was I thinking Aimlessness and ennui belie nothing but aimlessness and ennui, This book starts off, goes on and finishes in precisely one way, . . soporifically. Or maybe several ways unexcitingly, pointlessly, uninterestingly. Nothing happens. Nothing. Ayear old man lives with his parents, sleeps, dreams, eats, works and has conversations which come across as exchanges of particularly unexciting, pointless and uninteresting anecdotes, I'm all about reading internationally, but if this is really the best Dutch novel of all time, it just makes me sad for the state of Dutch literature, This can't
be it, this must be some sort of a trend, in fact Reve is one of the three writers of a particular realism literary renewal movement, according to Wikipedia.
Well yikes. No, no thank you. It isn't just that he writes about nothing, it's that he writes about nothing in a way you wouldn't want to read it, A great book can take mundane and turn into something, there is a way to take plain ingredients and bake something spectacular, this one is just a mess in a bowl.
Presumably it's meant to convey the zeitgeist of the postwar Europe, but it barely managed that, Instead Reve chose to go with the exhaustive minute details of nothingness, That's a stylistic choice and, frankly, F that, Books should be interesting and exciting and enlightening, books should have more to offer, There isn't even a beauty of language here to fall back on, Irredeemable utter waste of time, This should have remained untranslated into English, Only suitable for sleeping aid, Thanks Netgalley. ik hoop dat Frits kaal wordt A Dutch novel! Don't see too many of those around, This fromand counting as a sort of classic, A bit too 'for my tastes, but certainly worth an afternoon of your reading pleasure, I suspect even a bit more humorous than what its reputation is likely to suggest,
as Friend Nate D reminds ::Dutch masterpiece finally sees itself into English, On its way in its very own English'ing by Sam Garrett,
sitelink completereview. com/saloon TRANZlate pleaZe!! Thank you!
And Lydia Davis likes it too ::
sitelink completereview. com/saloon Videorecensione: sitelink be/tOJTpNRYg Er werd op een school een foto van de hele klas gemaakt, maar het arme jongetje mocht er niet op, die was te slecht gekleed.
De juffrouw zegt: kijk Pietje, als die foto gemaakt is, dan zeggen ze later: dat is Wim, die is nu directeur van de bank zijn vader was ook directeur.
En dat is Klaasje, die is notaris, Zijn vader was ook notaris, En dat is Eduard, nu is hij dokter, En die daar is Joop, die is dominee, Dus Pietje, als de fotograaf komt, ga jij dan maar aan de kant staan, Begrijp je Goed, dat doet hij ook en de foto wordt genomen, Een paar dagen later komt er een afdruk, Wie wil er fotos bestellen Vraagt de juffrouw, De meesten bestellen er een, Pietje ook. Hij is eigenlijk oud en flauw, dacht hij, De juffrouw is verbaasd, ging hij verder, Die vraagt: Pietje, waarom wil jij een foto hebben, je staat er toch niet bij op Dat weet ik wel, juffrouw, zegt hij, Waarom wil je er dan een hebben Vraagt ze, Om te bewaren, zegt hij, Dan kan ik later, als ik groot ben, zeggen: dit is Wim, die is directeur geworden, En dit is Klaasje, die is notaris, En dat is Eduard, die is dokter, En dat is die juffrouw, die jong aan de tering is gestorven, The potatoes are very good, her mother said making prolonged eye contact with me, I looked down at my plate, The potatoes were fine, but very good seemed like an exaggeration, This thought lay wriggling on my tongue, but I managed to swallow it and instead make an unconvincing noise of agreement, Its warm in here, isnt it her father said to no one in particular, It is, I felt compelled to reply, and immediately regretted it, Her mother pursed her lips, Should I have said that the temperature was just right But its nice, I continued after a long pause, its just right, in fact, Unnerved by the silence that followed this statement I put more potato in my mouth and tried to arrange my face to give the impression that I really did think that what I was eating was very, very good indeed.
Once the last mouthful had disappeared down my throat I placed my knife and fork on my plate to indicate that I had finished, My girlfriend, whose family this was, tapped my knee affectionately, Do you want some more her mother said, What a question! How does one answer it correctly Do you want me to have some more I imagined myself asking her, No thank you, I said, Im full, I said. And I ought to have left it at that, but I couldnt help myself I had to justify my answer, to explain why I did not want another helping of this wonderful food, these divine potatoes but most of all I needed to do something to put an end to the interminable, dreary small talk.
I used to have an eating disorder, I said, It was quite bad. My mother threatened to have me put in hospital, Im ok now, but Im still not a big eater,
The Evenings by Gerard Kornelis van het Reve was originally published in Holland in, but it wasnt until last year, the interminable and dreary year of, that an English translation became available.
The novel follows Frits van Egters, a twentythree year old Amsterdammer, through the last days of, days that are, in large part, spent in dismal interaction with his parents and various acquaintances.
Indeed, there is no other novel that I know of that features such relentlessly uncomfortable, strained and tedious conversations, There are any number of passages that one could pick out from the text as illustration, but one that has stuck in my mind is the discussion about the pickled herring, the stale pickled herring, that Frits' mother is intent on serving to her family, but which they are none too keen on.
The relationship between Frits and his parents is, at least for him, one of irritation, at best, and, at worst, outright loathing, Throughout The Evenings one has not only access to the young man's words but his thoughts also, with the two often running concurrently, So while he may engage in politeish small talk, we know that what he is thinking is invariably something negative, He fixates upon his father's warts, for example, and wonders why he doesn't get them removed, When he does give voice to his displeasure he does so in a jocular, passiveaggressive fashion, such that it is not clear whether he is being serious or not.
