Book Review: The Remembered Soldier by Anjet Daanje

I can’t think of any book that I’ve read before that felt so compelling and so long at the same time. This one took me a while to get through and it wasn’t all easy but I desperately wanted to find out what would happen.

Our protagonist is a soldier who has lost his memory. He has spent four years in an asylum under the name Noon Merckem. (Because he was found at noon near Merckem.) It is 1922, four years after the war has ended and none of his memories have returned. Periodically, women come to visit the asylum to see if he is their lost or missing husband. One day a woman arrives who claims he is her husband, a photographer named Amand Coppens and she takes him home with her that very day.

Amand’s return to his home and family seem like a miracle and no one wants that miracle more than his wife, Julienne. But Amand’s transition back into normal life is not a straightforward one and his memories that begin to come back don’t match the life that Julienne tells him they shared.

The compulsion of this novel comes from trying to learn the truth about who this man is and, beyond that, who he will choose to be. We start out wondering how he will settle into a regular life he doesn’t know, a jarring switch from his four years in the asylum. But as it begins to seem like he make this life work, the discrepancies start to show in their history and from there, Daanje does a fantastic job of keeping us wondering just exactly who our main character is.

Where the novel drags is that a lot of time is spent on Amand and Julienne’s day to day activities. They wake up, he brings in coal, she takes a bath. They work in their photography studio. She retouches photos. They smokes a cigarette together. He sleeps poorly at night. He has the same dreams over and over again. She has dreams. They lay awake at night. They wake up, he brings in the coal, she makes coffee. Over and over again, these are the pieces of an ordinary life and it does do an excellent job of establishing what their life is made of. A life that doesn’t seem big or important from the outside but matters hugely to those who are living it. Amand isn’t a remarkable fellow. He wasn’t before the war and he isn’t now. But his return and his presence mean everything to Julienne.

The Remembered Soldier is translated from Dutch to English by David McKay and without being able to read the original language, I felt he did a fantastic job. There are clear stylistic choices being made that I have to imagine McKay had to figure out how to bring into the English language. Over and over, sentences begin with “And”, giving the action of the novel a flowing and continuous effect. At times this adds to the plodding nature of the storyline but it also makes that very slowness and repetition feel deliberate and considered.

In the end, I felt like the conclusion was exactly what it needed to be and I’m glad that I stuck this one out to get there. This may not be a story for someone looking for a fast-paced plot but if you’re willing to put in the time, I think it’s worthwhile.