A Night of Serious Drinking

by René Daumal

A Night of Serious Drinking is among Rene Daumal's most important literary works. Like Daumal's Mount Analogue it is a classic work of symbolic fiction. An unnamed narrator spends an evening getting drunk with a group of friends.; as the party becomes intoxicated and exuberant, the narrator embarks on a journey that ranges from seeming paradises to the depths of pure hell. The fantastic world depicted in A Night of Serious Drinking is actually the ordinary world turned upside down. The characters are called the Anthographers, Fabricators of useless objects, Scienters, Nibblists, Clarificators, and other absurd titles. Yet the inhabitants of these strange realms are only too familiar: scientists dissecting an animal in their laboratory, a wise man surrounded by his devotees, politicians, poets expounding their rhetoric. These characters perform hilarious antics and intellectual games, which they see as serious attempts to find meaning and freedom.

Genres: Fiction, France, Classics, Philosophy, Literature, Poetry, Novels

121 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1938

About the author

René Daumal was a French spiritual surrealist writer and poet. He was born in Boulzicourt, Ardennes, France.

In his late teens his avant-garde poetry was published in France's leading journals, and in his early twenties, although courted by André Breton co-founded, as a counter to Surrealism and Dada, a literary journal, Le Grand Jeu with three friends, collectively known as the Simplists, including poet Roger Gilbert-Lecomte. He is known best in the U.S. for two novels A Night of Serious Drinking and the allegorical novel Mount Analogue: A Novel of Symbolically Authentic Non-Euclidean Adventures in Mountain Climbing both based upon his friendship with Alexander de Salzmann, a pupil of G. I. Gurdjieff.

Daumal was self-taught in the Sanskrit language and translated some of the Tripitaka Buddhist canon into the French language, as well as translating the literature of the Japanese Zen scholar D.T. Suzuki into French.

He married Vera Milanova, the former wife of the poet Hendrik Kramer; after Daumal's death, she married the landscape architect Russell Page.

Daumal's sudden and premature death of tuberculosis on 21 May 1944 in Paris may have been hastened by youthful experiments with drugs and psychoactive chemicals, including carbon tetrachloride. He died leaving his novel Mount Analogue unfinished, having worked on it until the day of his death.

The motion picture The Holy Mountain by Alejandro Jodorowsky is based largely on Daumal's Mount Analogue.

William Walsh, an English poet, was a personal friend of Daumal and performed a radio presentation of Mount Analogue later in his life.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

What is a better occupation: to drink, to talk or to think? René Daumal combines all three into a single continuous process. Drinking stimulates talking and talking stimulates thinking, or vice versa, or in any random order.
The more noise there is the richer is the talk…

Sounds spread over surfaces, slide across polished floors, flow in gutters, pile up in corners, snap on ridges, fall like rain on mucous membranes, swarm on plexuses, flame up on body hair, and flutter on skin like warm air over summer fields.

Thoughts can be of so many fantastic colours…

It’s not the end of it when you’ve drowned your black thoughts, because afterwards there are blue thoughts and red thoughts and yellow thoughts…

Thoughts can be of so many exotic breeds…

“They aren’t thoughts,” the chap said in an unctuous voice, “they aren’t thoughts at all, they’re little creepy-crawlies.”

And drinking is a fountainhead of all the wisdom…

Philosophy teaches how man thinks he thinks; but drinking shows how he really thinks!

And being drunk the happy hero is guided by a madhouse orderly through the delusions of paradise like through the circles of Dante’s hell.
“…man seeks happiness because he is endowed with a positive eudaemonotropism…” Isn’t it a true meaning of living?

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Proposition one. The World is Shit.

It's true. The world is shit. It's also true that I'm lying. One there are many wonderful and great things in the world that make the world a pretty awesome place, I forget those things when I say something like Life is Shit. But, I'm also lying to myself in the other direction, the world / life is actually much much worse than I give it credit for. If I actually spent sometime thinking about how many awful / stupid / criminal things are carried out by people every second of everyday I'd lose all hope in living and probably try to figure out a way to blow up this cesspool of a planet. I don't do this because I delude myself constantly that things really aren't that bad.

Proposition two. Plato lied.

