Flashback (1988)
“From as far back as he could remember, he had been different—an outsider.
For one thing, he was an insomniac, a pathologic insomniac.
As a youth, his parents would scold him for being in the basement at four o’clock in the morning, fiddling with his chemistry set. Later that same day, he would be reprimanded and sent home for falling asleep in class. His condition had led to threats of expulsion on any number of occasions, and he well might have been expelled were he not, thanks to an IQ in the... 160s, the best student in his school.
Making matters even more difficult for Pearl during those school years was the gradual emergence of his homosexuality. And even within that subset he was a fringe player, preferring much younger boys and their photographs to any more threatening entanglements.
In college, no roommate lasted more than a few weeks with his bizarre biologic rhythms and deepening melancholia. His dormitory room walls were decorated with posters and photos of his special heroes: Napoleon, Dickens, Edison, Churchill, Kafka, and Proust, none of whom, according to the first of his therapists, had ever enjoyed so much as one normal nights sleep.MoreLess
For one thing, he was an insomniac, a pathologic insomniac.
As a youth, his parents would scold him for being in the basement at four o’clock in the morning, fiddling with his chemistry set. Later that same day, he would be reprimanded and sent home for falling asleep in class. His condition had led to threats of expulsion on any number of occasions, and he well might have been expelled were he not, thanks to an IQ in the... 160s, the best student in his school.
Making matters even more difficult for Pearl during those school years was the gradual emergence of his homosexuality. And even within that subset he was a fringe player, preferring much younger boys and their photographs to any more threatening entanglements.
In college, no roommate lasted more than a few weeks with his bizarre biologic rhythms and deepening melancholia. His dormitory room walls were decorated with posters and photos of his special heroes: Napoleon, Dickens, Edison, Churchill, Kafka, and Proust, none of whom, according to the first of his therapists, had ever enjoyed so much as one normal nights sleep.MoreLess
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