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The Evenings
The Evenings
by Gerard Reve, Sam Garrett
Price: $22.00 (Hardcover)
Published: January 31, 2017
Rating: 0.0/ 5 (0 votes cast)
From the Publisher: THE FIRST ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF A POSTWAR
MASTERPIECE 'I work in an office. I take cards out of a file. Once I have
taken them out, I put them back in again. That is it.' Twenty-three-year-
old Frits - office worker, daydreamer, teller of inappropriate jokes - findslife absurd and inexplicable. He lives with his parents, who drive him mad.He has terrible, disturbing dreams of death and destruction. Sometimes he
talks to a toy rabbit. This is the story of ten evenings in Frits's life at the
end of December, as he drinks, smokes, sees friends, aimlessly wandersthe gloomy city street and tries to make sense of the minutes, hours anddays that stretch before him. Darkly funny and mesmerising, The
Evenings takes the tiny, quotidian triumphs and heartbreaks of our
everyday lives and turns them into a work of brilliant wit and profoundbeauty.
Rate This Book
Add To Wishlist
|Rate/Review Add To Bookshelf
Get This Book
Personalize / Add More ChoicesGo to your preferred retailer, click to choose a format and you' ll be taken directly to their site where
you can get this book.
What We Say
Gerard Reve is one of the Big Three of Dutch literature, or so Wikipedia tells me. A controversial, openly gay, anti-
communist and converted Catholic who mocked his own Church kind of guy, Reve loved to poke fun at one and all. Hisnovel "The Fourth Man" was turned into a film by Paul Verhoeven but by and large we're barely catching up with his many
novels, essays, collections of letters and so on. As example, "The Evenings" was his debut in 1947 and it has just been
translated into English for the first time. Often ranked as one of the greatest -- if not the greatest -- Dutch novel in moderntimes. It proves drily amusing, suffused with angst and post-war malaise and -- at first blush -- very impressive. Frits is aShare This Book
About The Author
Gerard Reve, Sam Garrett
MoreGerard Reve (1923-2006) is considered one
of the greatest post-war Dutch authors, and
was also the first openly gay writer in thecountry's history. A complicated andcontroversial character, Reve is also hugelypopular and critically acclaimed- his 1947
debut The Evenings was chosen as one of …
Release Info
List Price: $22.00 (Hardcover)
Published: January 31, 2017
Publisher: Pushkin Press
Pages: 224
ISBN 10: 1782271783
ISBN 13: 9781782271789
23 year old office worker, living with his mother and father while spending his evenings in an endless attempt to stave off
boredom or perhaps despair. Though more self-contained, he is a cousin of sorts to Holden Caulfield in temperament and
knee-jerk dislike of one and all. His parents infuriate him in a thousand minor ways. Offsetting that is the fact that they
seem deeply unhappy with each other, often fighting when they believe their son can't hear them. Fritz and his friendsoffer a running commentary on their own actions a la a TV or radio announcer, a meta device I would have thought didn'tappear until decades later (and flourishing with the comic strip "Doonesbury"). They delight in mordant humor, with Fritzrepeatedly teasing others about incipient baldness while secretly worrying over the same for himself. Agonizingly
hypercritical, Fritz typically offers up a silly, pseudo-profound comment and then secretly derides himself for it or worries
about what to say next or whether he should leave a friend he's visiting before outstaying his welcome and on and on andon. It's fascinating, amusing, exhausting and perhaps a bit tiresome over the brief length of the novel. Yet that'scounterbalanced by the repeated nightmares that Frits experiences, each one more frightening and phantasmagorical thanthe one before. While he often reverts to faux religious language, that verbal tic becomes a genuine prayer of sorts by the
end. Toss in an upsettingly casual crook of a friend with disturbing psychotic flashes that Frits instinctively understands (or
at least spots easily) and you can see the beginnings of an exceptional career and the darker roads it would soon traveldown. -- Michael Giltz
What Others Say
"In this first English translation of a Dutch classic . . . The author’s dry wit and ability to find humor and beauty
in the banality of daily life are impressive." — Booklist
“Not only a masterpiece but a cornerstone manque of modern European literature… what can I say, in a world of
hype, that will put this book where it belongs, in readers’ hands and minds?... Reve’s sparkling collage of acute
observation, droll internal monologue and pitch-perfect dialogue keeps the reader breathless right through to
the grand finale...huge respect to Pushkin Press.” — Tim Parks, The Guardian
"One of the greatest post-war Dutch novels... [a] brilliant modern classic." — Tom Chalmers, Publishers Weekly
"The novel is dark, funny, unsettling and lingers vividly in the mind. Hats off to Pushkin Press and the
outstanding translator, Sam Garrett, for making this odd, orphaned masterpiece available at last to an English-
speaking readership." — Times Literary Supplement
"The Evenings is packed with the minutiae of life: luckily, the minutiae are fascinating…Reve isn't the kind of
novelist to give you a straightforward…
More
What You Say
Filter by
No Reviews Found .....
about us |faq|advertise |privacy policy |newsletter |contact us ©2018, BookBuddha LLc. All Rights Reserved.
