Beyond Sleep

Summer in northern Norway: endless hours of light, clouds of mosquitoes, kilometre after kilometre of rocky terrain and stunted trees.

Into this barren landscape trek four geology students, three of them Norwegian, one - Alfred Issendorf - Dutch. Each is there to conduct research, Alfred specifically to find evidence of meteorites.

It is a meandering path that has brought Alfred to this place. His father, a noted geologist, died after a fall when Alfred was a boy. Dreams of playing the flute for a living were put aside in favour of completing a geology degree in memory of his father and in order not to disappoint his mother. Attaining this goal proves, in such an unforgiving landscape, to be harder than he ever imagined.

Alfred's tribulations begin before he has even met up with his fellow students. In search of aerial photographs, he is sent from pillar to post by competing academics. Alfred's meeting with his friend Arne goes according to plan, but his fruitless quest for the photographs leaves him assailed by a fundamental doubt: 'It suddenly comes to me that I live in constant fear of having to survive in a world where everyone is out to fool everyone else.'

From hereon in, Alfred falls apart. His companions are likeable enough and Arne in particular is generous and sympathetic, but Alfred's lack of experience shows and he soon finds himself struggling to keep up, weighed down by a hefty backpack. Troubled by mosquitoes and, more seriously, by an inability to sleep in the perpetual light, he begins to question whether he is being true to himself.

As Alfred's brief flames of optimism ('much as I have to strain every muscle to keep my balance … I am making headway') flicker out, he comes to realise that his life is governed by forces beyond his control:

'The veil of mystery shrouding life in its entirety lifts momentarily and I know that at all times and in everything I am defenceless and powerless, as replaceable as an atom …'

Beyond Sleep may sound like one long jorney into existential oblivion, but the almost light-hearted, dry manner in which it is written saves it from this fate. At times Alfred laughs at his predicament and we laugh along with him. The researchers' camp-fire conversations are funny and Hermans has fun with characters' names.

At one point Arne says 'having to speak a language that is not your own means having to step back, there is no doubt about that.' Alfred asks him whether good books get translated into Norwegian: 'Of course they do … But you can't get away from the fact that you're not reading the real thing.'

This exchange reflects Hermans' concerns about the quality of the translation of his works. Ina Rilke, chosen by her peers to undertake the daunting task for Beyond Sleep has - as far as this reader is concerned anyway - succeeded expertly in capturing Alfred's fear and desperation as he sees his youthful certainties crumbling around him.