DalÍ’s only novel is as bizarre and as jewelled as any of his work. Written in the autumn of 1943 in New Hampshire, DalÍ (above) devoted “14 implacable hours a day” to it – first “because I have time to do everything I want to do”, secondly “because contemporary history offers a unique framework for a novel dealing with the development and the conflicts of great human passions”, and thirdly, “because if I had not written it another would have done it . . . and badly”.

The bravado is typical. As his translator points out, DalÍ never uses one word if he can use two – or five. The prose is adjective-laden, the style meandering, the sentiment extravagant. Set in the days before the Second World War, Hidden Faces concerns a group of aesthetes around Count Hervé de Grandsailles. Among them is his beloved Solange de Cleda, a classic Daliesque creation. All costumes are minutely noted, but Solange’s are the most memorable, including her “Chanel dress, with a very low neck, edged with roses cut out of three thicknesses of black and beige lace, between which were hidden rather large pearl caterpillars”.

Solange represents “Cledalism” – going on a stage from sadism and masochism, “pleasure and pain sublimated in an all-transcending identification with the object”. She is “a profane St Teresa”.

For all its showing off, the novel is a serious account of the extremes of experience forced by war. Most surprising is a prophetic scene with Hitler, defeated, in his tower at Berchtesgaden, and gloating over the stolen treasures of the world while listening to Wagner.

We can all recognise the masks in DalÍ’s art. We all remember the moustached mask he wore himself in life. DalÍ’s novel is the work of the clown who sees behind the smile. Hidden Faces is an apt title for something so glittering and sinister.

Peter Owen, £13.50,

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DalÍ and Film is at Tate Modern London SE1 until September 9

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