“Für you“Is there as a dedication, only two Wörter on the white sheet, one page after the title. “Für you“That means the beloved, the young girl, the addressee of this love letter, this sexual foreclosure, executed by a much older man who falls for the girl who assaults her. But this “you” also means the reader who got this admission and who can no less defend himself against the urge, the lust, the drool that descends on him on the following 360 pages.
A veterinarian falls madly in love with the 14-year-old daughter of a farmer, in the “twilight zone between girl and woman” he lies in wait for her. Years later, sitting in prison, he is once again intoxicated looking back at his sins. Kurt, he is called, he calls the object of his desire “My heavenly chosen ones“, “Mein Augenstern” or My little gemAs the novel is also called, a suction stream from a book, the individual chapters almost entirely manage without dots, this is not prose, this is music, this is perverted minstrels.
Marieke Lucas Rijneveld heisseats the author. After the Dutchwoman accepted the offer, Amanda Gorman’s poem became known worldwide The Hill We Climb, to translate, made famous by Joe Biden’s inauguration ceremony. A shit storm followed, because no white person was allowed to translate this text, it was said. Before that, she was born in 1991 and was the youngest ever to receive the International Booker Prize for her debut novel What to sow, the dark story of a family that implodes after the death of the eldest son, the parents withdraw into themselves, the children perish from sadness.
Beyond the rigid limits of reason
Even the nameless girl in My little gem has lost a brother, the mother then left the farm. Having become so homeless, she lacks support. She secretly floats to New York night after night, believing that she flew into the World Trade Center in person, would have caused it to collapse. She has not yet outgrown the dream world, is still enough of a child not to be able to distinguishöTo be able to and have to be between fantasy and reality, wants to remain vague sexually too, wants a “dick“, lotters get an otter’s gift from the vet and hides it under the cot.
It is a feat of the author to tell of an abuse from the perspective of the perpetrator, and yet not to let the girl appear as a pure victim, not to leave it to the man for his projection. The real main character of this novel is the farmer’s daughter, a lost Pippi Longstocking, a revolting Peter Pan, whom mighty powers are dragging into adulthood. The abuse by Kurt, who thinks he is seducing her, and mistaking his greed for love, can also be understood as a metaphor for the presumption of biology and society to drive a guiltless person out of the zone in which everything is still möis equal and uncertain, in which the good and the terrible have not yet been pressed into the rigid limits of reason when köcould these prevent the suffering that lurks around every corner.
The girl will finally manage to escape, she becomes a musician, a star, she names her first album after her tormentor. But she will experience no liberation, only in her art does she find a niche, an escape from the afflictions of those adults who did not allow her to be safely escorted. Last but not least, Rijneveld and her wonderful translator Helga van Beuningen tell of the value of literature and words as a way out for people who are too sensitive to live in a world that is made of cold Wörtern is built.
My little gem Marieke Lucas Rijneveld Suhrkamp 2021, 364S., € 24
.