Happy days, Renée van Marissing, Querido, 256 pages, 23.99 euros.
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Dementia is increasingly the subject of biographies and novels. Dementia at a young age, such as in Happy Days by Renée van Marissing, is less common.
Sil is 46, a biologist by profession. She is diagnosed with early-onset dementia. Her wife Lina takes care of her, which is becoming increasingly difficult at a (very) rapid pace. As readers we are in several heads, including Sil’s. With the latter, the novel follows the pattern of the ‘original novel’ about dementia, Chimeras by J. Bernlef. Unfortunately is Happy Days precisely for this reason it is less convincing. If on the one hand Sil shows clear signs of disorientation, on the other hand she still has flawless and detailed memories of the past. It is nice for the story that we also learn the history of the main character, but the chosen narrative form is unbelievable in this case. Added to this is the abundance of dialogue and the small number of disruptive situations that are described, without comment or judgement. More attention to this would have produced a much more powerful story.
