The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld : A Spoiler Free Review and Analysis

“Even though it will feel uncomfortable for a while, but according to the pastor, discomfort is good. In discomfort, we are real.”

A book that strikes grief as the universal emotion and allows it the full expanse that it earns through the eyes of Jas, a young girl growing up on a farm in the Netherlands who feels devastated on the thought of losing her pet rabbit which she believes her father will cook for the meal instead she asks God to take her brother, Matthies.

“Lots of people want to run away, but the ones who really do, rarely announce it beforehand: they just go.”

To live without someone who’s been a remedy to everything that goes against the joyous atmosphere, someone who’s grown up with you and someone who is a piece of your heart seems straight out dreadful and to carry that void is more horrendous. Our perception of pain is different, we can feel it in someone’s eyes, other’s behaviour or not feeling it entirely is also a type. This book is about swallowing the grief, the sadness and reasoning it with every other thing in life, reasoning with one’s and other’s existence.

“Nobody knows my heart. It’s hidden deep inside my coat, my skin, my ribs. My heart was important for nine months inside my mother’s belly, but once I left the belly, everyone stopped caring whether it beat enough times per hour. No one worries when it stops or begins to beat fast, telling me there must be something wrong.”

The highly acclaimed novel, ‘ The Discomfort of Evening ‘ stands tall with the International Booker Prize 2020, with the synopsis so profound, it caught my attention, and then I found myself nose deep into it. This is one of those books that I kept in my rereading list because the first time I read it, it just went above my head and I couldn’t form a connection. But as it is said, a book has its way to weave you into its emotions, it certainly happened with this. In my second reading, I felt exceedingly gripped and it made me wonder how people can judge an individual’s pain if the pain’s in hibernation? The story isn’t about getting over the black clouds of sorrow but to float on it for a while, to behold of the unseen sentiments and getting used to it. The protagonist being a ten-year-old is wise with her thoughts running wild and her exploration makes this more than a fiction, a reality.

“I am beginning to have more and more doubts about whether I find God nice enough to want to go and talk to Him. I have discovered that there are two ways of losing your belief : some people lose God when they find themselves; some people lose God when they lose themselves. I think I’ll belong to that second group.”

The family physically subsisting together seems to disintegrate mentally as they all have their way of tackling the misfortune. In the super religious setting the characters seem to have deflected towards their own ground where they don’t seem to live but exist. The other children growing violent with animals, sexual exploration and being brutal because of lack of ethical attention and compassion seems undoubtedly natural.

The author is the youngest recipient of the Booker Prize at just 29. They seem to have the proficiency of writing with sheer brilliance by uniting with their (as the author identifies as both male and female, and uses they/ them as personal pronouns) Dutch soil. Rijneveld is said to write this novel with the taste of pain they personally felt with the loss of their brother and it took six years to finish this book.

As Marieke Lucas Rijneveld brings in a swift move in the Dutch literature, the credit is likewise given to the translator of the book, Michele Hutchinson who has made obvious that the story marks its presence throughout the world irrespective of belonging to a particular place. As the jury said — “Combining a disarming new sensibility with a translation of singular sensitivity, The Discomfort of Evening is a tender and visceral evocation of a childhood caught between shame and salvation, and a deeply deserving winner of The 2020 International Booker Prize.”

If you have gone through my spoiler-free review, you will realize that I will never recommend this book to everyone because of some disturbing elements discussed in this but to all those who don’t get much affected, let me tell you that-

“The discomfort is real, it’s heartbreaking and the narration is deeply nostalgic and reflective.”

- Akanksha Kinwaar

Originally published at https://www.bookishsanta.com on January 28, 2021.