“My brother is slowly fading out of various minds, while he moves more and more into ours.”

Kayakers on the Derwent, Kunanyi in the background. Little Howrah Beach, February 2021.

The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld

This novel is tough going. Rijneveld manages to create a world that is both cold and bleak. The book is dominated by grief, the effect of which is magnified by the setting among an isolated pious Dutch reformist family out on a farm, and the story begins with the death of the oldest son.

Left behind are a domineering father, a silent and withdrawn mother, an increasingly troubled brother, our narrator - the second-youngest girl Jas, confused and ridden by guilt - and the bewildered youngest girl. As the family retreats into themselves, the familial bond disintegrates along with the household's mental health, in which each member falls into a deep depression, albeit in ways that manifest quite differently for each.

It's grim and disturbing stuff. The insularity and rigidity of the religious sect compound the harm and precludes any hope of healing. The reader is left watching a car crashes of the slowest possible dimensions. The text descends into an inevitable downward spiral. This was a crushing read, one that is sure to put a lot of readers off.

If cruelty to children and animals is too repulsive, or images of self-harm, suicidal ideation, sexual abuse, or religious hypocrisy is likely to give you trouble, this is best avoided. Powerfully effective but incredibly demanding. Best not read if you're in a dark place, and make sure that you have something light and uplifting ready to go once you are done.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐

Comments

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke...

In dreams begin responsibilities.

A life at sea, that's for me, only I just don't have the BREAD. That's right, Theme Thursday yet again and I post a photo of a yacht dicking about in Bass Strait just off Wynyard. The problem is, I am yet again stuck at work, slogging away, because I knead need the dough . My understanding is that it is the dough that makes the BREAD. And it is the BREAD that buys the yacht. On my salary though, I will be lucky to have enough dough or BREAD for a half dozen dinner rolls. Happy Theme Thursday people, sorry for the rush.

This will hurt me...

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