The Experience of the Night

by Marcel Béalu, Christine Donougher (Translator)

One of the great works of Twentieth Century Literary Fantasy The Experience of the Night was published in the last year of The Second World War. It became a cult novel amongst the surrealists, gaining an almost mythic status as the masterpiece of the French Kafka. It inhabits a nighttime world where dream and reality are indistinguishable. A novel about vision, dream and reality. Its hero is the human eye and Marcel Adrien. He sees the sign of an ophthalmologist and enters to inquire about having his eyes tested and finds that he is expected. Dr Fohat has files on his future clients and diagnoses myopia and prescribes dark glasses and a treatment of pills to be taken after twelve hours of work on an empty stomach.

Genres: Fiction, France, Novels, 20th Century, Horror, Literature

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1945

Reviews

[S̶e̶a̶n̶ · Rating 4 out of 5]

In his pursuit of a cure for his vision problem a man consults an ophthalmologist, after which this narrative grows increasingly strange. Imagine if you can a mash-up of Roland Topor's The Tenant and Angela Carter's The Infernal Desires of Doctor Hoffman, both of which this predates, having first been published in 1945. It's hard not to think that at least some of the symbolism here is tied to the post-World War milieu from which it arose, though it could just as easily be a hermetic dreamworld wholly extracted from Marcel Béalu's psyche. Either way it is an intense read. And tangentially reminded me of a short tale I wrote a few years back, also about a pair of eyes.

[Nate D · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story of eyes and seeing, reality and illusion, window to the soul or outward aperture on the world. Unfolding in four progressive episodes organized by the four elements, and with a symbolist force of image over direct narrative meaning, this is a work where it's apparent that the conceptual must override the actual. The structures of fairy tale and myth give narrative tether, but above all hover a sequence of signs and symbols, dictating the dreamlike events, the fleeting searches, romances, and chases. It's a fascinating book, an often intriguing one, but not always an inviting one once its rhythm becomes apparent, wherein all characters and threads are destined to be sacrificed to overarching design.

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sigh...this started out so well, and I mean, really well. This novel is separated into four chapters, each taking up about an equal quarter of the book. What begins as a real masterpiece of the surreal and weird in the first chapter takes increasingly uninteresting turns and ends with a real dud.

At its best this book creates a great mood full of evocative imagery of strange architecture and endless avenues, everyone in the book seems slightly mad and their true motivations are never clear. There's even a bit of corporate horror at the end of the first chapter which was quite impressive and even ahead of its time for 1945 I thought.

A lotta things get compared to Kafka (too many), but this really does recall Kafka's work at times. At its best moments this shows great imagination with its unpredictable weirdness, but it felt like Bealu ran out of ideas as he went along, and our protagonist just keeps journeying around, encountering strange things. The third chapter is full of rather banal, workaday events and then the last and most dull chapter is utterly suffocated by its bland setting and stifled action.

...too bad,
So sad,
You know the rest.

[Tait · Rating 4 out of 5]

A weird and beautiful novel that heavily influenced the Surrealists, The Experience of the Night is told through the illogic of dreams, and as such its highly symbolic plot doesn't make very much sense. But its scenes are breathtaking, and hint at a much more fantastic reality hiding behind the one we commonly think we live in, that is, the reality that exists in each of our subconscious. Read this for its vision, not its meaning.

From a technical perspective, this book would be more effective in its aim of transporting a person from everyday real life to the marvel of dreams if it actually depicted a recognizable reality in the first place. This is a personal frustration with a lot of surrealist literature: the assumption that the real world is there without the need to represent it through a historical context. It's difficult to take apart a real world if the reader is uncertain that they aren't dreaming the whole thing in the first place.

Mainly recommended for those who already appreciate the strange and uncertain. Is similar in tone and style to some of ETA Hoffman's tales.

[Bill Hsu · Rating 3 out of 5]

I see the comparisons with Topor. Maybe I'm reading this incorrectly, but I'm more struck by the light-hearted, jaunty tone and cavalier attitude to the absurd goings-on. The sequence with the two mute boys approaches slapstick.

[Brent Legault · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's no secret that the Kafka label is too easily and urgently pinned on just about anything that involves a man alone against an impermeable, illogical, ununderstandable system, but I doubt that Kafka would appreciate the comparisons, especially with Bealu's cockamamie characters and "plot," which reminded me of what a first-time film-maker with talent but no story might do. Moments of brilliance highlighting spools of overworked bordom.

Here are a couple of noteworthy quotes:

-"Oh, how I longed to burst through the doors and go walking through the streets, with my hands open, like weapons!"

-"She was a beautiful red-haired girl, whose seductive voice seemed to emanate from her very genitals."

[Christina · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the strangest book i've read in awhile, abstract, surreal and almost pointless but that it was so humourus and nicely written. Basically the first three quarters of the story involves the protaganist in his quest for improved eye sight and his unexplained obsession with his ophthamologist Dr. Fohat. The story is full of unexplained events which edge on lunacy with even some si-fi tones. Bizarre in every way, though I should give this more stars for being the most original story I've read. Seriously about the super science of eye doctors.

[John Bowis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this self-styled 'fantasy' novel. Written in 1945, but not published in the UK until 1997, it is the story of a meeting with an opthalmologist who replaces eyes and creates new personalities, with a new but familiar worlds with each replacement. Part of my enjoyment came from my own recent treatment for cataracts and the amazing new clarity of colour and definition from my resulting 'new' eyesight! Even without that coincidence, this is a well written journey to travel.

[Czar · Rating 5 out of 5]

A whirlwind of fascination and language - engrossing to the hilt - one of the cornerstone building blocks for surrealists.

[WillemC · Rating 3 out of 5]

De laatste vijftig pagina's doen afbreuk aan wat ervoor komt, naar het einde toe - wanneer de robots geïntroduceerd worden... - begint het voor mij allemaal wat te ver van de realiteit af te zweven. Maar surrealisme is in de literatuur eigenlijk nooit iets voor mij geweest.

[Ingmar Weyland · Rating 4 out of 5]

More like around 3.5