In this, the penultimate installment, we again introduce the rare and wonderful English language used by Jean-Christophe Valtat in his novel Aurorarama – language that often stumped our dear copy-editor.

Today’s words is “picnoleptic,” which, we must admit we cannot find in any English dictionary. It appears to be a concept introduced by the theorist Paul Virilio that is currently teetering on the edges of the lexicon.

Here’s Valtat on the subject:

I found this word in a book that fascinated me years ago, The Aesthetics of Disappearance by Paul Virilio. It is a short mental absence of a few seconds, which makes life a kind of perpetual editing. Like “hypnagogic“, it is part of those states between consciousness and unconsciousness that I find especially troubling.

And here is how the word is used in Aurorarama: “Between picnoleptic fits, Gabriel vaguely heard, as a hum, Mougrabine’s story as it unrolled its slimy meanders.”