In the allegory of the cave every philosophy student and wannabe intellectual jerk off learns a lesson that is incredibly hurtful to their development. In the cave story all these people are in a cave and they are dazzled by shadows on the wall, and they think it is the real world they are looking at. One dude, the philosopher, he wanders outside of the cave one day and sees that there is a real world everyone else is ignorant about. He gets really excited and runs back to share this wonderful news with everyone else. They kill him. Why? Because they are happy with the world they live in, they don't give a shit about this more real than real world, they just want to be left in peace, to look at their shadows, get drunk on unwatered down wine and fuck little boys (this is Ancient Greece). Sadly this story isn't meant as a cautionary tale when it's taught in schools, and I'm sure every philosophy student somewhere in their head gets the idea that they are learning about the Real world, not the shadowy world their parents and all those dolts live in. These people will never understand them, but that won't stop them from being enormous pretentious dicks to just about anyone they talk to, because it's their evangelical mission to preach the Truth, just like some fucking Born Again.

True people aren't going to kill them (or maybe they will), but I think they will find out soon that either a) no one gives a fuck and they will ignore them; b) that the only people who care about their Truth are locked away in University's where nothing they really do matters to the real world; and / or c) this discovery of the Truth, is really just going to help fuel the despair and depression that probably drove them to obtuse books to begin with, and this new alienation on top of previous alienations will make their own lives that much more unbearable.

So what's so good about leaving the cave?

(I sort of give away the plot, but not really here)

A Night of Serious Drinking is about leaving the drunken deluded real world to go onto a higher one where people have escaped the shackles of mundane existence. The narrator goes to see those who think they have escaped from the drunken world after a night of getting shit faced with a whole gaggle of people who ultimately annoy him. Right before he goes most of the party wanders off to find religion. The only way to escape this drunken world is to go mad or die. The narrators taken to see these mad people as a favor. What he finds is a whole new level of pretentious assholes who think that they are removed from the world and doing great things. The narrator moves through different groups of people who have found their own ways of 'freedom', and finds each more annoying and stupid than the one before. Ultimately he returns home and falls into a despair that the world is totally shit with no hope. There is a bit of an upbeat ending tagged on to here too, and a really great quote but I can't seem to find my copy of the book so I'll just add it later.

The book offers no real hope. It's critical of all forms of escapism, and kind of maintains that without escapism the world is unbearable. Why this book what put out by an Eastern Religion publisher is beyond me. I don't see anything really Eastern about it except for a pretty amusing swipe at trendy followers of Buddhism (was there a trend in this in the 1930's? This book feels really contemporary in its criticism, which just adds to my long standing idea that there were no good old days, people were just as dumb then as now and that maybe the Greatest Generation were just a bunch of assholes too, maybe prime assholes number one because they unleashed all kinds of insidious things on the world, marketed to a younger generation and then washed their hands of the whole thing, but then I think that the Baby-Boomers are really the assholes, but then there are the generations before those two and the ones to come, and maybe it's not one particular generation that is shit, but all generations right from Adam begetting Able right down to whoever was the last person to beget someone at the time of this writing).

Interesting stuff.

[Jimmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

If this book were written by anybody else, it would probably be a two or three star book. It's a bit too plainly allegorical, its critiques of society were a bit too simplistic, and its concluding sentiment was a bit too tidy. But even with all these faults, it's the particularities of Daumal's humor, his fantastical inventions, his logical propositions that lead inevitably to a higher non-sense, his wordplay and wit, his sincere truth-seeking (always thirsting for transcendence), and his ultimate quirky vision that saves this book from its larger faults.

The parts are greater than the sum here. Perhaps Daumal knew this when he decided to include a 5 page index to this 113-page book (this is probably the shortest book I've ever read with a full index) with entries as varied as 'young people', 'timeless truths', 'axolotl', 'dietary systems', 'Jarry, Alfred', 'bicycle (made of gold)', 'Flatulencers', 'hashish', 'space (secretion of)', 'pre-actors', 'caterpillar', 'useless gestures (art of)', and 'ouroborism'.

[Brodolomi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rene Domal bi pripadao liniji gde bi, između ostalih, poput vrabaca na žici bili zakačeni i Rable i Alfred Žari. Uticaj Rablea i Žarija na ovaj roman ne samo da je očigledan, nego obojica imaju simpatičan kameo u priči - Rable trandžiran u monahinju sa ispalim stomak i Žari raskežen ispod brkova zelene boje. Sva trojica, bili su humoristi, ali kod njih funkcija humora nikada nije humor radi humora, već je smeh ključ za otvaranje vrata više spoznaje. Gotovo kao ona stara priča da grohotan smeh čini da zvezde trepere (ili je to ipak iz Malog Princa?).

