In 1698, the Duc de Berry had a nosebleed. This calamity was brought on by his “overheating” during a partridge hunt. Three hundred and nineteen years later, the writer Anaïs Vanel quit her editing job and went surfing. What links this unlikely couple? Well, both of them earn a mention in “A History of Fatigue” (Polity), a new book by Georges Vigarello, translated by Nancy Erber. The book sets out to examine, in frankly draining detail, the many ways in which humans, often against their will, end up thoroughly pooped.
Vigarello is not, as his name suggests, an irrepressible sidekick in a minor Mozart opera, egging his master on to commit extravagant japes, but a research director at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, in Paris. He has previously written books about, among other things, cleanliness, obesity, and sports. Now it is the turn of the tired— the French tailors, for instance, who worked “fourteen to eighteen hours in the most painful positions,” as one of their number reported in 1833. Or the combatant in the First World War who found himself “on the brink of the void, feeling nothing but monotony and lassitude.” Or, at a slightly lower pitch of extremity, the supermarket cashier who, in 2002, was struck by “terrible pain” after lifting a pack of bottled water. Will the agony never cease?
Esta historia es de la edición April 17, 2023 de The New Yorker.
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Esta historia es de la edición April 17, 2023 de The New Yorker.
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STUNTED
\"The Fall Guy.\"
MOTHERS OF US ALL
Paula Vogel's \"Mother Play,\" Shaina Taub's \"Suffs,\" and Amy Herzog's \"Mary Jane.\"
PURE PLEASURE
The \"Radical Optimism\" of Dua Lipa.
PARADISE LOST
The search for a home that never was in Claire Messud's new novel.
ORIGIN STORY
What do we hope to learn from our prehistory?
DEATH IN VENICE
At the Biennale, the past dignifies the weird, desperate present.
WE'RE NOT SO DIFFERENT, YOU AND I
\"You'll never get away with this!\" Ultra Man vowed as he wriggled in his chains. \"You may destroy me, but you'll never destroy what I stand for!\"
STONES OF CONTENTION
The British Museum faces accusations of cultural theft-and actual theft.
A CAMPUS IN CRISIS
Dissent and defiance at Columbia's pro-Palestine protests.
ARROW RETRIEVER
I am an arrow retriever. After a batrows are costly and time-consuming to make. It seems like a terrible waste-and maybe even a sin―for an arrow to fall to the ground without hitting someone. Even if the arrow kills somebody, it can be reused to kill someone else. As Randolf the Scot famously said, \"Arrows don't grow on trees.\"