. Il tempo calcia, scalcia, si fa strada con la punta del piede. Il tempo separa la vita dalla morte, ne allenta l'abbraccio. E noi viviamo il tempo, non la vita. È il tempo, non la vita, a esaurirsi. Il tempo spinge la morte là dove possiamo vederla, e poi si offre come protezione limitata. Il tempo è dove attecchiscono la paura e la disperazione. [pp. 82-83]

Se la fine conferisce sacralità, allora ogni momento è sacro, perché ogni momento potrebbe essere l'ultimo. È un pensiero che sprechiamo con troppa leggerezza. Pensiamo spesso che bisognerebbe vivere ogni giorno come se fosse l'ultimo, e poi non lo facciamo.
Ogni cosa è sacra. È solo alla morte che si evoca la sacralità. Eppure ogni cosa era sacra, lo è sempre stata. [pp. 99-100]

[emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty sure I'm the only reader (here on GR at least) of Harvey's book who has managed to (ironically) doze off (into a rather deep slumber if I must say so) while reading it (and/but finished it later anyway, and (just to clarify) fully conscious). Definitely not modern-day 'Virginia Woolf' as 'Telegraph' had simply described this to be. I can loosely relate to some of the things that Harvey had explored in her novel (as someone who has a very complicated relationship with sleep; and/but esp. in 2018/2019) which inevitably makes it quite an easy novel/memoir to 'enjoy', but a lot of it was written quite carelessly and not as precisely as I would have liked - hence the reduction of 'stars'. Bit conflicted about Harvey's writing/narrative style - particularly where she had written about/referred to herself in third person. I 'get' why she had done it, but she certainly could have done it better without it.

Also, I do consider myself a (sometimes overly) 'sensitive' person, but apparently not when it comes to writing/literature(?). Other readers/reviewers had complained about how Harvey had written too freely about a lot of triggering events in the book without any 'trigger warning', but I simply was not fazed by any of it. I did, after all, completely blacked out into a very deep sleep while I was reading it. RTC.

[Claire Fuller · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've now read all of Harvey's work, including her latest Orbital and while I did enjoy the writing in this (and the way she read it), it felt rather too disjointed for me. Lots of thoughts about what she does when she can't sleep, her interactions with doctors, but also a short story that she's writing (which I enjoyed but was muddled in with the rest of it). Perhaps like her first novel, it's about the muddle - the confused thoughts when you're not sleeping. Wouldn't put me off reading anything else by Harvey.

[Repix Pix · Rating 2 out of 5]

Entiendo que esto no es un ensayo ni un manual pero no puedes hablar de psicología, farmacología, pseudoterapias o medicina sin tener ni idea. Siempre hay que ser responsable con lo que se escribe y publica, siempre, pero más con temas delicados que implican enfermedades y muerte.

[Gabril · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Quando non dormo, passo la notte a frugare nel groviglio del mio passato per tentare di capire dove ho sbagliato, a scavare nell’infanzia per vedere se la genesi dell’insonnia è lì, in cerca del pensiero, la cosa o l’evento esatto che mi ha trasformato da persona che dorme a persona che non dorme”.

Di riflessione in riflessione, di frammento in frammento, passando da un coerente delirio all’altro, Samantha Harvey ci trascina nel suo mondo insonne, chiuso, assurdamente logico e lucidamente allucinato, con la stessa profondità e la stessa grazia con cui ci ha fatto gravitare nel cosmo silenzioso e sontuoso di Orbital.

Una scrittura magnetica e magnifica.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was like peeling back the cling film of my mind to all the depths of grief and strangeness insomnia brings.

I was actually afraid it would conjure it again - some medieval reflex in me feeling like if you name a thing too intently, too specifically, you somehow invite it back.

But the clarity and honesty here was so dignifying. The prose is beautiful and thick; a howl at the dark. Harvey’s strangled apology for having written a flippant line in a novel about a character who can’t sleep, without having known what it is Not To Sleep, was vindicating and tragic.

This is profound and fumbling; aching layers thick with the stupor of sleeplessness.

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute triumph. Harvey puts into words so perfectly the intimate terror of anxiety that feels impossible to articulate. I've already put a reminder in my diary to reread this in a year's time, but I doubt I'll need it.

[Mighty Aphrodite · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fuori è buio, ma mai abbastanza per credere davvero che sia notte, perché il corpo si lasci andare al sonno, ancora, come aveva fatto per anni e come – ora – non riesce più a fare. Il sonno non era forse qualcosa di naturale? Qualcosa di facile in cui scivolare senza quasi accorgersene? Il sonno non è forse una dimensione di pace e innocenza che tutti meritiamo dopo una lunga ed estenuante giornata fuori nel mondo?

