Beyond Sleep is one of the canonical novels of the Dutch postwar period, and a prime example of what is perhaps the most distinctive characteristic of the author's work, the intense cohesion between theme and narrative strategy.

Alfred Issendorf, a geology student from Amsterdam, has received a grant to do field work in Finnmark, Norway, attempting to verify his professor's theory that meteors have impacted the area, leaving telltale craters.

Issendorf, who does not get along with Qvigstad and Mikkelsen, sleeps poorly and spends much of his time in gloomy thoughts, feeling unable to measure up to his father and even to Arne, and wondering whether ancient resentment between Sibbelee, Oftedahl, and Nummedal is to blame for making his mission impossible.

After crossing a deep ravine, he differs with Arne on what direction to take and charges on without waiting for him, but soon discovers he had misread his beautiful new compass, which he promptly loses.

By orienting himself toward Vuorje he is able to backtrack to the ravine, a journey of several days; as it turns out, Arne had set up camp there to wait for him, but then fallen to his death.

According to Hermans scholar Frans A. Janssen, the novel can be read at three levels: as the report of a geological expedition, as a psychological story of a young man with the urge to supersede his father's achievement, and as a philosophical story in which the search for meteorites must be interpreted as a "holy grail quest", one that leads the protagonist to the insight that no understanding of the fundamental mystery of life is possible.

The third stage begins with the invention of photography and this hands out the final blow of the truth, for a picture is an objective fixation of the image the outside world holds of a person.

[4] An ominous side to this identification is that Alfred will offer to Professor Nummedal to finish Arne's project, and by doing so he puts himself again in the position of a dependent.

The only correction to the inherently unreliable first-person point of view and prejudiced, limited perception of Alfred Issendorf lies in Arne's diary.

According to scholar G.F.H Raat, this habit of incessant self-observing resembles looking in the mirror, and this fundamental disposition of Alfred finds its equivalent in the use of first-person present-tense narration.

"[10] The Swedish translation of 1977 led literary critic Rolf Yrlid to wonder out loud when the Nobel Prize for Literature would go to the Netherlands.

[11] The novel is a staple for generations of Dutch high school students,[12] and is praised for its prose style as well, the opening sentence ("The porter is disabled.")

[14] Reviewing the English translation Michel Faber wrote in The Guardian: "In the original Dutch, Hermans's prose is bracingly lucid and straightforward, justifying his reputation as a champion of unadorned style.

Ina Rilke's translation is fluent and finds clever solutions to tough challenges (such as preserving the comic effect of conversations in which English is the foreign language), but overall the tone is more formal, more prim than it should be.

"[15] In September 2013 NRC Handelsblad reported that the movie rights for an international, English-language production to be directed by Boudewijn Koole (Kauwboy) had been sold.