Nodding off

    In Alexander McCall Smith's The Lost Art of Gratitude, Isabel Dalhousie muses on the sleep-inducing powers of Longfellow's Hiawatha, whose metre is guaranteed to send her infant son Charlie to the Land of Nod within fifty lines. Isabel toys with the idea of suggesting to a publisher that they bring out a book for insomniacs containing passages which could be relied upon to cause the reader to slumber: "Hiawatha would be there, but so would, for quite different reasons, excerpts from Caesar's De Bello Gallico, and from one or two modern political memoirs."

   If I ever have trouble sleeping I get Mr. C. to read to me from the ghost stories of M.R. James - half a page does the trick and I'm out like a light, so I never get the chance to be frightened! (One day I must try reading them for myself when not in bed and see how I get on). Have you discovered any similarly effective anti-insomnia reading?

Comments

[Nan]

When I was a young girl in elementary school, we did the musical play of Hiawatha, and the music was some of the most beautiful I've ever heard - combined with those wonderful words, it was a perfect experience and now, memory.

[Rebecca]

I must confess that often for me dense nonfiction will do the trick--a tendency that often threatened to be my undoing in college.

In the Thursday Next series a character is required to read the world's most boring books, and I remember Spenser's The Fairy Queene being high on the list if not the top.

[adele geras]

Cannot possibly comment, as I fall asleep as soon as head hits pillow. My problem is staying awake once I've got into bed...sometimes I think it might be pleasant to read a bit but as soon as I'm horizontal, that's it: zzzzz!