Benign idiopathic perambulation

Book acquired: The Unnamed, by Joshua Ferris.

"There is no laboratory examination to confirm the presence or absence of the condition," he was told by a doctor named Regis, "so there is no reason to believe the disease has a defined physical cause or, I suppose, even exists at all."

Janowitz of Johns Hopkins had concluded that some compulsion was driving him to walk and suggested group therapy.

Klum dubbed it "benign idiopathic perambulation." He'd had to look up idiopathic in the dictionary. "Adj. — of unknown causes, as a disease." He thought the word, divorced of meaning, would have nicely suited Klum and her associates. Idiopaths. He also took exception to the word benign. Strictly medically speaking perhaps, but if his perambulation kept up, his life was ruined. How benign was that?

The internists made referrals. The specialists ordered scans. The clinics assembled teams.

He saw his first psychiatrist reluctantly, convinced as he was that his problem was not a mental one.

It started for me in the winter, around the time I'd decided to start dating. I don't think it's a physical problem or a mental one. It's a restless sexual energy, and it's spiritually driven. Certainly I'm not running, not running away from anything. I'm walking toward something, I don't know what. Like a quest I don't know the nature of. Like a curse. Ten kilometres a day is ideal. Most days I average 7 or 8. I'd do 15 to 20 if I could find the time.

I have a feeling this isn't the book I want it to be. It has generally neutral reviews, but I'd never heard of this novel till the other week. When I stumbled upon it, I took it for a sign. It must offer some clue, to my affliction or to its cure. It might show me some way to cope.

I have to walk, but I'm tired of walking. I want to stop, but I don't want to stop.

He released the bin at the end of the drive and continued walking. He walked past neighbours' houses, he walked barefoot down Route 22. He walked past the supermarket empty parking lot and an eerie glow. He walked pas the Korean Baptist church and the Saks-anchored mall into the dreams of late-night drivers who took home the image of some addled derelict in a cotton robe menacing the soft shoulder. He looked down at his legs. It was like watching footage of legs walking from the point of view of the walker. That was the helplessness, this was the terror: the brakes are gone, the steering wheel has locked, I am at the mercy of this wayward machine. It circled him around to the south entrance of the forest preserve. Five, six miles on foot after a fourteen-hour day, he came to a clearing and crashed. The sleep went as quickly as a cut in a film. Now he was standing again, in the cricket racket, forehead moist with sweat, knees rickety, feet cramped, legs aching with lactic acid. And how you walk home in a robe with any dignity?

I met a man on the internet who said he could help, by roping me, tying me down. Enforced stillness. But I find a kind of stillness in the compulsive motion.