'The way you smoke is both incredibly clumsy and ridiculous,' he says to his mother, while advising himself: 'make it sound like I am joking, '
It would be easy to characterise Frits as a bully, and there is certainly a sadistic side to him, as evidenced by his desire to consistently highlight other people's physical and character defects, even though he does so, as noted, in a way that means they do not often take offence.
He comments upon their weak hearts their baldness, or inevitable baldness their heavy drinking their unappealing children, whom, he points out, probably won't live very long, Most mercilessly, he ridicules Maurits for his missing eye, which, he tells him, makes him unattractive to women, In this instance, more than any of the others, it appears as though it is Frits' intention to provoke his friend into doing something drastic, into perhaps harming himself or someone else and I think this gives an indication as to what is underlying his cruel behaviour.
If one lives a humdrum existence, one that promises no excitement or stimulation, if your conversations are banal, and your environment is drab and wearisome, then it makes sense that one would look to enliven it all somehow, to create for yourself some of the excitement that is lacking.
While it may not be a healthy way of dealing with his dissatisfaction, or boredom, one gets the impression that Frits' provoking of Maurits is a little like poking a big, powerful dog or bungee jumping which is to say that it is thrill seeking by virtue of dicing with danger.
Likewise, when he declares that the death of a child makes him happy, he is of course trying to shock, to create a stir, to cause an outrage, because this too would be exciting, would be something different from what he experiences daytoday, or would at least put an end to the unbearable chatter he was listening to previously.
Moreover, it is clear that Frits has mortality on his mind, The novel begins, for instance, with him dreaming about a funeral and the decomposition, the 'thin, yellow mush', that is the fate of us all, Indeed, this partly explains his obsession with baldness, which is most often a sign of ageing, is, you might say, a kind of decomposition or certainly malfunction of the body.
The young man also frequently examines himself, at one stage checking his genitals with a shaving mirror and finding it all 'very distasteful, ' What this focus on death and the human body suggests is that Frits is aware that he is wasting his life, that precious days are slipping away from him as he potters around doing next to nothing, besides irritating others and being irritated himself.
In this way, it isn't only his parents, his circumstances, etc, that are oppressing him, but time also,
Much of what I have written so far will, I imagine, give the impression that The Evenings is a dour reading experience, Certainly it is slowpaced and bleak and it is repetitious too, with almost all of Frits' conversations and activities being essentially the same, What is remarkable about it, however, is that it is also very funny, In fact, the comedy is a consequence of the repetition and the bleakness, For example, the second or third time Frits highlights the impending baldness of one of his friends one might legitimately furrow one's brow, yet you come to look forward to it, to gleefully anticipate it, the next time he runs into one of them.
Likewise, when he meets someone new and one knows that he will find something, some ailment or flaw or deformity, to comment upon, Frits is a cunt, yes, but he is an amusing one, a sympathetic one even, or at least the kind of cunt that I can identify with myself, De eerste keer dat ik De avonden las, snapte ik niet waarom dit als zo'n goed boek wordt beschouwd, Het was langdradig, zo Hollands dat je er gewelddadige jeuk van krijgt, en ik vond Frits van Egters maar een misselijk mannetje, met zijn onsmakelijke grapjes en zijn gewoonte om elke jonge man in zijn omgeving te wijzen op vermeende kalendheid.
Maar ja, ik lees het nu zo'n tien jaar later, aangespoord door een aflevering van de geweldige podcast BoekenFM, En, net als bij de meeste van mijn adolescente opvattingen godzijdank, denk ik er nu anders over, Frits is nog steeds wel een beetje een misselijk mannetje, maar wel een voor wie ik nu compassie voel of kan voelen, Ik was vergeten dat hij elke nacht heftige, angstige dromen heeft, die worden verdoofd door de monotonie van zijn naoorlogse leven, Ik was ook vergeten dat hij heel vervelend kan zijn, maar dan meestal uit onbeholpenheid in plaats van kwade zin, En als ik het nu lees, is zijn obsessie met andermans kalendheid geen of niet alleen valsheid meer, maar een logische uitwas van zijn beklemmende angst voor verval en ouderdom.
Frits is een onvolmaakt persoon, maar een die ik nu beter begrijp dan tien jaar geleden, En dan is ineens het hele boek ook de saaiheid, de leegheid niet alleen draaglijk, maar een herleeservaring die ik niet had willen missen, Accade assai di rado che un libro mi attiri a sè in un modo così magnetico, costringendomi fortunatamente a superare il mio immotivato solito disinteresse nei confronti della letteratura nordica.
Le affinità fino ad allora solo supposte hanno trovato una conferma immediata sin dalle prime pagine dellopera, consentendomi di rivedere nel protagonista Frits tratti che, talvolta, si rivelano anche nella mia persona.
Un ragazzo ossessionato dal tempo, dal suo scorrere e dalle tracce che esso lascia sugli uomini: malattia, calvizie e vecchiaia sono tematiche ricorrenti che, insieme alla descrizione millimetrica e finanche ripetitiva delle azioni compiute da Frits, contribuiscono alla creazione dellatmosfera claustrofobica, asfissiante e opprimente che sembra circondare e permeare la vita del ragazzo.
Osservando continuamente lorologio e contando morbosamente lo scorrere dei minuti, Frits edifica intorno a sé una prigione dalla quale crede di fuggire dormendo, uscendo di casa, passeggiando lungo i canali e facendo visita agli amici per scambiare qualche chiacchiera.
Eppure la prigione lo segue anche in queste circostanze, portandolo ad avere incubi mostruosi, a operare ininterrotte riflessioni e a temere terribilmente i silenzi e le pause connaturati al dialogo.
Disagio, insofferenza, sporadici barlumi di accettazione e, da parte mia, la consapevolezza di aver letto un grande libro di cui serberò il ricordo, .