Too drawn out version of ‘The address’
With some books it is difficult not to have an opinion about it before you have actually read the book. That is also the case The storage by Yael van der Wouden. This debut novel was discussed on the podcast Reading is vurrukkulluk! and that’s a positive tick. There was quite a buzz around the book: it has already been sold to thirteen countries! Bidding war! Follow your publisher Das Mag on Insta: it’s all hosanna The storage. At least that creates interest, you can’t not know about the book’s existence. The storyline, read the back cover: maybe not that interesting. It is also mysterious that Van der Wouden wrote the book in English and that it was translated back into Dutch, although according to an inside flap she has a ‘Dutch identity’ and has even written an essay about it. She also teaches creative writing and comparative literature. Perhaps the reader will forgive me for comparing this book with some other books.
In short, begins The storage pretty good, but it keeps getting worse, so the final verdict will have to be: it is a bad book. We follow Isabel in 1961. She lives in the house where she and her family came to live during the Second World War. She finds a shard of a plate, and becomes upset, because all the other plates are still in a locked cupboard, and none of the plates are missing: how could that shard have ended up outside? Actually, this image tells the whole story, as will become clear later. Isabel goes out for dinner with her two brothers and Eva, her brother Louis’s new girlfriend. How Isabel and Eva relate to each other is the core of the novel. When Isabel sees Eva for the first time, it says:
His new girl stood a little aloof with a forced, uncertain smile, looking embarrassed and nervous. She had an aggressively bleached bob haircut and wore a poorly made dress: the bodice was sewn too tightly and the skirt was sloppily hemmed. Her face was very red. She was beautiful in the way men thought women should be beautiful.
A lot is said here in just a few words. Eva does not come across as completely sincere (spoiler), wears shabby clothes (spoiler), is embarrassed by her boyfriend (spoiler), Isabel also sees beauty in her, even if it is through a male gaze (spoiler). They are short sentences, with a lot of information. After this the discomfort begins. That discomfort, and sometimes the way things were described, made me think Mystical Body by Frans Kellendonk. When father and daughter go out to eat, it is also very awkward, but maybe that’s where the comparison ends.
So on page 18 the reader already knows that there were more signs than Isabel thought. Her brother Hendrik reminds her that the house was furnished and full when they moved in during the Second World War. You know that Isabel thinks Eva is beautiful, and that Eva is not completely sincere. The approximately three hundred pages that follow are a predictable elaboration of this. Eva moves in with Louis, Louis goes on a business trip, Louis asks if Eva can come and live with Isabel in the big house (the house that will be his when he starts a family, crazy plot choice). The discomfort that arises is the highlight of this novel. Eva touches things and Isabel is annoyed by it, her annoyance is palpable.
The novel consists of three parts. The first part builds up to a climax in which Isabel feels attracted to Eva. Part 2 is an elaboration of that climax, and works towards a new climax. Part 3 is the elaboration of that climax. Already in part 1, the climax is so predictable that it takes too long before it actually happens. If you as a reader already know what is coming, the road to it can sometimes be boring. (For example, if you say the answer to the riddle It melts by Lize Spit.) In part 1, the seed is also planted for the climax of part 2, or perhaps better: there is more seed than ground. The focus on all things in the house gives a huge nod to ‘The Address’, a story by Marga Minco. If you know that story, you immediately know almost the entire plot The storage. The big difference between ‘The address’ and The storage is the length. This ensures that with ‘The address’ every word is relevant, while with The storage it seems as if a short story had to be spread over three hundred pages. This ensures that the story moves slowly, but also that there are extra plot lines that add little to the main story. For example, it is quite entertaining to read about brother Hendrik and his piano teacher, but what is the point?
Perhaps it is a good idea to stop reading after part 1, because then you as a reader will know enough. Although it ends like this:
A whisper of breeze blew in, cooling the sweat on her neck. She waited. Finally she heard Eva’s door open and close. And then: silence. The squeaking of bed springs. Isabel’s blood pounded in her ears, she breathed against the wood. Isabel ran her tongue along her lips, they were sensitive. She licked again, and again.
Once sleep overcame her, it offered no relief.
There is some conflict here in Isabel: she likes how her lips feel (and having kissed Eva) and she experiences discomfort (she needs relief). This is exactly the conflict that could have made the book interesting. The problem, however, is that Van der Wouden has chosen to make it clear through actions and direct speech what Isabel actually thinks. It wouldn’t have been wrong if we as readers had read Isabel’s thoughts, really going into depth. What exactly she thinks about how her family has acted, about Eva, about what Eva thinks about her: no idea.
Perhaps there is something to be said for reading part 2 as well. Certain finger scenes are vivid. Isabel and Eva have to spend the night together in a hotel room (we went swimming with Hendrik and Sebastian, too drunk to drive). In Signs of the universe Emy Koopman has described such a situation in a better way.
I would definitely advise against reading part 3. There we read in Eva’s diary fragments what we already know as readers. Completely unnecessary. Then it gets worse as the story continues. Isabel literally lets older family members tell us what we as readers already know. The worst part is when Isabel, for some incomprehensible reason, goes to a synagogue, reads a Bible reference, looks it up, and then acts on it. This is the most extreme example of what Esha Guy Hadjadj also did in the NRCreview claims: ‘But in terms of the structure of the story, Van der Wouden allows her characters to make important choices that seem driven by the author’s plot wishes rather than coming from the characters.’ This seems like a deadly criticism to me, but in the NRC there are four balls happily standing by De Bewaarder.
Van der Wouden is praised for showing the story from the other side. This means that it is about malicious Dutch people during and after the Second World War. Perhaps a reader’s question: are there no other books about bad Dutch people from that time? I think about Black book, but that was a movie first. I think about Want to by Jeroen Olyslaegers, but that takes place in Belgium. The reason for the praise is also a bit strange. It’s a brave effort, but even brave things can fail. To give two examples: Kristien Hemmerechts changed, among other things, the gender of the main character Everything changesinspired by Disgrace by Coetzee. Kamel Daoud changed the perspective of l’Entrager by Albert Camus Moussa or the death of an Arab. These new perspectives are interesting to read, but do not measure up to the original.
If The storage is mainly seen as a change in perspective of the story The address(‘The address’ is mentioned in the acknowledgments of The storage called ‘the foundation for this novel’. By the way, by way of illustration: that word of thanks is approximately as long as the story ‘The address.), then this novel does not measure up to the original. The story about Margo Minco is that she researched and wrote down a lot, only to decimate it and only be left with the core of the core. This novel would have been better through such a method, as a novella, or perhaps even better: as a short story.
Erik-Jan Hummel
Yael van der Wouden – The storage. Translated by Fannah Palmer and Roos van de Wardt. Chaos, Amsterdam. 304 pages. €24.50.
