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The Longest Night

by Otto de Kat

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473537,674 (3.8)3
A masterpiece of literary craft and concision; sparse, beautiful and hugely affecting - Daily Mail Since the liberation of the Netherlands, Emma Verweij has been living in Rotterdam, in a street which became a stronghold of friendships for its inhabitants during the Second World War. She marries Bruno, they have two sons, and she determines to block out the years she spent in Nazi Berlin during the war, with her first husband Carl. But now, ninety-six years old and on the eve of her death, long- forgotten memories crowd again into her consciousness, flashbacks of happier years, and the tragedy of the war, of Carl, of her father, and of the friends she has lost. In The Longest Night, his impressive, reflective new novel after News from Berlin, Otto de Kat deftly distils momentous events of 20th-century history into the lives of his characters. In Emma, the past and the present coincide in limpid fragments of rare, melancholy beauty. Translated from the Dutch by Laura Watkinson… (more)
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English (2)  Dutch (1)  All languages (3)
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Thank you to Quercus Books and Netgelley for an advance copy of this work.

In Rotterdam it is Emma Verweij's last day. She is 96 years old and finally ready to die, but not before she thinks back over the loves and losses of her long life. Her fragmented reminiscences tell of her flight from Nazi Germany in the wake of the failed Von Stauffenberg assassination attempt, hiding in an isolated Black Forest village and her attempts to build a life in Holland.

For years she has tried to bury her memories of the war but now they are hard to ignore. Her story weaves between several different periods of her life so that her story only emerges only slowly and we learn about her family: her parents failed marriage, her husband's role in the war and the family she has managed to build in Rotterdam.

In a circuitous, unhurried narrative that effectively expresses both the disjointed state of Emma's failing thoughts and the way that our memories can creep up on us, thoughts of one event, one person sparking memories of another, years later. Emma approaches parts of her life indirectly, circling the more painful parts and offering small details until she is ready to face them more clearly.

It's a story infused with sadness and secrets and regret and the tone is a little distant but in a way that feels entirely appropriate for the end of a long life when one might finally be able to look back with some detachment. It's an abstracted, ephemeral piece of writing that feels deeply personal and addresses guilt, love and shells that we build to protect ourselves. To me this is the kind of story that the Gustav Sonata, which I read a few days earlier, aspired to be. ( )
  moray_reads | Mar 20, 2018 |
Emma looks back over her life as she waits for her son and the euthanasia team (this is modern Rotterdam, and she is in her 90s).

"She did notice, though, that her memory was becoming overloaded. Emma wandered through her recollections along a complex network of corridors, the crumpled map of her life. She was ninety-six years old, she had witnessed a century, and understood nothing at all."

She remembers her first husband's involvement in the plot against Hitler, her escape from Germany and a long life lived in peace. There are still secrets and family conflicts, and the tone is bleak and littered with poetry and philosophy quotes. To me it is like a different world, and I liked visiting it.

"Vagueness piled on top of rumour and speculation , on dreams and suspicions: family history is a constant stream of knowing almost nothing , a scrap of insight here and there, an unintentional discovery. Those who find out and understand something do so by accident. The past is black, her parents’, and her own as well."

Completists please note: ťhis connects characters from three other books, so you might want to read those first. ( )
  charl08 | Feb 21, 2017 |
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Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Otto de Katprimary authorall editionscalculated
Ecke, AndreasTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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A masterpiece of literary craft and concision; sparse, beautiful and hugely affecting - Daily Mail Since the liberation of the Netherlands, Emma Verweij has been living in Rotterdam, in a street which became a stronghold of friendships for its inhabitants during the Second World War. She marries Bruno, they have two sons, and she determines to block out the years she spent in Nazi Berlin during the war, with her first husband Carl. But now, ninety-six years old and on the eve of her death, long- forgotten memories crowd again into her consciousness, flashbacks of happier years, and the tragedy of the war, of Carl, of her father, and of the friends she has lost. In The Longest Night, his impressive, reflective new novel after News from Berlin, Otto de Kat deftly distils momentous events of 20th-century history into the lives of his characters. In Emma, the past and the present coincide in limpid fragments of rare, melancholy beauty. Translated from the Dutch by Laura Watkinson

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