U sklopu te tradicije valja čitati roman „Veliku pijanku”, pošto on igra i na kartu mudrosti i na kartu humora, pa i na kartu enciklopedičnosti. Roman započinje u nekoj krčmi gde se okupljaju belosvetske pijanice koje vode urnebesne dijaloge – urnebesne, ali i naporne koliko već mogu da budu takvi razgovori kada ih sluša neko trezan sa strane. Bilo bi zanimljivo utvrditi da li se ovaj deo može čitati kao narativ sa ključem i videti da li se iza imena pijanica kriju Domalovi avangardni pajtaši. Junak da bi našao još pića, pošto je stalno žedan, odlazi u različite sobe, da bi iza jednih vrata na tavanu otkrio novi svet: uređene gradove, nove društvene sisteme i na hiljade stanovnika; samo, avaj, svi su trezvenjaci. Ovaj glavni deo romana, ostvaren u vidu fantastičnog putovanja u gradove, koji po logici svih stvari, ne bi nikako mogli da stanu na jedan tavan, funkcioniše po istom pricipu kao Alkofribasovo putovanje u Pantagruelova usta – istražuje se novi svet i uočava se u čemu je njegova sličnost/razlika u odnosu na onaj spolja. Naravno, kod Rablea su i onaj spolja i onaj svet iznutra iskrivljeni, dok bi kod Domala iskrivljen bio samo unutrašnji, tavanski svet. Iskrivljenost sveta na tavanu se određuje u odnosu na normalnost spoljašnjeg, to jest kao odraz „normalnog sveta” u iskrivljenom ogledalu, tako da se fantastično putovanje vrlo brzo razotkriva kao satira, i to maštovita i vrcava satira (što delom možemo da zahvalimo odličnom prevodu). Pri kraju, imamo još jedan preokret, vrlo lepo izveden u narativu, kada se ispostavlja da su krčma i svetovi na tavanu zapravo deo unutrašnjosti junaka, i da je reč o psihonautici - tj putovanju po unutrašnjim predelima koje je izazvano psihoaktivnim supstancama, u ovom slučaju, usled ispijanja velikih količina alkohola.

Domal računa na enciklopedičnost (na kraju je dat i akademski aparat u vidu indeksa pojmova) i pitanje je kakvi se svi slojevi i „znanja” mogu izvući iz „Velike pijanke“ i šta nam sve promiče. Jedan sloj se sigurno tiče antimoderne struje (i Genon i šire od Genona), jer ovde postoji strah da je moderna civilizacija duboko antihumanistička i da je ona pojam čoveka bacila na đubrište. Drugi slojevi se tiču ontoloških pitanja stvarnosti jer, transformišući žeđ u metaforu putovanja, a alkohol u metaforu znanja, normalan život za Domala postaje neka vrsta permanetnog trovanja koje nas sprečava da sagledamo „višu” stvarnost. Treći sloj bi se ticao ezoteričnih struja kojima je Domal plovio; recimo, učenja jermenskog mistika Gurđijeva (ako se ne varam, parabola o larvama, leptiru i buđenju je njegova). I ko zna koliko drugih slojeva.

A opet, poslednji pasus u knjizi glasi: „Svi smo ustali, jer i svakog od nas čekala je gomila neodložnih poslova. Mnogo toga treba uraditi da bi se živelo”. A ako je finiš zaključna reč, onda je „nadpoenta” svega nalik na obradu vrta iz „Kandida”. Mada, ne znam kome je do rada uz mamurluk nakon pijanke?

[Shawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This thin novel is the first substantial thing I've read by Daumal. It won't be the last, as I have Mount Analogue coming up soon on the reading list. For those who know nothing about the book or the author, a word on what you're getting into with this work. The closest I can reduce A NIGHT OF SERIOUS DRINKING down to is that it's kind of like a Swiftian satire, with touches of Surrealism, in the mode of ALICE IN WONDERLAND. At times, as another commentator here opined, I was reminded of my youthful reading of The Phantom Tollbooth, in the sense that we are taken to a magical land, purported to be a reflection of the real world, where we are introduced to various "types" that make up the society while offering the reader a satirical take on various ways we live our lives.

