Question

malaise What was really at the bottom of my mother's guilt? I mean really, beneath verrucas and djinns and confessions? It was a unspeakable malaise, an affliction which could not even be named, and which no longer confined itself to dreams of an underworld husband...my mother had fallen under the spell of the telephone.

Accepted Answer

n. A general feeling of illness or uneasiness whose cause is difficult to identify. Midnight's Children, p. 202

Word	malaise
Definition	n. A general feeling of illness or uneasiness whose cause is difficult to identify.
Sentence	What was really at the bottom of my mother's guilt? I mean really, beneath verrucas and djinns and confessions? It was a unspeakable malaise, an affliction which could not even be named, and which no longer confined itself to dreams of an underworld husband...my mother had fallen under the spell of the telephone.
Source	Midnight's Children, p. 202

Malaise N General Feeling Illness Uneasiness Difficult Identify