The Discomfort of Evening

Where to start with this one… so I found this book after looking up the author, Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, who made headlines after backing down as the translator of Amanda Gorman’s poetry. I found that their debut novel won the International Booker Prize for 2020 and vaguely put it on my TBR list. More recently, I found that the novel was in the ‘new’ section at my library, so I picked it up with somewhat high expectations.

Rijneveld definitely has a way with language—and this is also a credit to Michele Hutchinson’s masterful translation. (Though I will say, reading the many English-specific phrases in this book gave me a bit of whiplash given that the novel is set in the Netherlands. Sometimes it was hard to shake that I was not, in fact, reading about the UK.) Reading works in translation will never quite get you the feeling of the original, but I suspect that, from the original Dutch, the strong emotions invoked by this book could not be dampened, even in translation. Many times while reading I found myself wondering why I was reading this book and what purpose it served. There are definitely discomforting and horrible moments in the novel—when you want to look away, but can’t, like some terrible car crash. This book should probably win some sort of award for having the most poo-related (or any bodily functions, more generally) talk I have ever witnessed in a novel. Storygraph has a thorough list of content warnings for this book—there are many.

The novel follows Jas and her family following the death of the eldest son, Matthies. They live in a rural town where the most exciting thing is probably the local church sermon—and Jas’s family is a particularly traditional form of Christian (Reformist). Going into this book I knew nothing about most of these aspects, so it was fascinating to get a glimpse into the small world that I suspect is quite personal for the author. I do wish they had given a bit more context for the religious aspects in the novel. Despite the mundane nature of the book—not that much happens—or perhaps because of it, the horrible actions serve as a stark contrast. Rijneveld, on this point, commented, “I wanted to set darkness against light. A book can’t only be about the darkness.”

Rijneveld also said in an interview that they wanted to capture ‘the filth of existence’–and at that, they definitely succeeded. Being in a human body can be extremely disgusting and demanding in the worst way—I can understand how Jas grasps for ways to remain in control over hers through her anxious behaviors. One moment you witness a harrowing moment of violence and abuse, and the next young Jas says something nonsensical about how she thinks urging her toads to mate will fix the dysfunction that she sees in her parents. Grief can be tough to deal with for anyone, but I imagine it is even worse for young Jas, whose parents do not even let her talk of the dead—nor do they support their children. So what can young children do in the face of unspeakable anguish, grief, and anxiety? Jas turns inward, displaying specific behaviors—like never taking off her anorak coat—while her siblings have their own ways of ‘dealing’ with the grief.

I struggled with myself on how I felt about this book. While reading it, it was mostly not a pleasant nor fun experience—a few times I had to consistently urge myself to continue. But like Jas, the reader is forced to deal with the complexity of her life and all of its troubles; Jas does not have the luxury to look away, so neither can we. But the emotional complexity demands a lot of the reader, and after a certain point, I just did not have much more energy left to give to this book. By the time I got to the end, I was glad for it to be over. But after reading some other reviews and thinking about it, I felt conflicted—I didn’t like the book in the usual sense, but it definitely left a powerful impact. In particular, I couldn’t stop thinking about the ending. It felt a bit strange and off, but the fact that it lingered in my mind is a testament to the book nonetheless.

The novel is dark in the truest sense of the word, and Rijneveld is a master of writing deeply profound and dark sentences—they are a poet, after all, so the poetic style is strong in this book. However, I did have some issues accepting this as the voice of ten-year old Jas. I often found her to be saying or reflecting on quite complex and mature thoughts, and in some ways, the line between Rijneveld’s voice and Jas’s was blurred for me. Grief can age a child, definitely, but even given that Jas occasionally pinpoints certain profound thoughts with a much more adult clarity. For this element, it was hard to suspend my disbelief at times.

The Discomfort of Evening is a very specific kind of book; no doubt it deserves the accolade of the International Booker, but it is nevertheless a difficult book to swallow. It won’t be for everyone. I’m not squeamish or have any trouble with dark books, but this book definitely tested me at certain points. Ultimately, I find that Rijneveld managed to capture a very specific slice of life in rural, early 2000s Netherlands, and perhaps that is my favorite thing about this book—that there are so many different ways to be human, and one can only hope to catch a glimpse of as many as they can before they too are extinguished. There are no correct answers in how to be human, or how to respond to grief, or how to go back to regular life after a tragedy—but one day, it will be over, just like this book—and for that I can be grateful.