As the introduction lays out, this was written after Dumal left his comfort zone of Parisian artistic circles ("how narrow was his little circle of intellectuals and poets") and traveled to Depression-era New York City, looking to bruise himself into inspiration with the world ("I needed a cruel city"). His thoughts and reflections then gave birth to this work, "born of a struggle between two [stools], quotidian sleep and expanded awareness."

We join a group of associates in some unidentified tavern somewhere, drinking heavily to assuage their thirst ("thirst" here is not only a thirst for alcohol, but for knowledge and experience) as they toss philosophy at one another. Our narrator eventually makes his way out of the vestibule of the novel and into the text proper as, creeping upstairs in search of an exit, he finds an impossibly large space ("space is generated by need") that serves as a Accident Ward for those injured by the world, a space which opens even further into the land of "The Escapees" (those who have created a false paradise for themselves in order to be convinced that they have left the Accident Ward - and, very importantly, they do NOT drink and one should never mention drinking). The only other exits from the world, btw, are Death and Madness. From there on, it's a travelogue through all the varied ways people find for creating things of no importance, an absurd inverted world which serves as a symbolic commentary on Society, Education, the Arts, the Sciences, Religion, and Culture.

There's some funny stuff here. A number of other reviewers seem to need to mention that the symbolic criticisms were "obvious", "easy" or "juvenile" but, hey, maybe they are all braniacs. To me, what was less interesting was identifying the actual target of the satire and more the way that Daumal presents them - these are not particularly scathing, or sharp, critiques, in fact there's something sympathetically understanding in them. One nice bit is where our narrator (we must presume it is René Daumal himself) meets a "Nibblist" (with "pwattistic and mnemographic tendencies") named Aham Egomet...who is essentially Daumal writing the book we are reading. I also liked the "Chief Scienter" Professor Mumu (who deserves to show up somewhere else) and the Omniscienter (all huge head and wizened, doll-like body - very Thomas Ligotti), who collates all data into a whole ("I know everything, but I don't understand any of it").


While the approach does become a bit programmatic by the end (there is a stretch around the 3/4 point where our narrator just moves from one group to the next, allowing them to explain themselves), there's some good humor here as well. Are "Fabricators," who make useless things, mean to be abstract and conceptual artists? Are the "Passive Pwalts," producing profoundly-felt nonsense deliberately stripped of meaning, Dadaists? And the "Active Pwalts," who leave everything to chance, cast in the ideas of Max Jacob's "Dice Cup" or John Cage's chance composition? Who knows....

The ending, short as it is, is what made me bump this up a star. Our narrator returns to "the real world" having dropped through a trapdoor from the world above (he's surprised at how short the fall is) and finds himself trapped in the empty tavern with no door and barred windows. He has to burn everything not nailed down (including books) for warmth, but then the room itself begins to transform, anthropomorphic (and unruly) ape-servants appear and... I won't put it in spoilers, so as not to ruin the effect, but I was really struck by what cool, mind-bending concepts and images are contained in this section, and was laughing out loud by the end (I was also reminded by the quote from performance artists Laurie Anderson, "I'm in my body like most people drive their cars", and the discussion of "Caterpillar Man" touched on some ideas from Grant Morrison's THE INVISIBLES comic book, and the evolutionary concept of Neotany). And to top it all off, it has a positive, hopeful ending! Extremely enjoyable!

[Nate D · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Swiftian satiric travelogue through a version of the contemporary world that only needed to be very slightly reconfigured to fit Rene Daumal's concerns and frustrations with it. As Jimmy observes eloquently, there's pointed allegorical directness that would be limiting were not Daumal's imagination and wit so up to the task of getting beyond it despite his earnestness. In particular, the insane bit at the end where the body and mind must recompose themselves out of the disorder of the prior night, Daumal's narrator apparently encoutering Daumal himself, various fevered alcoholic hazes. It's a shame that this is the only novel he managed to finish before his untimely death.

[Steven Godin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this short novel by the para-surrealist French writer René Daumal really was an intoxicating experience, so a good job I stayed well away from the liquor as god knows what that would have been like. If you take a man drinking like a fish and throw them down an Alice in Wonderland-esque rabbit hole, add some other characters and their oddball antics, and that's sort of the start of how to go about describing this in simplistic terms. It's entertaining and fun on the surface, but underneath all the madness and hallucinatory imagery Daumal writes with a deeper meaning - there is more going on here than meets the eye; about the human condition; about culture and freedom. It actually turned out to be a very clever philosophical satire.

