An Ingenious ‘Exercice de Style’. ‘The Evenings’ by Gerard Reve

It is astonishing that we have had to wait till 2016 for an English translation of Gerard Reve’s famous 1947 debut novel, The Evenings (De avonden). For not only does it mark the beginning of a literary career that blended critical admiration, moral controversy and popularity in about equal proportions, it is itself a work of palpable originality, with a distinctive atmosphere which caught the mood of a whole generation – and spoke to its successors.