Squirming from the First to Last Page: A review of Marieke Lucas Rejneveld’s The Discomfort of Evening
“Sadness ends up in your spine. Mum’s back is getting more and more bent.”
It is the simple bluntness, brutality and honesty of many lines like this which make reading The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld (translated by Michele Hutchison) such an unsettling experience. To be brought up short by a line, almost without understanding why, is alarming, even threatening, and the sheer craft on the part of the author and translator to achieve this effect consistently over the course of the book, is incredibly impressive. I can see quite swiftly why Marieke Lucas Rijneveld was named ‘2015’s Literary Talent of the Year’ by Dutch publication de Volkskrant, shortly after the success of their award winning first poetry collection, Caulf’s Caul.
The book takes place in The Netherlands, on the dairy farm of a highly religious family, and centres upon their gradual emotional and mental decay following the accidental death of the family’s eldest child, Matthies. The depiction of childhood is frightening, yet unavoidably familiar. At first, I felt strong denial, not wanting to accept that the narrative perspective was truly childlike. I wanted to continue believing my bubble like lie of childhood innocence, which most of us are able to bob along in. But the text completely popped that bubble and brought back memories of so many moments from my own childhood. All the thoughts I had, the things I explored. How cruel I could be, and how naive, making up my own stories about the world in a futile effort to understand it, without any of the information or experience that gradually turned me into an adult. Rijneveld’s text forced me to remember a non-innocent childhood without the adult lens, and the picture is more disturbing that I ever could have appreciated at the time.
For Jes in particular, the narrative of her childhood is bewildering. Rijneveld’s voice shamelessly rejects the sanctity of the body, especially the bodies and sexuality of protagonist Jes and her siblings. Their environment appears at odds with their parent’s dysfunctional attempt at a religious upbringing. As a child growing up on a dairy farm, in intimate contact with nature, she has a first-hand knowledge of animal mating. Yet, her parents deny her any knowledge of human sexuality. This makes every page of childhood sexual discovery feel incredibly threatened, especially as a result of the power and erratic violence of the male figures of the story; Jes’s father, pushing lumps of soap up her anus to try and relieve her constipation; her older brother Obbe, who delights in secretly murdering animals and pouring cola onto her younger sister Hanna’s privates, and the local vet who’s every thinly veiled sexual attention and action towards the 12 year old Jes, never failed to make me squirm with discomfort and futile anger. I think I became so protective of her character because I could see so much of her in myself, and I doubt that is unique to me. I think many readers will find themselves feeling the same way.
From the first page when her mother presses thumbs hard onto Jes’s eyelids, to the drawing pin stuck in her belly button, to the very end of the book, which I will not spoil, every single breach of boundaries and the body felt as if it were happening directly to me. When I spoke to a friend, who also read the book this week as a part of our book club, their responses were so similar. They spoke about the deep unease they felt, the way their body responded to the text, and the nostalgia of childhood sexuality in all its confusion. This book upset us both, in the most physical and emotional senses. That is the power of Rijneveld’s authorial perspective and voice, and the direct result of this skilled translation by Michele Hutchison.
I’m realising as I write this that I may not be enticing others to read this book. Make no mistake, this is not a feel-good read. It is certainly not a book to curl up with and relax on a breezy summer night. However, I will emphatically tell any prospective reader that this book is brilliant. The story of a family falling apart, all told so genuinely from the perspective of a child, is flawless and full of unique nuance. The depictions of grief, mental illness and pain, feel word perfect. Every element is so honest and resonates so powerfully with me that I think The Discomfort of Evening is one of my favourite books I have read this summer. I recommend it highly, and I can see why it has earnt its place on the 2020 International Booker Prize Shortlist. There are similarities The Enlightenment of The Greengage Tree, which I read last week. Both books have made me question family bonds and the perseverance of communities, although I think that The Discomfort of Evening paints a bleaker picture. Each is a beautiful text, and I can’t wait to see how they compare to Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor, which I will be reading over the next few days.
by Jasper Evans