[lisa_emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

There seems to be a few novels that have a plot that revolves around a certain intoxicating, para-reality. These novels have a whimsical, loopy tone that brings the reader on a puzzling journey. A couple books I have read fit into this category: Nights and Days by Alfred Jarry, and Moscow to the End of the Line by Venedikt Erofeev. These are not books simply about a drunken narrator, but a foray into a strange imaginative reality. Daumal’s book reminds me if Dante’s Inferno met Alfred Jarry in the land of The Third Policeman. In fact, reading this reminded me that I should finish Dante trilogy.
The world within Daumal’s book is a tavern and a world within the tavern. The narrator starts drinking within the tavern drunkenly conversing to a group - he contemplates leaving, but finds he cannot leave. For those who attempt end up indefinitely stranded in the Sick Room found upstairs in tavern. This room leads to a strange parallel universe. Like Dante, the narrator has a guide to describe and to help transverse this weird world made of Clarificators, Fabricators, and the other subgroups within. Daumal uses these strange categories of post-drinking types to satirize certain intellectual endeavors. A good review can be found here- if you want to explore this book in more depth.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archi...

The language is simultaneously imaginative, sharp and quite funny. As you can see from this little dialogue- it happens when the guide and the narrator is wandering the land of the Fabricator – the guide asks some painters why they paint.

“…a portly red-faced man with a blond beard who declared: ‘The way I see it, it’s very simple. I stand in front of my canvas {which he was}, I look at my apple or a cloud, pick up my brush, I select a scarlet {which he did)’ fling some just there {he almost poked a hole through the canvas}, and I exult {he exulted visibly}. I look at my scarlet and then at my courgette for seaperch, I select a green, bung it there {and he laid about him for all he was worth}, and I exult {here, he exulted again}…’
‘Yes, fine, thank you, stout fellow, we’ll leave you to your fun,’ said my guide moving to a third man…”

[Carmen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was super into this book for the first quarter of it, when it was a bunch of drunk guys philosophizing with abundant acute points. But part 2 jumped the shark for me with the extended surreal sequence of observation that made me go crossed eyed and completely lose track of what I was reading. I was so happy it was a short book.

[muthuvel · Rating 5 out of 5]

At first, a moment of exclamation. Wow. What a weird of one book it is!

I came to know about Daumal by reading one of his poems in my instagram feed. I was quite intrigued and determined to try one of his works.

"I am dead because I lack desire,
I lack desire because I think I possess,
I think I possess because I do not try to give,
In trying to give, I see that I have nothing,
Seeing that I have nothing, I try to give of yourself,
Trying to give of myself, I see that I'm nothing,
Seeing that I'm nothing, I desire to become,
In desiring to become, I begin to live."


My initial response by knowing Daumal could be labelled as 'Spiritual Para-Surrealist' and 'Pataphysician' whatever that means, is not as good as now. I explored the titles of his work, and marked it on goodreads so I don't have to remember it anymore and that was it. That happened a month ago. Encountering him again and reading his work has to do something with my Grandfather who is well and alive in his early 80s. He can't sleep a night without sipping his favorites. Whenever he visits to wherever he visits, he obligates the host to get his drinks so that everyone in the house could sleep peacefully. And recently he visited us and equipped himself a couple bottles of Brandy. But for some reasons, he never drank that much like the old days and left us with a bottle by mistake. No one in my family drink. I do try Beer every one out of 3 to 4 months but whenever I find the bottle rattling around the house like it were a souvenir of my grandpa, it inspired me to try the novelty of experiencing Brandy. And so to consummate my drink, I had to find some reasons. Now you might understand that Daumal was explored only to serve as an alibi for my exploration of Brandy. But I didn't end up satisfied with the latter. I would say it's pretty overrated. It didn't surprise me much unlike the former.

It took me 2 nights and yes, it felt like hard work but it was over. I read it. And what now? Did I learn anything worth learning? Did I become more wise? Did I feel like find the root of all evils and sufferings that is going on with the world right now? All these questions are half the answer.

By any chance, if someone happens to ask me about this book in future, 'I know this book very well but I don't understand any of it' would be response and my attempt to get to the mood while reading this in a night of serious drinking was not a great idea. It didn't help much and so I had to give it another night to read it completely. One need not to be drunk prior to reading this. Reading this would be suffice to know one is always drunk - illusory or artificial made. Always drunk. The drunkest among us never drinks.

