|
''Beyond Sleep'' ((オランダ語:Nooit meer slapen)) is a novel by the Dutch writer Willem Frederik Hermans, published in February 1966. The protagonist, Dutch geologist Alfred Issendorf, has a geology dissertation in preparation, and embarks on an expedition to Finnmark, northern Norway, to verify his promotor's theory that craters in the local landscape were formed by meteor impacts rather than by Ice Age glaciers. Initially he is accompanied by a group of three Norwegian students of geology, but soon after two travel their own course Alfred loses his guide Arne, who falls to death, and then Alfred is on its own in a land where the sun never sets. ''Beyond Sleep'' is one of the canonical novels of the Dutch postwar period, and a prime example of what is perhaps the most distinctive characteristic of the author's work, the intense cohesion between theme and narrative strategy. ==Plot== Alfred Issendorf, a geology student from Amsterdam, has received a grant to do field work in Finnmark, Norway, attempting to verify his professor's theory that meteors have impacted the area, leaving telltale craters. His professor, Sibbelee, has written the Norvegian professor Nummedal (his former dissertation director) to ask for aerial photographs of the area, but when Issendorf meets Nummedal in Oslo the latter knows nothing of any photographs (and scoffs at the meteor theory); if they exist, he says, they may be at the Geological Survey in Trondheim, with a professor Hvalbiff. In Trondheim, however, no Hvalbiff is present, and the unfinished office buildings are in disarray--quickly it turns out that no aerial photographs are here, and later Issendorf discovers that Hvalbiff ("whale meat") was probably a derogatory name for the director, Oftedahl. Without photographs, and now sleep-deprived because of his anxieties and the lack of darkness at night, Issendorf travels on to Tromsø, and thence to Alta, in Finnmark. There, he meets up with Arne, an old geology acquaintance who is also there for fieldwork, and then with two more students, Qvigstad and Mikkelsen. With two tents, tinned meat, and boxes of ''knekkebrød'', the four set out for the interior, a rather bleak, uninhabited, and mosquito-infested area. One of their camps is under the mountain Vuorje, at a lake they fish for trout. Issendorf, who does not get along with Qvigstad and Mikkelsen, sleeps poorly and spends much of his time in gloomy thoughts, feeling unable to measure up to his father and even to Arne, and wondering whether ancient resentment between Sibbelee, Oftedahl, and Nummedal is to blame for making his mission impossible. Issendorf's efforts at locating meteor impact craters are eminently unsuccessful. One morning he finds Qvigstad and Mikkelsen gone, and he continues to another location with Arne. After crossing a deep ravine, he differs with Arne on what direction to take and charges on without waiting for him, but soon discovers he had misread his beautiful new compass, which he promptly loses. By orienting himself toward Vuorje he is able to backtrek to the ravine, a journey of several days; as it turns out, Arne had set up camp there to wait for him, but fell to an accidental death. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Beyond Sleep」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|