Gerard Reve – The Evenings
Gerard Reve – The Evenings
Rights sold
- Pushkin Press (UK)
- Iperborea (Italy)
- Kırmızı Kedi Yayınevi (Turkey)
- Am Oved (Israel)
- Hrvatsko filolosko drustvo (Croatia)
- Turbine Forlaget (Denmark)
About the book
The Evenings (1947) is one of the most important books in Dutch literature. Now a classic, it is a gripping description of the monotony that held sway over the Netherlands in the post-war years. It tells the story of Frits van Egters, who in the dark December days just after WWII strikes attitudes when faced with his parents and friends. A grey haze of melancholy lies over everything, and with his wayward sense of humour he tries to break through the armour of boredom.
In the enthralling closing chapter he reaches the sobering insight that by looking and observing he has warded off meaninglessness: ‘It has been seen; it has not gone unnoticed.’
Reviewers have compared it favourably to J .D. Salinger’s 'The Catcher in the Rye,' Albert Camus’s 'The Stranger' and Karl Ove Knausgaard’s 'My Struggle'. - NEW YORK TIMES
The Evenings is a canonical work of postwar European fiction, capturing the age’s spiritual alienation through an acidly comic style that reads somewhat like an extended monologue from Beckett, but one riddled with morbid jokes and mock grandiloquence. - WALL STREET JOURNAL
It may sound dire, but Reve’s sparkling collage of acute observation, droll internal monologue and pitch-perfect dialogue keeps the reader breathless right through to the grand finale. - THE GUARDIAN
In all fairness to Salinger, 'The Evenings' is so much better. - IRISH TIMES
Gives Kafka a run for his money. - BIG ISSUE
Author
Gerard Reve (1923-2006) was one of the defining writers of the twentieth century. In 1969 he received the P.C. Hooft prize for his entire oeuvre and in 2001 the Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren (Dutch Literature Prize). In 1998 he was designated commander in the Order of the Netherlands Lion.
Additional book information
- Novel
- ISBN 9789023476672
- Number of pages: 288
- World rights: De Bezige Bij
- Price: € 20,99
- English sample available