The Author is basically proposing that everything that we do is useless and everything we avoid doing the useless - all modes of escapism is also useless. In an apartment filled with friends and acquaintances, author begins drinking and not stopping it until one of the acquaintances took him to a series of 'trips' showing the reality where people are not drunk and classified as Fidgeters, Fabricators and Clarificators, and Gods as per drunken nomenclature. The second part of the book only deals with the trip where he meets different people like the Little Prince but in a darker depressing context. Personally I found this very disturbing.


"And are the Kirittiks all supplied?" I asked the orderly when I'd shaken off all manner of somber thoughts.


"Yes. Every one of them has at least five novels, three books of literary criticism, two works of philosophy, seventy-two collections of poetry, fifteen Lives of famous men, twenty volumes of Memoirs, thirty pamphlets, and great mounds of newspapers and reviews to imbibe before the end of the week. It's never any different. They are indefatigable and insatiable. It would be a waste of our time wanting to talk with them."

We all do certain work and want gratifying response as a part of reward system. Imagine several billion people doing it unconsciously and expecting phony appreciations.

Daumal ridicules basically everyone, every last one of us from all walks of our cultural and social structure.

"The Sophers on the other hand derive
their name from Sophia, their goddess, famed for her misfortunes and her misadventures. It has been demonstrated that the word was
in fact no more than a corruption of 'savers,' a nickname given them by wise men of long ago as a way of summing up a number of sayings mockingly attributed to them, such as : 'I know everything, save for most things'; 'I am acquainted with everything, save myself'; 'everything decays, save me' ; 'everything is in everything, save me'; and so forth."

Daumal says he finalises his accounts optimistically about the condition and the future prospects of human condition even though he says those accounts would be considered as pessimistic and depressing.

In somber mood, I recalled my whole life up to this day, and my head spun with the buzzing of a hundred and one ouroboristic worms. I remembered the drinking parties that made us thirsty and the thirst that made us drink; I thought back to Sidonius recounting his endless dream; to
the people who worked to be able to eat and who ate to have the strength to work; to the black thoughts I drowned with such sadness
in the cask and which were reborn in different hues. Between the vicious circles of the drinking party and those of the delusory paradises, I would never again be able to choose, I could no longer be
part of their revolutions, I was from that moment no more than a wasteland."

I would never recommend it anyone nor would never advocate anyone to recommend this to anyone. You see, I still prefer the saying "When the student is ready, the teacher appears."

[Ronald Morton · Rating 4 out of 5]

*somewhere between three and four stars, and I'm rounding up*

I refuse to accept that a clear thought can ever be inexpressible. Appearances, however, are against me. For just as there is a level of pain at which the body ceases to feel because, should it become involved in its pain, should it groan but once, it would seemingly crumble and return to dust; and just as there is a peak at which pain takes to the air on its own wings---so there is a level of thought where words have no part to play.

This is considerably closer to what I expected from Daumal when I read You've Always Been Wrong. It is witty, poetic, inventive; however, it is also – unfortunately – a bit simplistic in its satire and overall themes. Overall it is quite enjoyable: the first section ducks and weaves through drunken revelry, propelled by a swift, erratic energy that is a joy to read; the second section – a swiftian journey lambasting artistic and intellectual pursuits – is a bit overlong, and, as noted, simplistic, but is carried by Daumal’s wit and creativity; there is a third, concluding section, that wraps everything up fairly nicely.

Now I need to track down a cheap copy of Mount Analogue...

On the last syllable (I had already drunk enough for it to seem perfectly natural), the guitar exploded in Gonzague’s hands. One of the strings caught him on the upper lip. He allowed a few drops of blood to fall onto the back of his hand. Then he drained his glass. Then he jotted down in his notebook the rudiments of an extraordinary poem which would be plagiarized the following day and betrayed in every language by two hundred and twelve minor poets; from it sprang the same number of avant-garde artistic movements, twenty-seven historic brawls, three political revolutions on a Mexican farm, seven bloody wars on the Paropamisus, a famine in Gibraltar, a volcano in Gabon (which had never been heard of before), a dictator in Monaco, and not quite lasting glory for the half-baked.