Anche se non c’è mai abbastanza buio (o forse ce n’è troppo?), però, è pur sempre notte e gli occhi di Harvey dovrebbero essere chiusi, mentre invece sono spalancati e doloranti. Da quando non riesce più a dormire, il dolore è diventata una costante, il suo corpo è un groviglio di fitte, tremori, pensieri. Rimanere a letto è come sentirsi in prigione, ma alzarsi le provoca una rabbia profonda e insensata: Harvey non può fare a meno di gridare, strapparsi i capelli, aggirarsi per casa come un leone in gabbia.

Harvey ormai conosce tutti i rumori della notte inglese: le macchine che sfrecciano a una velocità forsennata, il rumore dei veicoli che colpiscono il dosso sotto casa, la luce del lampione che filtra dalle tende oscuranti, il treno merci delle tre, gli aerei che rombano in cielo.

Ogni rumore è una staffilata terribile, il continuo promemoria di una notte che non ha mai fine, di un buio che sommerge tutto, sembra fagocitarla e che porta con sé paure, panico, una disperazione sorda che pare non poter essere placata da nulla e da nessuno.

continua a leggere qui: https://parlaredilibri.wordpress.com/...

[Natalie (CuriousReader) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review originally published: https://curiousreaderr.wordpress.com/...

When I first stumbled upon The Shapeless Unease among upcoming releases, I thought it sounded a bit like Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation – which I along with most everyone I know loved. But while both books tackle sleep-problems and span a year, their resemblance ends there – Samantha Harvey’s The Shapeless Unease is a memoir of one year where she struggles with sleep and through this experience, she writes not about sleep so much as everything else. As she puts it herself at one point, sleep like money is something that you only really think about when you have too little of it. Sleep then, to the insomniac, becomes the prism through which you see and move in the world – that is a pretty accurate representation of the book as well, sleep becomes the prism through which Harvey experiences, thinks, feels and narrates her life. It is rarely the subject of discussion but at the same time it’s always there, forming everything within the life it’s holding in its grip.

The Shapeless Unease is a memoir told in a stream-of-conciousness style, a literary style which for me has turned out to be kind of a marmite thing. Usually, I find it ends up allowing for too much fragmentation in writing – rather than staying with one thing, dedicating time and effort to dig deeper into it – the writer is allowed to flick from point to point without bothering to get beyond the most surface-level notes. On the other hand, it can at times bring out an authenticity of the truest sensory experience without the cloak of narrative rules, sense of propriety or time. Speaking from the heart, I suppose is the cheesy way of putting it. Harvey’s book is a mixture of both – the good and the bad with the form.

When her writing is at its weakest is when her words almost seem hollow; it’s short snappy phrases and over-written sentences that seem to weigh nothing else but conveying to the reader the emotional state of its creator. It does serve a purpose in reflecting the mind of an insomniac, the way her mind is in fact fragmented because she has not the energy or the sense of presence to keep hold of longer strains of thought or form true order of what she’s narrating. It all ends up being mushy, with deprived thoughts hardly worth printing. As a reader, I felt I could appreciate the technical value in the writing form and what it does to the book – how it tells a story beyond the actual wording, how the shape of the book reflects the story (the shapelessness) it is holding in its covers. But there’s a difference between appreciation for worth and reading enjoyment, in this case it doesn’t work beyond its idea.

On the other hand, when Harvey’s is at the top of her game she appears to reach beyond the veil – there’s honesty and something akin to a vision, of seeing all the way to the core of things, stripping away the layers of accepted narrative and clichés, commonly accepted truths and comfortable thinking patterns – to reveal something recognisably true. She manages to do this with topics as varied as world politics, identity, death, relationships, writing, sleep, and philosophy. I found myself stopping at the way she writes about anxiety and fear, especially – she writes about the way anxiety, like sleeplessness, reproduces itself in an endless cycle and how worrying about worrying will only worsen the experience but there’s no stopping it. It’s a helpless feeling that she equals to that of her sleeplessness, “the more you want it the less it comes”.

Ultimately, she closes the book with questioning her own sense in the world and why she keeps on moving forward, even in the midst of this political and worldly turmoil – how do any of us keep on even when it feels like the sky is falling? Even when it seems everything is going to shit? “What is it that is leaning forward in me now, towards the world?” She doesn’t necessarily have the answers, but it’s a notion I can’t help but think we could all do with, in this current state of the world. Generations before us have struggled, have faced prejudice and hatred and wars and suffering and discrimination and injustice and many struggles beside, we’re not alone in this experience and yet it is our experience now. How do we face it? Why do we keep on leaning in, towards the world, each other, ourselves? It seems a good thing to return to in times of trouble of the external or internal kind. To be reminded of that something which does, against the odds, lean forward towards the world and propels us to “swim with, with with”.

