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A review by sidharthvardhan
The Discomfort of Evening by Lucas Rijneveld
5.0
It's about a sensitive child dealing with death of brother, fighting and ready to separate parents, a financial crisis etc among other things. As the epigraph of the book suggests, restlessness gives wingsnto imagination (Maurice Gilliams). In this case the restlessness is provoked by the great riddle of death - author struggles hard to understand what exactly her brother went through or if he would return. The child along with her siblings start trying a number of strange things mostly sexual experiments, violent experiments, experiments at nearly dying etc. Another recurring element is human excretion - I think the book mentions at least 4 kinds of them at least once. Pedophilia is another gory element author managed to check.
To be honest, the idea of children in nqrratior's position developing such interests is not altogether shocking. Moreover she grew in a farm - in proximity with animals. And in rural areas, being near animals all the time, a little child is more likely to get acquainted with sexual matters than in cities just by observing animals (cows in this case).
It still doesn't make for an easy reading. It is quite low rated for an International booker winner which is understandable - there is a good chance you willl find it difficult to read through at least some of above mentioned gory elements. Except for that difficulty in reading (which won't limit a book's popularity in ideal world), it has all the power of a classic. Personally I could prefer if it was slightly shorter. Particularly, toward the end, the author seemed to be trying to hard to complete the check list of all the gory elements she could imagine but mostly it is all very well handled.
This here is one of few better reviews: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3466486667?book_show_action=false
To be honest, the idea of children in nqrratior's position developing such interests is not altogether shocking. Moreover she grew in a farm - in proximity with animals. And in rural areas, being near animals all the time, a little child is more likely to get acquainted with sexual matters than in cities just by observing animals (cows in this case).
It still doesn't make for an easy reading. It is quite low rated for an International booker winner which is understandable - there is a good chance you willl find it difficult to read through at least some of above mentioned gory elements. Except for that difficulty in reading (which won't limit a book's popularity in ideal world), it has all the power of a classic. Personally I could prefer if it was slightly shorter. Particularly, toward the end, the author seemed to be trying to hard to complete the check list of all the gory elements she could imagine but mostly it is all very well handled.
This here is one of few better reviews: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3466486667?book_show_action=false