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jamichalski 's review for:
The Discomfort of Evening
by Lucas Rijneveld
I found this author on a thread that was asking, “are there any good Zoomer authors?” This book was pretty good, but also Marieke Lucas Rijneveld is not really a proper Zoomer (b. 1991).
The Discomfort of Evening is a novel about Jas, a young girl (10-12 y.o.) growing up in a devout (Reformed?) dairy farming household. The main event in her young life is the death of her older brother, Matthies, and the chaos it wreaks on her and the rest of her family.
The other central characters are Mum, her highly religious, totally despairing, aloof, cold mother; Dad, her religious, raging, serious, aloof, cold father (who does at times show some love to his children but ultimately comes across as more concerned with God and his cattle); Obbe, her sadistic, semi psychopathic, disturbed (other) older brother; and Hannah, her younger sister with whom Jas hatches the imaginary “Plan” to escape the dairy farm and get rescued by stronger, gentler men. Other characters are the vet/doctor (who has a creepy flirtatious thing with the young Jas), Jas’s schoolfriend Belle, and some toads Jas keeps in her room to try to make mate (displaced concern for her parents).
Matthies goes out skating one day, falls through the ice, and drowns. Basically this death destroys this family—who interpret it varyingly as a plague sent by God as punishment for their sins and as a random act of cruel chaos—both worlds inner and outer. Jas refuses to take off her overcoat, can’t poo, and leaves a metal pushpin stuck in her stomach at all times. Mum stops eating, becomes totally withholding from Dad and her children, and talks of wanting to die. Dad engrosses himself in his farming, screams scripture at anyone, and grows distant from Mum and his children. Obbe kills and tortures animals, sexually abuses his younger siblings, drinks and smokes, and self-harms. Hanna is a little less of a character mostly because she is so young, but also forms plans to run away, etc.
Some metaphors are easy to read: Obbe names a hamster after Matthies (Tiesie), then sticks it underwater until it drowns. Obvious. Later a virulent disease spreads among the towns’ cattle and the entire herd is put down—plagues and death abound. Obbe forces Jas to sacrifice Dad’s favorite cockerel, like literally murder it with an axe, to keep the parents alive. In retrospect maybe these metaphors of destruction are a little easy, but they are all believable and varying degrees of moving.
One other thing about this book that I will mention is that the cruelty and disgust variables are very high. Obbe is a monster, sexually abusing his siblings, forcing them to watch him kill animals, forcing them to kill animals themselves. The descriptions of this scabbing pushpin in Jas’s stomach made me queasy. Dad sticking his soap-covered finger in Jas’s butt to make her poo was awful. I guess the potency of the feelings they invoked was impressive, but still, hard to read.
I don’t know if I have any big summarizing thoughts on this. It was a pretty good description of naive (childhood) grief and pain, questioning faith in God and parents. There was not a ton of vertical development, mostly it was horizontal. I guess I usually prefer the former.
The Discomfort of Evening is a novel about Jas, a young girl (10-12 y.o.) growing up in a devout (Reformed?) dairy farming household. The main event in her young life is the death of her older brother, Matthies, and the chaos it wreaks on her and the rest of her family.
The other central characters are Mum, her highly religious, totally despairing, aloof, cold mother; Dad, her religious, raging, serious, aloof, cold father (who does at times show some love to his children but ultimately comes across as more concerned with God and his cattle); Obbe, her sadistic, semi psychopathic, disturbed (other) older brother; and Hannah, her younger sister with whom Jas hatches the imaginary “Plan” to escape the dairy farm and get rescued by stronger, gentler men. Other characters are the vet/doctor (who has a creepy flirtatious thing with the young Jas), Jas’s schoolfriend Belle, and some toads Jas keeps in her room to try to make mate (displaced concern for her parents).
Matthies goes out skating one day, falls through the ice, and drowns. Basically this death destroys this family—who interpret it varyingly as a plague sent by God as punishment for their sins and as a random act of cruel chaos—both worlds inner and outer. Jas refuses to take off her overcoat, can’t poo, and leaves a metal pushpin stuck in her stomach at all times. Mum stops eating, becomes totally withholding from Dad and her children, and talks of wanting to die. Dad engrosses himself in his farming, screams scripture at anyone, and grows distant from Mum and his children. Obbe kills and tortures animals, sexually abuses his younger siblings, drinks and smokes, and self-harms. Hanna is a little less of a character mostly because she is so young, but also forms plans to run away, etc.
Some metaphors are easy to read: Obbe names a hamster after Matthies (Tiesie), then sticks it underwater until it drowns. Obvious. Later a virulent disease spreads among the towns’ cattle and the entire herd is put down—plagues and death abound. Obbe forces Jas to sacrifice Dad’s favorite cockerel, like literally murder it with an axe, to keep the parents alive. In retrospect maybe these metaphors of destruction are a little easy, but they are all believable and varying degrees of moving.
One other thing about this book that I will mention is that the cruelty and disgust variables are very high. Obbe is a monster, sexually abusing his siblings, forcing them to watch him kill animals, forcing them to kill animals themselves. The descriptions of this scabbing pushpin in Jas’s stomach made me queasy. Dad sticking his soap-covered finger in Jas’s butt to make her poo was awful. I guess the potency of the feelings they invoked was impressive, but still, hard to read.
I don’t know if I have any big summarizing thoughts on this. It was a pretty good description of naive (childhood) grief and pain, questioning faith in God and parents. There was not a ton of vertical development, mostly it was horizontal. I guess I usually prefer the former.