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Review: The Safekeep by Yael Van Der Wouden

Oct 10, 2024 12:25 PM IST

A novel about a complex woman growing up in 1960s Netherlands when World War II is both a distant memory and an undeniable ghost in the room, The Safekeep, which is on the Booker shortlist, mirrors not the large financial dispossessions of the Holocaust but the quieter, more personal losses

“I resented that her face was my face and that her story — as far as I understood — was as uneventful as writing a diary, as simple as dying,” writes Yael van der Wouden in her essay On (Not) Reading Anne Frank. For much of her childhood, van der Wouden was compared to Anne Frank, called her lookalike by peers who were either ignorant or oblivious to the weight of such a comparison.

Kitchen utensils of Jewish prisoners at the former Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz in Poland, that was in operation between May 1940 and January 1945. (Shutterstock)
Kitchen utensils of Jewish prisoners at the former Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz in Poland, that was in operation between May 1940 and January 1945. (Shutterstock)

She found herself in an uncomfortable position — one of both distance and forced connection. The resentment she felt towards Frank was not simply because of a visual likeness, but also due to a deeper, almost existential unease with the legacy Frank represented: a Jewish girl’s story, told through a diary, destined to end tragically.

272pp, ₹799; Viking
272pp, ₹799; Viking

Van der Wouden’s memories of growing up, her resistance to reading Frank’s diary, and her frustration with being compared to her permeate her debut novel, The Safekeep, in many ways. Der Wouden didn’t grow up loving books. She recalls her childhood in Israel, where books were largely “boring” distractions from more vibrant daydreams. Yet, paradoxically, her literary upbringing — from reluctantly flipping through The Secret Garden to seeking out escapist fantasy — played a crucial role in shaping her voice as an author. These reading experiences, filled with characters who defy their circumstances, helped inform the prickly, unorthodox protagonist of The Safekeep.

Her reading of The Secret Garden marks a pivotal moment in her life, where, after resisting literature, she finally begins to immerse herself in stories: “By the end of the week I’d finished, breathless and convinced I was the human incarnation of Burnett’s protagonist.”

Isabelle, the central figure of The Safekeep, is a complex woman growing up in the 1960s Netherlands, in an era when World War II is both a distant memory and an undeniable ghost in the room. Isabelle is an odd duck, socially awkward with a penchant for keeping everyone — including the reader — at arm’s length. But the beauty of Der Wouden’s writing is that it doesn’t try to fix her or make her more palatable. The language around her is stiff, cold, almost harsh, but it works. It’s a dance you feel rather than watch, full of unspoken emotions and spaces that you, as the reader, are invited to fill in. The language also possesses a tactile quality associated with these objects. As if it is only by touch that their presence might be confirmed.

Van der Wouden paints Isabelle as a prickly figure, one who is uncomfortable in her own skin, much like the objects passed down through generations — objects that once belonged to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust but were quietly absorbed into the lives of others. Isabelle’s life gets a serious jolt when Eva, her brother’s girlfriend, enters the picture. The relationship between these two women quickly becomes the beating heart of the novel.

Much like the appropriation of Jewish personal belongings by non-Jewish communities during and after the Holocaust, Isabelle’s family house, her place of safety, is imbued with the weight of what’s been taken and hidden. Jewish cutlery, clothes, and household items remained in gentile households for decades. The appropriated belongings in Isabel’s home carried with them the weight of their original owners, often passed down without acknowledgment of their true origins. Eva, the disruptor, brings into Isabelle’s life an unsettling energy. She slips into Isabelle’s family life, trying to reverse the power dynamic.

While much literature according to research on the Holocaust focuses on the larger financial dispossessions — businesses, real estate, gold — Van der Wouden’s novel mirrors the quieter, more personal losses. Isabelle’s life, steeped in household objects, reflects this history. These objects are filled with buried trauma. The act of Eva stealing cutlery from Isabelle mirrors this historic act of quiet dispossession. This theft is not just physical; it’s psychological, an invasion of Isabelle’s tightly controlled world, much like how Jewish belongings continued to be worn and used in post-war Europe, lingering in households, almost unnoticed but deeply significant.

The book then pivots to something that could’ve been just as powerful — family secrets hidden in a house, diaries tucked away in the nooks and crannies of a life untouched. This is where World War II finally rears its head, particularly the history of Jewish persecution in the Netherlands. There’s a lot to admire in the way Der Wouden handles these historical elements. The cold detachment of certain scenes, especially one that lists mundane household objects with a gut-punch simplicity, really hits. But the switch from this intense family history back to Isabelle’s world can be jarring like missing a step on the staircase.

