A young Dutch geologist Alfred Issendorf is determined to win fame for making a great discovery. To this end he joins a small geological expedition to the far north of Norway where he hopes to be the first to identify craters in the landscape made by meteorites. It is a harsh and deserted environment, way beyond civilisation, which brings out all the fault lines in the group of young men and in Alfred's character. The tribulations mount: Alfred is unable to procure crucial aerial photographs, he falls on rocks, is soaked in a river, and is beset by mosquitoes and insomnia; the tent leaks appallingly. He is not a natural athlete, feeling incapable and superfluous to the group's needs. Alfred becomes desperate and paranoid, suspecting the others are leagued in conspiracy against him. Haunted by the ghost of his scientist father, unable to escape the looming influence of his mother, and anxious to complete the thesis that will make his name, Alfred's preoccupations multiply in this wilderness. As, piece by piece, his equipment is lost or ruined and his thinking becomes ever more disjointed, he moves towards the final act of vanity which will trigger a catastrophe.
"Beyond Sleep" is a classic of post-war European literature; a gripping tale of a man at the limits of physical and mental endurance beyond the end of the civilised world.