๐ "Wolf" by Lara Taveirne
Flemish non-fiction, so far not available in any other language than Dutch.
This is a grief memoir about the suicide of the author's little brother called Wolf. The circumstances were... unique (for lack of a better word). He was 18 years old, left his student housing with an excuse, traveled as far north as he could into Sรกpmi, and eventually passed away intentionally due to cold exposure in the middle of a forest in northern Sweden. When his body was found half a year later, he had a notebook attached to him, well protected. Turns out he had chronicled his last journey, with the idea that it would be discovered and returned to his family.
That's a lot. The author explores the many sides of her grief, more than ten years after it all happened. We also get to read entries of her brother's journal. Youth memories, changing family dynamics, the way he keeps living on in their forever wonderings... Eventually she decides to travel to the north herself and record some of that in here too.
About half of my life ago, my uncle committed suicide. That type of death is hard and strange. People mourn with sudden confusion, shame, regret, anger. There's often taboo and in my family's case, everyone just had to shut up and move on. But just like in this book, I think everyone who encounters this in their life is left with a 'what if?'. Maybe an ocean of it, at the very least a tiny drop that hangs off the edge of a leaf in your mind. What if I had looked closer? What if I had said that thing? What if, what if, what if. The author brings this to light beautifully.
This book was very readable, despite its heavy topic. The one thing that started to bother me was how Wolf slowly seemed to get turned into a legendary creature, a myth, someone untouchable, something you can always dream and speculate about and find some sort of meaning and eternity in. Maybe I'm being mean and that's a natural thing to happen for coping, but it also brought me some unease. I can't really put my finger on it. There is a part of sheer emptiness in loss that I don't prefer to see forcibly filled up, if that makes any sense.
If you can read Dutch, and can handle the topic, it's worth a read.
[#]AmReading #NonFiction #BelgianLit
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@reading_recluse Feeling sad I very much so cannot read Dutch. Your review reminded me of a Dutch fiction book I read in English last year though.
Waar ik liever niet aan denk by Jente Posthuma, translated as What I'd Rather Not Think About by Sarah Timmer Harvey. Could be something you're interested in!
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@mollymay5000 Coincidentally I recently put the Dutch version on my ereader! ๐ That title is so extremely Dutch, I'm kind of surprised that it somehow works being quite literally translated.
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@reading_recluse That translation of the title is exactly what made it stand out to me on the International Book list last year ๐
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