[JacquiWine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Earlier this year, I wrote about Marina Benjamin’s Insomnia, a luminous meditation on the hinterland between longed-for sleep and unwelcome wakefulness. Samantha Harvey’s The Shapeless Unease could be viewed as something of a companion piece to the Benjamin. It’s just as beautifully written, a book that brilliantly evokes the fragmentary nature of this condition, perfectly capturing the freewheeling association between seemingly disparate thoughts as the mind flits from one topic to another.

In the midst of the night, Harvey trawls through the remnants of her past, searching for clues on the cause of her insomnia, the trigger that has turned her from a sleeper to a non-sleeper over the past year.

When I don’t sleep I spend the night searching the intricacies of my past, trying to find out where I went wrong, trawling through childhood to see if the genesis of the insomnia is there, trying to find the exact thought, thing or happening that turned me from a sleeper to a non-sleeper. I try to find a key to release me from it. I try to solve the logic problem that is now my life. I circle the arena of my mind, it’s shrinking perimeter, like a polar bear in its grubby blue–white plastic enclosure with fake ice caps and water that turns out to have no depth. I circle and circle. It’s 3 a.m., 4 a.m. It’s always 3 a.m., 4 a.m. I circle back. (p. 32)

So much of what Harvey says in this book resonates with me – from the differences between fear and anxiety, to her reflections on death and our own sense of mortality, to the humiliation we sometimes encounter when discussing a condition with a doctor or counsellor. I too have experienced that sense of dread and desperation when seeking a cause or label for a series of symptoms, the need to negotiate for further tests or investigations to be carried out. Moreover, the frustration of being on the receiving end of well-intentioned advice and lifestyle interventions, most of which have already been explored.

To read the rest of my review, please visit:

https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2020...

[Nathalie (keepreadingbooks) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t have a lot of smart words to describe this one, and I’m not sure I can even attempt to review it objectively – my reasons for liking this book are too personal.

Having had more-or-less serious sleeping problems on and off since 2016, I see a lot of myself in Harvey’s book. The things she does to help herself sleep (and failing), the thoughts that haunt her, the very raw emotions that emerge when the whole world is asleep and you’re not.

The fragmented style of the book is perfect, mirroring the disjointed thoughts of late nights. I know it's very deliberately done, but it feels natural, like a peek into a sleep-deprived brain somewhere between midnight and morning. Some of it's philosophical, some of it's raw and angry, some of it's well-crafted and well thought out. It’s not exactly a comforting book – the middle of the night is not comforting, especially inside your own head – but it was actually a comfort to read, because I felt so much less alone. It helps that she’s an excellent writer, and I’m very keen to read her novels now.

This is a good book either way, but if you've had trouble sleeping for longer periods of time in your life, this might just feel like a friend who holds your hand and says "I know".

/NK

[Alexandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lyrical, swirling, furious attempt to pin down sleeplessness. Anyone who has ever suffered from insomnia will feel seen to the nth degree, with new, nicely arranged words to point at that describe the spiral that is insomnia. Funny enough, I started the book at 1am on a sleepness night and read about a third of the book all in one quiet hour on the living room couch. I put the book down, feeling recognized and peaceful enough with my struggle to give the whole sleeping thing another go. When I resumed the book the next day, I was disappointed to find that the book was much more scattered and "shapeless" in the light of day. I think Harvey loses some of her narrative strength with the middle third of the book, which is why I can't give it a full five stars. Her story about the ATM thief was a strange addition, but maybe I'm not smart enough to understand its purpose within the text. Either way, I recommend the book to my fellow insomniacs for the first third alone. There's something very powerful about knowing you're not alone, and that eventually, though it feels like you never might, you will sleep again.

(ARC courtesy of NetGalley)

[Ramona Mead · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF at 20%. This is not what I was expecting when I requested the book. I was thinking it would be a more straightforward memoir. I should have been clued in by the term "immersive interior monologue" in the blurb. The book is written in a stream of consciousness style. At times it was too abstract and felt way over my head. I have an anxiety disorder and this writing style, combined with the author's obsession with her cousin's death made me very distressed while reading. I suppose that's a sign of great writing, but it didn't work for me. I appreciate the exploration of what happens to one's mind when she can't sleep, but I don't like this one. many thanks to NetGalley for my advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

[AJ · Rating 1 out of 5]

Reading this book was painfully excruciating— I get what the author was trying to depict here by writing an endless stream of conscious thoughts that came to mind while she couldn’t sleep, but it just didn’t work for me. Nothing flowed, nothing made sense, and the only reason I even finished the book was because it wasn’t very long. Still, I’m baffled at why this was long listed for the Booker Prize, but maybe some folks out there love this sort of random rambling because it feels artsy or different, IDK. On top of it all, I just think if you are going to do this sort of writing, at least make your scribbled random thoughts somewhat profound? All in all, one of the worst books I’ve read this year.

