The Twin [Hardcover]

"Everything is different when you have a coffin in your living room"

These are the kinds of sentences that fill The Twin: subtle, understated and crackling. This beautifully written novel shines with its character depiction of Helmer, a man who has made no choices in his life other than selecting the chickens for the farm. His home, the larger farm animals, his furniture and even his work clothes were passed on: choices that belonged to others.

However, the impending death of his father leads him to finally and uncomfortably assert his own will by moving the furniture, painting, and throwing out years worth of family relics. With this new and clean space, he finds that the things he can't get rid of become more prominent. The house's newly vacated space feels hollow, a reflection of the state of his heart and mind. He's aware of his emptiness, and it's illustrated when he buys a map to hang as "art" for his walls. The lack of anything attractive on the walls of his house makes the single picture lost and the emptiness all the more obvious. All he can do is look at the map and memorize the places he'd like to someday visit, an urge that seems impossible with all the burdens laid upon him since his teens.

He spends his days managing the meager farm, tending carelessly to his father and reeling from the thirty year loss of his twin brother Henk. For a time he allows a wayward teen to help as a farmhand, bringing new dynamics to his empty space. The complexity of the novel isn't simply the missing twin, that sort of story has been written countless times before. Rather, the theme is based on identity of self, not in relation to anyone else (his father or brother) but in the form of his own destiny. He appears to make no strides towards the independence he aspires to, and the contrast between his thoughts and actions creates a tension that is sometimes funny and sometimes brutal. Self-determination is an entirely unknown concept to Helmer, and throughout the novel you question if he ever can achieve it. Some could read a geo-political message in this, but I'd rather leave that out and focus on the beautiful writing and the descriptions that make you pause: in reference to an old log, "even a dead thing can be beautiful."

A symbolism that is repeated throughout the novel is of a solitary hooded crow that stalks Helmer through the windows and around the yard, silently glaring. Since crows generally represent sadness or death, I thought it was appropriate in many ways. Yet the way Bakker concludes the story, and accounts for the crow's presence, was still an unexpected surprise.

The title of my review is really a comment on the atmosphere of The Twin. There are many layers to the book but the mood is what really caught me. It's slow paced, ponderous and there are slow build ups to moments. The moments themselves are subtle. This is the type of writing that one more commonly finds in modern European literature and film. The book that this most reminds me of in tone is Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson.

The story centers around Helmer whose twin brother Henk died when they were young men in the late 60s. They lived on a Dutch Dairy farm. Henk was the favorite and they had just started to grow apart though had shared that special twin bond for most of their lives. Because of Henk's death, Helmer was forced to stop his studies in Amsterdam and return to the farm with his parents.

In the present of this story, Helmer lives on the farm with his father who is very old and is waiting for death. Helmer largely resents his father and has begun to emerge slightly from a life that hasn't changed in many years.

This is a beautifully written, atmospheric, subtle piece of literature that moves at a slow pace. I certainly enjoyed it and recommend it. I would caution people that this book is not be for everyone. Not a lot happens but there is so much under the mundane lives written about.

I recoomend it but with a caveat that it will probably only appeal to readers who can relax and enjoy the the slow pace.

Like many other literary prize winners, The Twin focus on internal changes and awakenings rather than plot. This elegant novel translated from original Dutch was the winner of the Dublin Literary Award, among other prizes. It traces the self realization of Helmer who 37 years after the death of Henk, the more popular twin, the "live" half of the personality the two shared, is mucking the barn, milking the cows, tending the sheep and caring for his dying father, the life that Henk was supposed to inherit. Helmer was the student, a future that was cut off by Henk's death. Once set in motion, changes occur realatively quickly for Helmer, resulting in surprising realizations and a very atypical resolution. It is filled with beautiful images of life in a Dutch countryside, and quite heavily saturated with symbolism.