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| Paperback Edition |
Ten-year-old Jas lives with her strictly religious parents and her
siblings on a dairy farm where waste and frivolity are akin to sin.
Despite the dreary routine of their days, Jas has a unique way of
experiencing her world: her face soft like cheese under her mother’s
hands; the texture of green warts, like capers, on migrating toads in
the village; the sound of “blush words” that aren’t in the Bible.
One
icy morning, the disciplined rhythm of her family’s life is ruptured by
a tragic accident, and Jas is convinced she is to blame. As her
parents’ suffering makes them increasingly distant, Jas and her siblings
develop a curiosity about death that leads them into disturbing rituals
and fantasies. Cocooned in her red winter coat, Jas dreams of “the
other side” and of salvation, not knowing where this dreaming will
finally lead her.
A bestseller in the Netherlands, Marieke Lucas Rijneveld’s radical debut novel The Discomfort of Evening
offers readers a rare vision of rural and religious life in the
Netherlands. In it, they ask: In the absence of comfort and care, what
can the mind of a child invent to protect itself? And what happens when
that is not enough? With stunning psychological acuity and images of
haunting, violent beauty, Rijneveld has created a captivating world of
language unlike any other.
***
Title : The Discomfort of Evening
Author : Marieke Lucas Rijneveld
Pages : 282
Genre : Fiction/Contemporary
Published Year:
Origin language : Dutch
(this book contain suicidal thought)
"It might sound crazy, but I miss my parents even though I see them every day. Maybe it's just like the things we want to learn because we can't do them yet: we miss everything we don't have. Mum and Dad are there, but at the same time they aren't."
On a cold and dark winter day, the family of six heard the news that their eldest son cannot make it after being trapped in a frozen lake. Jas, the main protagonist, the third child of the family is just 10 years old at that time. She remembered the last conversations with her brother, about going to the other side.
But the 10-year old cannot muster the heavy feeling in her chest. She was unable to cry even after seeing her brother's remains. She just remembers that Christmas is no longer glee in the house. Her parents put down the decoration, and there were no more festivals.
Jas's family is a farmer, living in a rural area of Holland where the winter is white and cows are above everything. Her family is also a devoted Christian, their parents prohibited any unauthorized thing or item inside the house. They only have a TV channel where there isn't nudity in there.
Music is limited. Life is strictly guided by the scripture of the Bible. Even young Jas usually correlates her decision or anything that happens in her life based on the scripture.
But the loss of family is unfathomable. Her mother retreats very far, avoid to touch her children at any cost. She rarely eats something and avoids eye contact with her children. Jas, Hannah (Jas's little sister), and Odde (Jas's older brother)-they called themselves the Three King, notice the change of behavior of their parents. There is one sentence in the book that is very heartbreaking, Jas is jealous of the vacuum cleaner because her mother, touches it more than her children.
Meanwhile, her father, bury his sadness on the farm and was colder than ever. The family cannot enunciate the loss. Nobody expresses the feeling, even only mentioning death.
The Three King explore their loss at their own pace. Since their bodies are also in the process of changing, the hormones, limited information make them explore the loss thru sexuality, nature, and whatever surrounds them. Especially Jas, she stops taking off her red coat anytime and anywhere. No matter the season, she wears it like armor, like Samson and his hair.
The author is a poem. So we can see a lot of beautiful prose among the long sentences and paragraphs. And a lot of metaphors, how Jas reflect her feeling thru nature. She collects 'important thing' and hold them inside her coat pocket until it is heavy. From toads and whiskers.
But like Jas, this book is not a crying baby. It is slices your heart slowly without letting you cry. I think that the brilliant and also painful about this book. It gives me frustration.
The graphic description of their sexual exploration (and incest?) is something that I skipped reading. I am faint-hearted for this kind of thing.
I can see the reason why this book win Booker Prize in 2020. It is super intense and packed with unsaid emotions. If I read it several years ago, maybe this book will be one of my favorite books.
But today, this kind of book makes me depressed, ha haha. So, I won't touch this book again maybe for a long time. I am depressed to see how incompetent their parents, I am depressed to read how Odde becomes meaner and meaner yet Jas and Hannah try their best to entertain him. I get it happens sometimes, and the twist ending, though for me is not a twist at all. It is just too dark.
Well, overall it is one hell of a read. I finished it in two days, to divide the intensity. I would still recommend it to anyone except those who have suicidal thoughts. I think this is what we call a masterpiece. We may find dislike it, but still admit that it is a great book.
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