The Art of the Nap

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I have described my prowess at napping, or the art of napping in action. What I have not gone into is the secret behind the attainment of this prowess. In no small part, it has to do with wanting a time-out--with wanting out of life, not deeply, not permanently, but at least for a while. The English writer A. Alvarez, in a book titled Night, allows that he has become addicted to sleep--that he finds it no less than, in his own word, 'sensual.' He remarks that in his adolescence and his 20s he chiefly thought about sex; once he married and that department of his life was in order, in his 30s 'the obsession with sex was replaced by an obsession with food'; and now, in his 60s, this has been 'usurped by a new obsession: sleep.'

My own youthful naps were owing to happy excess. My current napping, I regret to report, is all too much part of the machinery beginning to break down. Not that I long for a nap each afternoon; if I am out in the world, I do not think about napping. My condition certainly does not yet begin to approximate that of the eponymous hero of Ivan Goncharov's novel Oblomov: 'Lying down was not for Oblomov a necessity, as it is for a sick man or for a man who is sleepy; or a matter of chance, as it is for a man who is tired; or a pleasure, as it is for a lazy man; it was his normal condition.' Still, if an opportunity for a nap presents itself, I find I take it.

Excerpted with permission from The American Scholar (Summer 1995). Subscriptions: $25.00/yr. (4 issues) from 1811 Q St.. NW, Washington, DC 20009. Back issues: $6.95 from same address.

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