Van der Wouden’s storytelling is sharp and often cold. She doesn’t coddle the reader or smooth out the rough edges of her characters. Isabelle is bullied, misunderstood, and burdened with a weight she didn’t choose. Van der Wouden intersperses these experiences into Isabelle’s journey making the novel extremely personal.

The relationship between Isabelle and Eva is a slow-burning exploration of forbidden connection, envy, and attraction. Van der Wouden’s writing shines in moments like these, balancing sensuality and restraint, much like the symbolic pear-eating scene that leaves an indelible mark on the reader’s mind:

“Isabel — sitting on the edge of her bed — held the pear in the cup of her hands. If she’d eat it now, she’d have to go downstairs to throw away the pits, the core. If she ate it later, Eva might walk by, see her eat it. She did not want Eva to see her eat it. She could throw the whole thing away. She could open the window and throw it away. It was a water-heavy fruit, full-ripe. The first bite spilled on Isabel’s skirt. It wouldn’t show: the fabric was brown, checkered. There was no way of eating it in silence — the sounds it made, the wet. Isabel ate through the whole thing: the flesh and stick and pits and core and all. She made sure nothing was left of it, as though it had never been given in the first place.”

However, The Safekeep is not just about personal relationships; it’s about historical memory and the unspoken scars left by World War II. Van der Wouden’s upbringing, moving between Israel and the Netherlands, where Anne Frank loomed large in the cultural consciousness, influenced her narrative’s grappling with Jewish identity and post-war tension.

Isabelle is suffocating under the weight of her own desires, a woman trapped in societal expectations and her self-imposed isolation. She longs for control, not just of her life, but of the family house she so desperately clings to. Meanwhile, her older brother, set to inherit the house, is living freely as a womanizer, embracing the “swinging sixties,” while her younger brother, who is in a relationship with a half-Algerian man, quietly pushes against the limitations of the era.

At first glance, The Safekeep might appear as though it treads familiar territory: family dysfunction, buried secrets, sexual repression. The novel walks a tightrope between what is said and unsaid. The tension between Isabelle and Eva grows more complex as the story unfolds, culminating in a twist that, while hinted at, still manages to be utterly devastating. When it hits, it knocks the wind out of you, and the emotional fallout is heart-wrenching.

Isabelle’s journey is as much about discovering her sexuality as it is about confronting her own repressed emotions. What really makes The Safekeep shine is its quiet power. There’s a world of emotions swirling just beneath the surface — anger, lust, grief, and a deep sense of longing for something just out of reach. The novel captures that tension beautifully. There’s a simmering attraction to Eva that Isabelle doesn’t fully understand, her discomfort with her boyfriend a reflection of her internal struggles.

Yael van der Wouden examines not only the fragility of memory and identity but also the entangled relationship between her Jewishness and the figure of Anne Frank — a symbol she grew to resent. The book oscillates between personal reflections and more structured narratives, all informed by her childhood experiences of displacement, both physical and emotional.

Author Yael van der Wouden (Jennifer van Doorn/https://yaelvanderwouden.com/about)
Author Yael van der Wouden (Jennifer van Doorn/https://yaelvanderwouden.com/about)

Wouden’s early reading habits, or rather, her disinterest in reading, play a significant role in her journey as a writer. In one striking passage from On (Not) Reading Anne Frank, she recalls receiving a copy of The Diary of Anne Frank from her mother. “I gave it a try, which to me meant staring blankly at the first page for about 10 minutes while vividly daydreaming about flying.” This rejection of Anne Frank’s story, which she associated with her Jewish identity, becomes a theme that haunts much of Wouden’s life. As she admits in the book, “I resented the way it clung to me. Most of all I resented Anne.”

This connection to literature, even if initially reluctant, eventually manifests in The Safekeep. The book bears a myriad of influences, but always through Wouden’s lens of self-examination. The Safekeep is a curious addition to the literary scene. It’s not every day that a Dutch writer brings us a book in translation that elbows its way into Anglophone circles. Wouden wrote a story that isn’t content to simply sit on the page — it dances, it frustrates, it quietly nudges at something deeper.

Pranavi Sharma writes on books and culture. She lives in New Delhi.

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