š š³š± #2: A Booker winning Dutch debut
Marieke Lucas Rijneveldās The Discomfort of Evening
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It would have been difficult to miss Marieke Lucas Rijneveldās The Discomfort of Evening this year. The winner of the Man Booker International Prize 2020, it feels as though itās been read and reviewed by just about everyone. As Barbara den Ouden from the Dutch Foundation for Literature told me over the phone, she canāt remember the last time a book from the Netherlands achieved this level of international success. Needless to say, I was intrigued.
The Discomfort of Evening is Rijneveldās debut novel. It took them six years to complete and draws on the authorās rural upbringing, as well as the experience of losing their brother at a young age, to tell the story of a devout farming family as they grieve the loss of their son, Matthies.
The novel is narrated by Jas, Matthiesā ten-year-old sister whose naivety about death is endearing and heart-breaking in equal measure. She worries, for example, that Matthies wonāt be able to pay his library fines in heaven because he didnāt have any cash on him when he died.
As Jasā parents become consumed by grief, their devotion begins to manifest itself in a series of impossibly strict rules and cruel punishments enforced to keep both children and livestock in check. While Jasās mother experiences a psychotic episode, her fatherās rules become increasingly arbitrary. āThereās never any warning that weāre about to pray or that Dadās going to say grace, so you just have to sense it.ā
Meanwhile Jas and her siblings enter puberty, exploringāand abusingātheir own bodies and playing wicked games with the animals on their farm.Ā Rijneveldās decision to tell their story from the perspective of a ten-year-old is brave, and it pays off. In one particularly graphic scene, Jas pushes a drawing pin through her belly button after her teacher asks where in the world her students would most like to go. When one girl shouts āCanada,ā the teacher sticks a pin in the map on the classroom wall. Later that day, Jas copies her teacher by mutilating her own stomach. Ā
āāOne day Iād like to go to myself,ā I say quietly, pushing the pin into the soft flesh of my navel. I bite my lip so as not to make a sound, and a trickle of blood runs down to the elastic of my pants and soaks into the fabric. I darenāt take out the pin, afraid blood will gush out everywhere, and everyone in the house will know that I donāt want to go to God but to myself.ā
Linguistically rich, The Discomfort of Evening is teeming with bold, penetrating similes, each one more revolting than the last. Diarrhoea reminds Jas of the caramel sauce her granny used to pour on her rice pudding; her sisterās tongue feels like a leftover steak that has been heated in the microwave; a vagina looks like slug thatās been cut open.
But for all of its unsettling imagery, of which thereās certainly no shortage, The Discomfort of Evening is a surprisingly funny novel. Jasā naivety leads to all sorts of sweet observations and wrongly drawn conclusions. āI could hardly imagine a [church] service without my dad being there,ā ponders Jas. āI sometimes ask myself what would become of God without my father.ā
At 282-pages The Discomfort of Evening is a short novel. But itās by no means a quick read. It took me handful of sittings to get through, but Iām glad I stuck with it: itās a book thatās going to stay with me for a long time.
The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, translated by Michele Hutchison (Faber & Faber, 2020 / De Bezige Bij, 2018)
More books by Dutch authors
Hereās a list of other recommendations I received this week:
Roxy by Esther Gerritsen, tr. Michele Hutchison
Gliding Flight by Anne-Gine Goemans, tr. Nancy Forest-Flier
Taxi: Stories from the Back Seat by AimĆ©e de JonghĀ
Giovannaās Navel by Ernest van der Kwast, tr. Laura VroomenĀ
Bird Cottage by Eva Meijer, tr. Antoinette Fawcett
The Dutch Maiden by Marente de Moor, tr. David Doherty
Sleepless Night by Margriet de Moor, tr. David Doherty
Grand Hotel Europa by Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer, tr. Michele HutchisonĀ
The Consequences by NiƱa Weijers, tr. Hester Velmans
The Death of Murat Idrissi by Tommy Wieringa, tr. Sam GarrettĀ
What have you read recently?
If youāve read a brilliant book in translation or want to pass on a recommendation, Iād love to hear about it! For this project, Iām focussing on contemporary fiction and short stories, with a preference for female authorsābut I wonāt be too dogmatic about it so do share recommendations that donāt quite fit the bill, too.
You can get in touch by replying to this email or leaving a comment. Iāll be featuring your recommendations in upcoming newsletters, and Iāll keep a growing list here.
Bookmarked is written by Tabatha Leggett. Thank you to Barbara den Ouden from the Dutch Foundation for Literature for her recommendations for this issue. If you think someone you know would enjoy this newsletter, please forward it to them!