Night of Serious Drinking

by Rene Daumal

Paperback, 1985

Status

Available

Call number

813

Publication

Shambhala (1985), Paperback, 121 pages

Description

Both an acidic critique of society and a manual for learning how to think for oneself, this novel explores the abyss of the materialistic world and presents an initiatory journey in three parts. In the first, the narrator finds himself in an underworld full of drunks and eccentrics; he then ascends to a supposedly higher rung of society, populated by phony artists, politicians, and scientists who live in their artificial paradises with their false idols. Last of all is the awakening, the transformation into a new reality after getting to know himself better, rejecting the vicious cycles of alcohol and false wisdom. Una ácida crítica de la sociedad y a la misma vez un manual para aprender a pensar, esta novela explora los abismos del mundo materialista y presentan viaje iniciático dividido en tres etapas. En la primera, el narrador se encuentra en un inframundo lleno de borrachos y personajes extravagantes; asciende después a un peldaño y que superior de la sociedad, poblado por farsantes del arte, de la política y de la ciencia que viven en paraísos artificiales con sus falsos dioses. Finalmente viene el despertar, la transformación hacia una nueva realidad luego de conocerse mejor, rechazando los círculos viciosos del alcohol y de la falsa sabiduría.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member danahlongley
Very weird and interesting...
LibraryThing member JimmyChanga
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
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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'.
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Language

Original publication date

1938

Physical description

121 p.; 8.3 inches

ISBN

0394742176 / 9780394742175
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