Seven Layers of Sleep single work   essay  
Issue Details: First known date: 2022... 2022 Seven Layers of Sleep
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'John Dunne, husband of American writer Joan Didion, died suddenly one night at their dinner table. Didion was struck by a grief so overwhelming it left her winded and struggling. Not only was her husband gone, her work colleague, collaborator and daily confidant had disappeared in a moment. The silence of his absence gave way to strange thoughts and preoccupations for Didion. Famously, she believed that she could not give away her husband’s clothing and shoes as he would need them when he came back.'  (Introduction)

Notes

  • Epigraph:

    To die: to sleep;

    No more; and by a sleep to say we end

    The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

    That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation

    Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;

    To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;

    For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

    When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

    Must give us pause. —Shakespeare, Hamlet

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Meanjin Online 2022 23920292 2022 periodical issue 2022
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Meanjin vol. 81 no. 1 Autumn 2022 24312903 2022 periodical issue 'In a profound and personal essay, Lucia Osborne-Crowley writes on learning to embrace anger as a multi-faceted emotion. Anger can be an act of caring, anger can be a force for personal power, and inter-personal good; anger, she says, 'can sit alongside love and hope and connection rather than being their opposite.' Guy Rundle studies the rise of the Knowledge Class, the laptop tapping workers at the core of the west's new economy, and details the challenge—and opportunity—this growing group poses for traditional progressive politics. Na'ama Carlin found her first pregnancy challenging, a minefield of existential and practical complication. Then she was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer. Author Alice Pung writes on the vexed politics of 'diversity' in the Australian publishing industry. Futurist Mark Pesce is anxious about the social implications of the Facebook 'metaverse', but that's just the tip of the iceberg. Critic and curator Chris McAuliffe looks at the hidden and very complicated history of the Australian flag. El Gibbs writes on the hidden pandemic: of living with both covid and disability.' (Publication summary)
     
    2022
Last amended 7 Apr 2022 08:17:39
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https://meanjin.com.au/essays/seven-layers-of-sleep/ Seven Layers of Sleepsmall AustLit logo Meanjin Online
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