[Bart Van Overmeire · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book about insomnia worked at 3am as well as Sunday afternoon, drifting between waking and sleeping (because, well, 3am the night before and drowsy on the couch beneath a blanket). Very good, but no idea whether it works for good sleepers.

[D.A. Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
It’s reassuring, given that I am unlikely ever to have a book nominated for any prize, let alone a Booker, to read one that is so utterly silly.
I don’t get it.
Much much self-obsessed whining such that one WOULD do if one never slept, true enough, but honestly. Booker worthy? No.
Look, I know lots of people with long time insomnia because they are in addition struggling with a serious chronic disease. Samantha Harvey is not, apparently, so my sympathies are scant.
Reviews on the back are glowing “prose so elegant, so luminous, it practically shines from the page”. Not my experience. I found it boring and flipped through the slim volume quite quickly.
I also know a lot of people who struggle with mental
Illness/anxiety/ depression, including me. I did not relate to this book whatsoever. I hope it resonates with some of you.
Sadly, no miracle for me.

[Annikky · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked but didn’t love it, possibly because I wanted this to be Marina Benjamin’s Insomnia. Benjamin’s take on not sleeping is gentler, more essey-like and perhaps too romanticised, but I enjoyed it a lot and recommend it highly. If you are fascinated by the topic, Harvey is well worth reading too.

[Moritz Mueller-Freitag · Rating 5 out of 5]

An introspective, stream-of-conscious memoir about the author’s year-long struggle with insomnia. Harvey’s fragmented prose mimics the wandering of the sleepless mind perfectly. Profound and deeply insightful; not at all soporific!

[Michael Bohli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ein Jahr ohne Schlaf hat immerhin ein positives Resultat: Dieses wunderbare Buch. Eine Mischung aus autobiografischen Notizen, fiktiven Einschüben und Essay-Passagen; immer locker zu lesen und voller interessanter Gedanken.

"Das Jahr ohne Schlaf" von Samantha Harvey ist eine abwechslungsreiche und ungezwungene Lektüre, die nicht nur in schlaflosen Momenten gelegen kommt.

[Abby · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this captures insomnia in a way I’ve never really seen anyone talk about before: the panic, the turning away of the alarm clock so as to avoid the panic, the implicit understanding of the time anyways. And maybe most importantly, the question: “What pea disrupts your sleep, princess? A passing Audi?”

[Kevin M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once you get over the TERROR that this book might red pill you into insomnia, it's a very lovely and funny book about life and consciousness.
Feels a bit like literary jazz. Establishes a central theme and then throws shapes around it.

[shion tia ☾ · Rating 4 out of 5]

was really comforting to read something that spoke to parts of me i didn't think I could explore or ever understand, Harvey's prose opens up new pathways in my creative mind at every bend. I felt relieved, intrigued, seen, heard, felt, understood. will definitely come back to this again in the future.

[Vanya · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who has never had trouble sleeping I have always wondered what could render people sleepless. In fact, I am ashamed to admit that I have, on some occasions, thought of insomnia as the privileged’s preserve—a manifestation of their solipsism. I couldn’t have found a better book than The Shapeless Unease to rectify my ill-founded prejudices.

The Shapeless Unease is Samantha Harvey’s account of her year long tussle with sleeplessness, a period in which she felt intense exhaustion and dread. The writers starts experiencing disturbed sleep after the announcement of Brexit, a news that makes her fret over the future of her country. The death of her cousin exacerbates her existing feelings of anxiety. Whorling into long spells of sleeplessness, she begins to contemplate the death of all her loved ones. The offices of doctors she consults resound with the oft-repeated mantra of “stay positive” as if a patient deliberately chooses to believe the worst. Harvey tries out all the suggested cures from practicing sleep hygiene to meditation. But sleep evades her with a deft stubbornness.

The writer peppers her memoir with fictional short stories that she writes during the year, taking us into the realm of her writing process. She tells us how her outlook on the craft changes as she grapples with sleep-deprivation. Her condition affects her writing—she subconsciously taps into the traits of people she knows for the characters she forges, the resulting stories a heady confluence of the real and the imagined.

This is a memoir that talks about many things at once—politics, grief, anxiety, illness, writing—without once slipping into pontification. The book excels not only on account of its coruscating prose but also because of its striking lucidity. It’s astonishing how eloquently Harvey conveys her anguish and her grief in a state that cripples both mental and creative faculties. At one point, Harvey mentions how language can hold one aloft in times of crisis. I felt a similar buoyancy as I read The Shapeless Unease.