[Kyle Muntz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Something like a combination of Dante, early Beckett, Flann O'Brien, and a Max Ernst painting with dialogue. Equal parts satire and a survey of knowledge and language. It loses a little momentum around page 50 (where things started to feel strung together and less able to compensate for the lack of characterization) but this is one of the most inventive things I've read. Plus, near the beginning, there really is some serious drinking that goes on.

[Richard Thompson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ugh. This book is by turns incoherent and uninteresting. The allegory is irritating; the philosophy is grade school level. On one level the message is intended to be that life is incoherent and futile, but if that is how a writer feels, he should either not bother to write or find a way on at least a superficial level to refute his own conclusion by presenting the argument in a coherent and interesting way. It is hard to understand why so many reviews of this book are favorable. Perhaps the reviewers are suffering from some of the allegorical diseases described in the second part of the book. From the title of the book and its description, I was hoping for something along the lines of "My Drunken Dinner With Andre." That sounded like a fun idea, but that was not at all what it turned out to be. Too bad.

[Rasheem Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

How could a book this short be too long? A great beginning, and what starts as a great middle until you realize the middle will last for 90% of the novel. Still, I found the book to be hilarious throughout, even though there was only one joke repeated ad nauseam.

[Eva Mar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Partiendo de la «sed» como metáfora, el narrador nos cuenta un viaje iniciático dividido en tres etapas. Una introspección que me ha hecho vibrar. Todo ello aderezado con una inaudita imaginación que he sentido como un sueño. Tan confusa como atrayente. Gracias, René Daumal.

[Danielle Chelosky · Rating 5 out of 5]

my new favorite book

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like the Phantom Tollbooth if it had been set in a whimsical world of recovering alcoholics and set off, not by a playful dog, but by the need to heavily drink. Despite its frame, it contains really depthy discussion on a range of existential issues. It's also whimsical, weird, and, at times, all-out hilarious...

[Larissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

drunken rant transforms into social satire into spiritual parable. the drunken rant is kind of creaky -- just keep going till you get to the attic of the tavern which contains an entire country of savagely portrayed modern human types.

[Meemsi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a Mt. Analogue kinda guy...

[Orçun Güzer · Rating 5 out of 5]

İsmine bakıp sadece bir sefahat alemini anlattığı düşünülmesin; bu aslında düşle gerçeğin birbirine karışmasının, dil ve düşünce üstündeki hakimiyetin yitirilmesinin romanı. İkinci bölümden itibaren içki içilip içilmediğinin bir anlamı kalmıyor, çünkü anlatıcı bambaşka bir âleme doğru, Dantevari bir seyahata çıkıyor. O noktada müthiş bir hiciv başlıyor; yazarın alaycı kaleminden entelektüel takımının hiçbiri (şairler, yazarlar, filozoflar, bilim insanları) kaçamıyor.
Daumal, metin içinde saygı duruşunda bulunduğu iki ismin, Rabelais ve Alfred Jarry'nin izinden giderek, mizahla, absürdlüklerle, dil oyunlarıyla, yıkıcı eleştiriyle dolu, cıva gibi bir anlatı yaratmış. Ve Orhan Baltacıgil, Daumal'ın oyuncul üslubunu koruyarak, uydurduğu kelimelerin kökenini ve kültürel göndermelerini dipnotlarda anlatarak, mükemmel bir çeviri yapmış. Teşekkürler Dedalus.

[Marjolaine Brodeur · Rating 4 out of 5]

"– Chacun d'eux [les Kirittiks] a pour le moins cinq romans, trois essais, deux ouvrages philosophiques, soixante-douze recueils de poèmes, quinze /Vies/ d'hommes illustres, vingts livres de /Mémoires/, trente pamphlets et des piles de journaux et de revues à absorber avant la fin de la semaine. Et c'est toujours ainsi. Ils sont infatigables et insatiables. Nous perdrions notre temps à vouloir nous entretenir avec eux.
– Mais après lire, que font-ils?"

[Hunter Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun allegorical book that tells a story of drinking, society, and human nature. It was definitely an interesting and quick read. Some things feel a bit over simplified and the middle section feels too long, but it was an okay read!

