TY - JOUR AU - Nesby, Linda PY - 2019/10/31 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Living with illness: Together and alone facing severe illness in four Scandinavian cancer stories JF - Tidsskrift for Forskning i Sygdom og Samfund JA - TFSS VL - 16 IS - 31 SE - Originalartikler DO - 10.7146/tfss.v16i31.116967 UR - https://tidsskrift.dk/sygdomogsamfund/article/view/116967 SP - AB - <p>In this paper, I wish to discuss how people living with severe illness at home depict their lives either in a family setting or alone. Roland Barthes writes in <em>Comment vivre ensemble</em> (1977) about individual life lived in a variety of collective situations in different settings, and calls this <em>idiorrhythmia.</em> One of the settings Barthes studies is the sanatorium, where the figures of <em>Autarky </em>and <em>Clôture,</em> implying living together and living alone, are made relevant. I will use the concept of idiorrhythmia, to discuss ill people living at home either alone or together with relatives. The discussion is based on four contemporary Scandinavian novels: Lars Gustafsson’s <em>The Death of a Beekeeper</em> (1978), Ragnar Hovland’s <em>A Winter’s Journey</em> (2001), Gunnhild Corwin’s <em>Ida’s Dance</em> (2005) and Ellisiv Stifoss-Hanssen’s <em>Let me sleep until this is just a dream</em> (2014). These novels describe young and old adults suffering from cancer, staying at home and the challenges and strategies involved in living together or alone while experiencing severe illness.</p> ER -