Every now and then the publishing world believes it's found a new literary wunderkind – someone whose prose and voice is so daringly original it breaks the mould of fiction. Marieke Lucas Rijneveld is being touted as such a writer. Born in 1991, Rijneveld has previously published a book of poetry which led a Dutch newspaper to declare them the literary talent of the year. “The Discomfort of Evening” is their debut novel and it has also been acclaimed in the Netherlands having been nominated for the Libris Literature Prize and won the ANV Debut Prize. And now it's been longlisted for the Booker International Prize. Rijneveld identifies as “in between” genders and their reputation as a fresh and cool new literary talent is further enhanced by the fact that they give public poetry performances while continuing to work at the dairy farm where they were raised.
“The Discomfort of Evening” follows the story of ten year old Jas who (like the author) is also raised on a dairy farm and whose elder brother Matthies dies in a tragic accident. We follow her life over a couple of years while her family wrestle with the grief of his loss and the tragic consequences of Foot-and-mouth disease which leads to the enforced decimation of much of their livestock. More than this, the novel is about the bizarre discoveries and transformations which accompany adolescence as Jas and her surviving brother and sister explore their emerging sexuality and the contours of their imaginations. Jas has her own curious peculiarities including a red coat she constantly wears and refuses to take off, the frogs she keeps under her bed in the hope they will mate and a secret belief she maintains that she's both a paedophile and Hitler. She also believes her mother hides Jewish people in their basement. It's the kind of weird logic which forms when a burgeoning awareness of history and the facts of the world are translated through an adolescent sensibility.
While Rijneveld undoubtably presents a refreshing point of view, their writing actually strongly reminds me of Jane Bowles, a writer from the mid-20th century who was another original (and sadly mostly forgotten) literary voice. Bowles' novel “Two Serious Ladies” explored the peculiarities of adolescent experience and a descent into debauchery. Both authors present a decidedly non-saccharine view of childhood filled with intense unwieldy emotions, religious fervour and dangerous play. Jas' parents are devoutly Christian and her actions becomes mixed with a spiritual feeling as she and her brother Obbe perform outlandish and sometimes terrifying rituals to invoke their lost brother Matthies. As Jas states when putting her sister Hanna through a weird initiation she feels “this isn’t a game, it’s deadly serious.”
I appreciated Jas' offbeat point of view, but a difficulty in representing her adolescent impressions of the world so comprehensively is that occasionally wondrous bouts of childhood experience can be mixed with long periods of banality. Subsequently, I felt a bit bored when reading sections of this novel. As someone who grew up in a rural area I understand such aimless wandering, interacting with nature and toying with the power of the imagination, but seeing it extensively represented can feel less meaningful and aimless. Also, there's a lot of blunt representation of issues like constipation and sexual experimentation between the children which just felt unsavoury to read about. I'm not prudish but there's only so much I want to read about a girl struggling to defecate. And when Jas' friend submits to a horrendous act of sexual violation this traumatic experience is simply dropped in and the consequences aren't dealt with. This left me with mixed feelings about the novel and that it wasn't crafted as well as it could have been.
What I found most meaningful was some of the simple imagery which would recur throughout Jas' story. A rope shaped into a noose is hung over Jas' bed like a grim reminder that death could take her or her siblings at any time just as it took Matthies. There are also occasional reminders of the brother's absence which strike the family in unexpected moments like seeing Matthies' jacket still hanging alongside their own jackets: “Death has its own coat hook here.” I also appreciated the way the parents' actions reflect an unexpressed grief such as the mother who steadily loses weight and the father who continuously threatens to leave their home. It's poignant how in her adolescent confusion Jas flirts with the idea of death as a way of coming to grips with Matthies' absence – especially because her parents don't talk about emotions directly. Unfortunately the ending of this novel reaches for an unnecessarily dramatic climax which detracts from the book’s subtler qualities. Overall, I agree that Rijneveld is an exciting new voice in fiction but I think they need more time to refine the raw power of their prose.