[Bertram · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hele verdens visdom er at finde i en belæst narkomans virkelighedsopfattelse.
Hvor er det hele ligegyldigt og hvor er det dog fantastisk

[RyeCather · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*

[Az · Rating 3 out of 5]

René Daumal's A Night of Serious Drinking is both a polemic attacking contemporary culture but also an ode to the necessity of unfettered escapism. The novel itself, equal parts hallucinatory and sardonic, attacks in turn everyone including artists, scientists and the ordinary person. The first part of the book centres around a drinking party. The attendees liquored up but naturally inquisitive hilariously discuss - but seem to get nowhere with - questions on language, truth and aesthetics. Is this because of just how drunk they are? Does their seeming ignorance even matter?

Later, our protagonist, now alone, encounters a variety of surreal situations including a fastidious analysis of a white rabbit with a group of researchers and conversations with 'Gods'. These encounters, and their explanations, leave the protagonist lamenting the hollowness of contemporary society. The people he meets are overly pretentious, and all claim that they have successfully freed themselves from the shackles of mundane life. This drives him to yet more drink. The intention here is that this constant thirst for alcohol epitomises our very real yearning for escapism, to be rid of hypercriticism in favour of pure, unadulterated, contemplative living. Invariably however, even our escapist pursuits, whether that be by means of art, literature or a jovial alcohol-infused debate are likewise vacuous. This book offers little hope, theres no solution or remedy. We're left able to either choose madness, or death.

“Philosophy teaches how man thinks he thinks; but drinking shows how he really thinks.”

[Chris Linehan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is divided into three parts and depending on your disposition you're going to like one of the three parts better than the others. Some here have criticized the "simplistic" or otherwise over generalization of the book, but there's a self awareness that undoes some of this criticism. What's more some of the simplistic elements remind me of one of my favorite authors - Voltaire. Daumal nearly matches the pace of Candide or Micromégas that few can. And like Voltaire, at points his satire is as subtle as a hammer.

If you don't like surrealism or somewhat slapstick satire, don't bother with the book. Unlike Candide, whose story can stand on its own and be enriched by a passing knowledge of historical events, A Night of Serious Drinking requires at least a cursory understanding of philosophy/theology/history. It's probably the only work of fiction that I've read that references Tertullian.

But, it's a truly entertaining book that is witty and outlandish. I especially enjoyed part 20 in section 2 for its self deprecating nature. There are a lot of great one-liners sprinkled throughout as well; e.g. when describing the perfect house created by science: "The temperature is Exactly at the ideal level for the ideal human organism as defined by experts. It is the only temperature at which nobody feels comfortable, some shiver and other sweat" .

[Phinehas · Rating 4 out of 5]

An allegory of the human condition written as a grotesque. Alternately lucid and hallucinatory, this book very nearly gave me a nervous breakdown, which I think very well might have been Daumal's intention, an attempt to shock the reader (and himself) into wakefulness.
"The mechanical repeater was brought in. In somber mood, I recalled my whole life up to this day, and my head spun with the buzzing of a hundred and one ouroboristic worms. I remembered the drinking parties that made us thirsty and the thirst that made us drink; I thought back to Sidonius recounting his endless dream; to the people who worked to be able to eat and who ate to have the strength to work; to the black thoughts I drowned with such sadness in the cask and which were reborn in different hues. Between the vicious circles of the drinking party and those of the delusory paradises, I would never again be able to choose, I could no longer be part of their revolutions, I was from that moment no more than a wasteland."

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was OKAAAAAAY. Definitely inventive and with great ending. I'm with stupid, I'm with ending (that is good). But it was pretty out there. It was very out there. My friends have Mount Analogue tattooed on their ribs, so this guy's obviously a genius. However, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone other than Dickens. And myself, who loved it. It's got sharp wit. however, it's missing a STORY! It's good for philosophy chicks and dudes. Good for a literary mind. A good job through the ol' cerebellum. Not good for a summer beach read. Just know what you're getting into, and you'll have a blast. Do know what you're getting into. Less "Lucky Jim" more "Ferdydurke".

[Ana Nogueira · Rating 5 out of 5]

"À saída da casa, disse-lhe:
- Mas este não está nada doente!
- Isso é o que dizem todos"

"Muito perto daqui, vive uma colónia de cultivadores que produzem batatas com o objectivo de se alimentarem para terem a força necessária ao cultivo das batatas. (...) resumindo, este mundo anda todo numa tal febre de actividade, num tal entusiasmo de trabalho, que dificilmente se conseguem trocar mais de duas palavras com o menos atarefado deles."

Tanto momento bom neste livrinho.

[Steve Kemple · Rating 5 out of 5]

Weird, hallucinatory, genius.