Испытание Гилберта Пинфолда

Blurb

The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold is a novel by the British writer Evelyn Waugh, first published in July 1957. It is Waugh's penultimate full-length work of fiction, which the author called his "mad book"—a largely autobiographical account of a period of mental illness that he experienced in the early months of 1954, recounted through his protagonist Gilbert Pinfold.
Waugh's health in the winter of 1953–54 was indifferent, and he was beset with various personal anxieties that were stifling his ability to work. He was also in the grip of a serious drug addiction. In search of a peaceful environment in which he could resume writing, he embarked on a sea voyage to Ceylon, but was driven to the point of madness by imagined voices that assailed him throughout the voyage. These experiences are mirrored in the novel by those of Pinfold, a successful writer in the Waugh mould who, as an antidote to his lassitude and chronic insomnia, is dosing himself with a mixture of barbiturates and alcohol. This cocktail brings about a series of hallucinatory episodes during a sea voyage taken by Pinfold for the sake of his health; he hears voices that insult, taunt and threaten him.