Last August, Dutch post-90s novelist Mariek Lucas Reinerfeld won the International Booker Prize for his novel "Restless Nights". Previous winners of the International Booker Prize include Nobel Prize writers Alice Monroe and Olga Tokarczuk, as well as literary masters Philip Ross and Chinua Achebe, born in 1991, Reinerfeld became the youngest of them, and the first Dutch writer to win the prize. A year later, the Chinese Simplified edition of "Restless Nights" was launched by the Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, and Chinese readers were able to get a glimpse of the European literary world's hopeful star.
Rainerfield is known as one of the most talented writers in European literature, making his debut in the literary world with the poetry collection "Cowhide". "Restless Night", his debut novel, uses poetic language to describe the mourning of the girl Jas for the accidental death of her brother who fell into the ice cave while skating - Jas is in the stage of life between childhood and adulthood. Through her eyes, her perspective, was able to see how each of her family members coped with the pain of losing a loved one. The International Booker Prize jury commented on the work: "In an unusual context, Night of Restlessness is exactly what we are looking for that transcends dystopia and has eternal historical significance. ”
What is so unique about Night of Restlessness and Marieke Lucas Reinnerfield? At the new book sharing meeting held at the Happiness Collection Bookstore, the author and translator of "Restless Night" then began a dialogue with the poet Hu Sang.
The story of "Restless Nights" is divided into three parts, the first part is about the brother of the girl Jass who went out to skate at Christmas, accidentally fell into the ice cave and drowned. This is a sad and significant event that belongs to this family. The second part describes everyday life on the farm, how to eat breakfast, how to take care of the cows, how the children play, how brothers and sisters communicate with each other. "I admire Reinalfield for pouring a sad, tear-jerking plot into every chapter. In each chapter, the metaphors of animality and things deepen. Although it is written daily, you can't put down the book in your hand, and you will keep looking down and reading it in one breath. So he said that when he read the third part, the reader would be shocked and completely unaware of the ending, "When I translated the book, my emotions were in a constant state of sadness. It had been a long time since I had seen such pure, innocent sadness. ”
As a child, Reinerfield did experience the death of his brother. However, the story written in the novel is not the prototype of her family story, but a fiction based on a sad starting point. Although this novel is semi-autobiographical, it cannot be said to be a direct depiction of family grief. Nevertheless, after Reinerfield wrote "Restless Nights", her family had not read the book, and everyone seemed to be at a distance from the origin of the sadness in their hearts. So introduced.
"The tone of the whole book is so fascinating that I can hardly find a similarity in the novels I've read. Neither a deliberately created sadness in the literary tradition nor a pure experience—a certain life realization that comes from the author, but a unique way of feeling the world that the author possesses. Husan commented that Reinerfeld contributed a new way of experiencing and using language, "We can call her a new writer after the 90s, but in my reading range, Reinerfeld is a writer who belongs only to himself, with a very high individuality." ”
"After reading this book, you will imagine what the nature of pastoral life is. Pastoral life has always attracted Reinerfield, and after winning the International Booker Prize, she worked on the farm while writing, and had a fixed number of days a week to do farm work, specifically shoveling cow droppings, feeding cows, brushing cows, milking cows, handling calves and hay when cattle were producing. These farm tasks are as written in the book, dirty and smelly, and even a little cruel. In this way, Reinerfeld is engaged in "anti-pastoral truth-based writing", and this authentic environment also affects the way the characters in the book grow and communicate, and their attitude to death and life is obtained from animals.
Reinerfeld was a poet and a novelist. Husan believes that Reinerfield's two identities are on a par. Reinerfield's two collections of poems were widely circulated in Europe and were highly acclaimed. The line between her poetry and her novel is not clear, in a sense, her novel is poetry, her poetry is a novel, and there are many sentences in her novel that exist like poetry, and each sentence is trying to be written as a poem. ”
Marieke Lucas Reinerfield's special is also manifested in the name. Thus, Maryk was the name given to her by Reinerfield's parents, and the middle name Lucas was given to Hernefeld when she was 17 years old. When calling himself in the media, Reinerfield doesn't use "I", but replaces it with the name "they".
"Rainerfeld has felt something special since childhood when there is nowhere to die, the vanishing of things, especially the experience of having nowhere to live in a family environment. Including the treatment of his own name, it is as if a vortex called Lucas is embedded in the naming system, stirring the naming system into a fluid, traditional existence. "Husan believes that on the level of grief or universal human emotion, Reinerfeld writes his attitude toward the world in a completely new way." Night of Restlessness is oriented toward life itself, and the novel's greatest contribution is to provide readers with new possibilities for interpreting life. Reinerfield, who came out of the literary world, it is difficult to 'digest' her with the existing literary standards. ”
Column Editor-in-Chief: Shi Chenlu Text Editor: Shi Chenlu
Source: Author: Shi Chenlu