Nod

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Yet the most endearing element comes from the death of a long term relationship between Paul (one of the few Sleepers - people who are able to maintain nightly sleep) and his is partner Tanya (one of the many Awakened, those in a perpetual state of insomnia). Sappiamo che la deprivazione del sonno è stata riconosciuta come una forma di tortura e da origine, poco alla volta, ad irritazione, stress, allucinazioni.

Violent, frightening, textured, and dystopian are words that aptly describe the short-lived world that Barnes has created.The veneer of civility is thin and threadbare, after just a few days of no sleep for 99,9% of the world's population, all is chaos. Over the last year my skull was chopped, my brain lumps were chopped out, and I was drugged and radiated month after month.

A few people, perhaps one in ten thousand, can still sleep, and they’ve all shared the same mysterious dream.Taking a post-millennial jab at the zombie apocalypse trope, Adrian Barnes first novel ‘Nod’ pitches us into a world of the terminally sleep-deprived. When I will begin to talk about Nod, people who are old hands at apocalypse novels will watch me with a raised eyebrow: "But C, why are you reviewing it? He’s not strong, he’s not bold and I certainly can’t see him as a realistic leader, certainly not in a world where anything goes.

Getting to the end was a bit boring storywise though, because it ended exactly like we were told it would in the prologue.In the interim, panic ensues and a bizarre new world arises in which those previously on the fringes of society take the lead. Because at heart, Nod isn't just an apocalyptic novel, it's a novel about the human condition: the relationships we forge with others, whether they are because of sheer politeness or social conformism ; the need to sleep, to abandon ourselves to this temporary death of our consciousness and sensations for a few hours every day ; the way we always, always, try to "rationalise" incomprehensible events through mysticism and how we so easily veer into fanaticism and mob behaviour, once you take away the very thin veneer of civilisation ; the need for stories and hope too, even if this hope means saying goodbye to what was and not knowing what will be.