Review: The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld
I thought Tyll was extraordinary. When I learned it lost the 2020 International Booker Prize to The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, I immediately read Discomfort. One Goodreads review said something to the effect of “Trigger Warning: All of them,” but I ignored it. Winners of literary awards are often very “literary.” I expected any discomfort to be dressed with fancy metaphors to the point of being unrecognizable. It isn’t. So here’s a rare trigger warning from me: There are graphic scenes involving the torture of animals, self mutilation, incest, and sexual assault. There is also excessive talk of excrement, but they’ll take away my lit degree if I don’t clarify that Jas’s constipation is a metaphor for grief. read more