By MARCEL BEALU (Dedalus; 1945/1997)
This 1945 novel is considered the masterpiece of the “French Kafka” Marcel Bealu (1908-1993). Few of Bealu’s other books are available in English (thus far only the novellas THE WATER SPIDER and THE IMPERSONAL ADVENTURE have been translated) so I can’t confirm or deny that assertion, but can state that THE EXPERIENCE OF THE NIGHT is an amazing book, a surreal fantasy that’s truly unlike anything else (including the work of the Czech novelist with whom Bealu was supposedly aligned).
It’s the story of Marcel Adrien, who finds himself in a strange town in search of an ophthalmologist. He happens upon the mysterious Dr. Fohat, who prescribes a pair of specially designed dark glasses.
Adrien ends up staying in the strange town, renting a room in a building that turns out to be a clandestine bordello and taking a job in a company that turns out to be a manufacturing plant for humanoid automatons. Later Adrien finds that, because of Dr. Fohat’s treatment, his eyes have become a marvel to behold, and attract crowds. Eventually he tires of all the attention and tracks down the doctor who set everything in motion. This time, however, Dr. Fohat replaces Adrien’s eyes with new ones that allow him to see the very essence of people and objects. Unfortunately, they also make it so that everything his hands touch turns to dust, leading to at least one death.
And there’s more: following the lead of his trusty dog Governor, Adrien ends up in an otherworldly fortress guarded by automatons and housing a large statue of Dr. Fohat. It’s here that Adrien falls irrevocably in love with a young woman who claims to be Fohat’s daughter, and has his final confrontation with the doctor—or, at least, thinks he does.
Got all that? This is about as bizarre and phantasmagoric a book as any I’ve read (although not technically a surrealist novel, the surrealists reportedly admired THE EXPERIENCE OF THE NIGHT tremendously), but it nonetheless moves fast and has the unflagging narrative drive of a good thriller. It’s also one of the most authentically dreamlike novels ever written; throughout, the hero wonders whether he’s dreaming or not, and his wildly irrational yet strangely logical exploits are about the closest approximation to the feel and texture of a dream I’ve yet experienced in literary form. Kudos to Dedalus and their translator Christine Donougher (who’s done the same job on quite a few Dedalus titles).
No, I won’t hazard a guess as to what anything in THE EXPERIENCE OF THE NIGHT “means.” Rational interpretations are irrelevant in such a rich and suggestive account, one I know will be haunting my own nights for some time to come.