Includes bibliographical references and index.

A labored dialogue on the power of words and the frailty of thought (1 to 19) -- Delusions of paradise (1 to 42) -- The Fidgeters (7 to 9) -- The Fabricators of useless objects (10 to 22) -- The Clarificators (23 to 39) -- With the artificial gods (40 to 42) -- The cold light of day (1 to 12) -- The fire, the sun, the awakening (1 to 5) -- The walking house (6 to 8) -- Of man as larva, and or love as an example (9 to 12).

A Night of Serious Drinking is among Rene Daumal's most important literary works. Like his Mount Analogue, it is a work of symbolic fiction that can be enjoyed purely as an entertaining and imaginative story, but also for the much deeper meaning embedded in its deceptively simple plot: An unnamed narrator spends an evening getting drunk with a group of friends. As the party becomes intoxicated and more and more exuberant, the narrator embarks on a journey ranging from seeming paradises to the depths of pure hell. The fantastic world depicted in A Night of Serious Drinking is actually the ordinary world tumed upside down. The characters are called the Anthographers, Fabricators of Useless Objects, Scienters, Nibblists, Ciarificators, 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 and poets expounding their rhetoric. These characters perform hllarious antics and intellectual games, which they see as serious attempts to find meaning and freedom.

Daumal's keen perceptions about the human condition infuse A Night of Serious Drinking with a critique of culture and consciousness that is both disquieting and enlivening