Beyond Sleep is a classic of post-war European literature; the saga of a man at the limits of the civilized world. Alfred Issendorf is a Dutch geology student and worrisome introvert whose burning paranoia keeps him from realizing his ambitions. His obsessive neurosis—the thought of having to die without a major scientific discovery to his name-ironically stumps any actual talent he has and renders him altogether useless in the geological expedition which brings him to Norway in the sixties. Issendorf is out to prove that craters in the landscape are actually holes caused by the impact of meteorites. His trip turns sour, with nature and cosmic forces conspiring against him: the unearthly atmosphere of the midnight sun makes him paranoid; nights are too hot; clouds of mosquitoes steal his sleep; he is exhausted. He sees in everything secret plots against his scientific work-all the while suspecting everything and everyone except the mastermind behind his entire predicament: the author himself. Haunted by down-and-out scientists, the ghost of his dead father, and apparitions of ancient animals, Issendorf's character is both naïve and cynical, ambitious and distrustful, grandiose and talentless. Beyond Sleep is a novel of adventure and discovery, psychology and pride, and W. F. Hermans embeds within it his credo: "Life is Chaos."

Beyond Sleep

Literature & Fiction

Willem Frederik Hermans

Contemporary

The Overlook Press

A Spectator and Sunday Times Book of the Year 'The kind of book that stays with you for ever' -- Guardian 'Shocking' -- Sunday Times Towards the end of the Second World War, a weary partisan fighting with the Red Army in Germany comes across a grand, abandoned house, seemingly untouched by the devastation sweeping the land. Exhausted, he falls asleep in the living room, but wakes to find a Nazi patrol marching up the garden path. His only hope is to pose as the house's owner, but how will he keep up the pretence when the real owner returns? Dazzling, dark and scorchingly violent, with the breakneck pace of a thriller, this timeless classic is a vivid depiction of what happens when the mask of decency is cast aside in the savagery of war.

An Untouched House

Pushkin Pres

A classic pitch-black wartime thriller from the author of An Untouched House\n'I immerse myself in the book, intimidated at first by its length, astonished afterwards to find I have read it at a single sitting... The suspense never falters' Milan Kundera\nUnder occupation, Henri Osewoudt finds himself drawn into the resistance by his near-doppelgänger, the ruthless Dorbeck, Soon Osewoudt has entered a world that is a photo negative of his previous humdrum existence - carrying messages, helping British agents to escape and killing collaborators. But how much of it is real?\nThis is a razor-sharp classic thriller set in a world where everything is permitted, even murder. As unsettling and morally challenging today as when it was first written.

The Darkroom of Damocles: Willem Frederik Hermans

Pushkin Press

A blackly comic classic from the author of An Untouched House\nA young geologist hungry for fame journeys to the mountains of Norway's Arctic north on a research expedition, but soon realizes he's more likely be eaten alive by mosquitoes than win glory. Freezing, wet and plagued by insomnia, Alfred becomes increasingly desperate and paranoid under the midnight sun, until he takes a catastrophic decision.\nThis dazzlingly dark classic is at once a gripping survival story, a mordant farce and a peerless evocation of mental disintegration.

Beyond Sleep: Willem Frederik Hermans

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Books by Willem Frederik Hermans