Home
Top Picks: All Books
The Evenings
The Evenings
by Gerard Reve, Sam Garrett
Price: $22.00 (Hardcover)
Published: January 31, 2017
Rating: 0.0/ 5 (0 votes cast)
From the Publisher: THE FIRST ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF A POSTWAR
MASTERPIECE 'I work in an office. I take cards out of a file. Once I have
taken them out, I put them back in again. That is it.' Twenty-three-year-
old Frits - office worker, daydreamer, teller of inappropriate jokes - findslife absurd and inexplicable. He lives with his parents, who drive him mad.He has terrible, disturbing dreams of death and destruction. Sometimes he
talks to a toy rabbit. This is the story of ten evenings in Frits's life at the
end of December, as he drinks, smokes, sees friends, aimlessly wandersthe gloomy city street and tries to make sense of the minutes, hours anddays that stretch before him. Darkly funny and mesmerising, The
Evenings takes the tiny, quotidian triumphs and heartbreaks of our
everyday lives and turns them into a work of brilliant wit and profoundbeauty.
Rate This Book
Add To Wishlist
|Rate/Review Add To Bookshelf
Get This Book
Personalize / Add More ChoicesGo to your preferred retailer, click to choose a format and you' ll be taken directly to their site where
you can get this book.
What We Say
Gerard Reve is one of the Big Three of Dutch literature, or so Wikipedia tells me. A controversial, openly gay, anti-
communist and converted Catholic who mocked his own Church kind of guy, Reve loved to poke fun at one and all. Hisnovel "The Fourth Man" was turned into a film by Paul Verhoeven but by and large we're barely catching up with his many
novels, essays, collections of letters and so on. As example, "The Evenings" was his debut in 1947 and it has just been
translated into English for the first time. Often ranked as one of the greatest -- if not the greatest -- Dutch novel in moderntimes. It proves drily amusing, suffused with angst and post-war malaise and -- at first blush -- very impressive. Frits is aShare This Book
About The Author
Gerard Reve, Sam Garrett
MoreGerard Reve (1923-2006) is considered one
of the greatest post-war Dutch authors, and
was also the first openly gay writer in thecountry's history. A complicated andcontroversial character, Reve is also hugelypopular and critically acclaimed- his 1947
debut The Evenings was chosen as one of …
Release Info
List Price: $22.00 (Hardcover)
Published: January 31, 2017
Publisher: Pushkin Press
Pages: 224
ISBN 10: 1782271783
ISBN 13: 9781782271789
23 year old office worker, living with his mother and father while spending his evenings in an endless attempt to stave off
boredom or perhaps despair. Though more self-contained, he is a cousin of sorts to Holden Caulfield in temperament and
knee-jerk dislike of one and all. His parents infuriate him in a thousand minor ways. Offsetting that is the fact that they
seem deeply unhappy with each other, often fighting when they believe their son can't hear them. Fritz and his friendsoffer a running commentary on their own actions a la a TV or radio announcer, a meta device I would have thought didn'tappear until decades later (and flourishing with the comic strip "Doonesbury"). They delight in mordant humor, with Fritzrepeatedly teasing others about incipient baldness while secretly worrying over the same for himself. Agonizingly
hypercritical, Fritz typically offers up a silly, pseudo-profound comment and then secretly derides himself for it or worries
about what to say next or whether he should leave a friend he's visiting before outstaying his welcome and on and on andon. It's fascinating, amusing, exhausting and perhaps a bit tiresome over the brief length of the novel. Yet that'scounterbalanced by the repeated nightmares that Frits experiences, each one more frightening and phantasmagorical thanthe one before. While he often reverts to faux religious language, that verbal tic becomes a genuine prayer of sorts by the
end. Toss in an upsettingly casual crook of a friend with disturbing psychotic flashes that Frits instinctively understands (or
at least spots easily) and you can see the beginnings of an exceptional career and the darker roads it would soon traveldown. -- Michael Giltz
What Others Say
"In this first English translation of a Dutch classic . . . The author’s dry wit and ability to find humor and beauty
in the banality of daily life are impressive." — Booklist
“Not only a masterpiece but a cornerstone manque of modern European literature… what can I say, in a world of
hype, that will put this book where it belongs, in readers’ hands and minds?... Reve’s sparkling collage of acute
observation, droll internal monologue and pitch-perfect dialogue keeps the reader breathless right through to
the grand finale...huge respect to Pushkin Press.” — Tim Parks, The Guardian
"One of the greatest post-war Dutch novels... [a] brilliant modern classic." — Tom Chalmers, Publishers Weekly
"The novel is dark, funny, unsettling and lingers vividly in the mind. Hats off to Pushkin Press and the
outstanding translator, Sam Garrett, for making this odd, orphaned masterpiece available at last to an English-
speaking readership." — Times Literary Supplement
"The Evenings is packed with the minutiae of life: luckily, the minutiae are fascinating…Reve isn't the kind of
novelist to give you a straightforward…
More
What You Say
Filter by
No Reviews Found .....
about us |faq|advertise |privacy policy |newsletter |contact us ©2018, BookBuddha LLc. All Rights Reserved.