Book Review: "My Heavenly Favourite" by Lucas Rijneveld

What a wonderful treat to see that there is yet another book by the fantastic author of the disturbing yet intriguing novel, The Discomfort of Evening. I remember when I read this author's earlier novel and I could not stop singing it praises. A wonderful book about losing a sibling, I always felt like the key to this writer's novels was the fact that something traumatic was either happening to or was caused by the protagonist. The ending was a horrifying realisation of trauma and to this day, it has stayed burnt into my literary memory. I really wish I could have said the same thing after finishing his newest novel My Heavenly Favourite. But alas, sometimes we miss the mark. Maybe it is me who didn't understand this book in its entirety. But the uncomfortable subject matter alongside the writing style does not make for a great experience.

So let's start with what the book is about. First and foremost the book is told from first person and is written supposedly from a jail cell. It is told in a stream-of-consciousness style which I usually don't mind, but here it creates a droning effect. After about one hundred pages or so, it becomes almost impossible to drown in because of the lack of atmosphere and description. It is a bit too heavy on the confessional side. I understand why it is written this way and it might be that it is objectively good, but it really just was not for me.

The book's story revolves around the fact that an adult man who is married with children fell in love with a 14 year old daughter of a farmer. He became, a la Lolita, obsessed with her. It was horrific and disgusting and honestly, really made me very uncomfortable. It was not nice reading at all but again, I think that was the entire point. He becomes so enamoured with her that eventually, he does the unthinkable and violates her. It results in a downward spiral of disbelief and shock from people around him and he rightfully ends up in prison.

So if the subject matter was not enough to put you off, the way it is written is a bit odd. There are no paragraphs and the chapters are quite short even though they are relatively similar. It goes through an aspect of his confession and although he keeps trying to rationalise things, the reader can see straight through him and see him for what he is: a child abuser. This is not only because of this violation but also all the stuff that leads up to it. There are several breaches of trust and there are several moments where you, the reader, are left thinking:you cannot possibly be serious about this, the child is in grave danger. Even though this guy is the one narrating it, you still feel that the child is in some very realistic danger. They are very clearly not safe around this guy.

There are way too many references to Lolita and even though I understand it is a homage to the earlier Nabokov novel, it is nowhere near as well written with an overuse of the confessional style protruding through the narrative only to end up sounding like a whiny lying adult. For me, I didn't feel all the grief and loss, the pain and anguish, the knowing that this is wrong but doing it anyway that others felt from the book. I was quite disappointed in knowing that this is supposed to be an objectively good novel by an objectively good author and this is what I got left with.

All in all, I feel like this was an underwhelming attempt at a homage, with a lack of description it made for boring reading, with a dodgy subject matter it made for uncomfortable reading and in the end, for me there was really no redeeming factor. I would still like to see this writer's attempts at the new novel in the future, especially considering he wrote something as fantastic as The Discomfort of Evening. I refuse to give up on this author as of yet - he has a lot of potential. Just not here.