Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt
By Lindy Klompstra
Do you recognise the feeling of remembering a conversation with someone, but not being sure if it was real or just a dream? Going up to them and asking about it feels embarrassing — because then they would know that you had a dream about them — but this unanswered question nags at you, until at last, you forget all about it and move on with your life. I recently had this experience, and even as I write this, I can no longer remember what this Schrödinger-esque conversation was about.
Coincidentally, a little while ago, I finished a book that gave me the same sensation. A book that felt like a fever dream. The Shadow of the Object by Chloe Aridjis, a short novel that revolves around illusions and a strange perception of reality, left me with some questions of my own. That same familiar feeling of, “Did what I think just happened actually take place?”
We experience the story through the eyes of Flora, a Mexican woman who lives in London. It starts in the aftermath of a bloody incident: while visiting her parents in Mexico, Flora gets bitten in the hand by their dog. She is rushed to the hospital, where she meets Wilhelmina, an older German woman who traveled to Mexico for a conference. Wilhelmina is an eccentric and stubborn lady who also happens to live in London, and ended up in the hospital for pneumonia.
During their conversations, Wilhelmina shares anecdotes from her life and talks about her passion for collecting old toys, in particular ones that have to do with illusions, such as a magic lantern or a zoetrope. One day, she puts on a show for Flora with the magic lantern, projecting colorful images across the room. Shortly after, Flora is struck down with fever, and when she awakes from a feverish dream, she learns that Wilhelmina has passed away.
After Flora is discharged, she receives a call from Wilhelmina’s son, Max, who asks if she wants to bring a bag of his mother’s belongings back to London, including her ashes. What follows is an array of scenes about fragmented reality, a tribute to Wilhelmina’s life, and an unexpected blossoming connection between the two grieving characters.
My experience of reading this novel could be described as feeling enchanting, puzzling, and sometimes a bit frustrating at the same time. Aridjis is remarkably good at painting vivid scenes and drawing the reader into the vast collection of flashbacks, anecdotes, and imagined scenes. One can almost see the colours and the scenes projected by the magic lantern and feel the sea breeze of Scheveningen. As a Dutch person who has visited The Hague many times, I found myself delighted by the vivid description of the boulevard of Scheveningen.
After breakfast Max and his parents would drive along the Strandweg and park the car by the Kurhaus from where they’d walk to the perpetually windy beach of Scheveningen, the only important beach of his life, its carousel and windy currents superimposed onto every beach that came afterwards. There were also sand dunes, beautiful ridges shaped over time by the wind.
It felt as though I was transported back in time, and I could almost smell the herring and the salty sea air, and feel the strong winds blowing my hair in my face.
Others would visit the stands selling herrings and frites although these too, like the restaurants on the promenade, had to hurry and close whenever the wind got out of hand. Along with sun chairs you could rent shields against the wind, that’s how strong the gales were, and even when shut the metal signs outside businesses continued to rattle, buffeted like the gulls by the currents, and he once watched a book somersault all the way across the beach.
Although I enjoyed reading these colourful scenes, I sometimes found myself confused or taken aback by parts of the novel. There were passages that felt out of place, and images that seemed to be conjured up for no particular reason — or purely for the sake of disturbing the reader and leaving them puzzled by what they had just read. An example of this is the scene where the reader is given an insight into the mind of Max and Wilhelmina’s pet mouse, Isidore:
There was much more interesting nesting material in his old home. Life was, he must admit, close to perfect. Every now and then from the deceptive immensity of his new glass enclosure—there seems to be little between him and the rest of the room and yet he slides down each time he tries to climb the walls—he transports himself there:
Most mornings, shortly after his nocturnal activities had come to a close, he’d be roused by the roar of a long-nosed machine being pushed across the carpet, alerting him to the arrival of other species.
Our mouse, apparently one with elaborate thoughts and opinions, adds very little to the story. The sole purpose of this scene seems to be to further confuse the reader and to add to the sense of distorted reality. Many passages scattered throughout the book similarly disrupt the main story rather than tie into it. Images of personified animals, animated projections and other hallucinations make the reader question Flora’s sanity — and by extension, the truthfulness of seemingly normal passages. One of the final moments of the novel underlines this sense of distortion:
I then looked down at the waves, down into the paddle steamer’s frothy impetuous wake, and as Max put his arms around me, tentative at first and then with more confidence, I saw a face come into focus and then swiftly dissolve across the surface of the water.
The scene left me with many questions. Did Flora simply close her eyes? Or was her vision distorted by the reflection of light on the water? Did Max jump from the boat into the River Thames? Did Max even exist, or was he just a figment of Flora’s imagination? And if he was, in fact, a figment of her imagination, what else did she make up?
Despite the question of whether the characters even exist or not, Chloe Aridjis writes honest, real, and fleshed out characters. There is no sugarcoating: all three protagonists have flaws as well as strengths, and although the reader gets very little time with them, they feel so real that I wished I could learn more about them, weaknesses and all.
Wilhelmina, an eccentric old lady, wants nothing more than have a cigarette despite her pneumonia. She seizes almost every opportunity to ask for one and will not take no for an answer. She loves to talk, but leaves little room for listening:
She stared at my mouth while I spoke as though willing it shut. Annoyed, perhaps, that I’d interrupted. Yet I sensed this was the scrutiny she gave everything, her gaze travelling from my lips to my forehead, and once I’d stopped speaking, her eyes coming to rest on mine, she returned to her memories.
Flora herself seems slightly less flawed, which is only natural, since we are reading from her perspective. Still, her judgements of others are often quite negative, and she tends to assume the worst intentions. Additionally, some questions could be raised about a woman in her forties getting involved with a man in his early twenties who has just lost his mother.
Max is portrayed as an antisocial, timid young man. He is often absorbed in his jigsaw puzzles, and does not seem to say much:
I could have shown up in a cloth sack and Max would not have noticed. He didn’t even ask me to take off my shoes. All his attention was riveted on a high-necked amber bottle on the dining table, right at the centre of Jupiter, the jigsaw now complete.
Despite his inattentiveness, one cannot help but feel for him. His mother has passed away, and he is left to deal with the aftermath.
Although the characters are multifaceted, the novel feels rushed and gives us very little time to get to know the characters and really get familiar with them. It is as though the readers only get to know Wilhelmina and Max on a superficial level, when we know that there is so much more to them than meets the eye. On the surface, they seem rude and shallow. This might be because of the fact that we learn about these characters through the perspective of our narrator, Flora, who gets close to these characters in a very short amount of time. Perhaps she does not know them as well as she thinks she does.
Though the novel did not make the shortlist, The Shadow of the Object was longlisted for the 2026 Booker Prize. The judges described it as: “Mysterious and free-wheeling. We were charmed by the novel’s meditation on friendship and grief, and its suggestion that the most meaningful truths can be found in the shadows.” While I have shared my criticism of the novel, I can see why the book ended up on the longlist of the Booker Prize. The Shadow of the Object tells a unique story and offers the perspective of an immigrant, as well as a Latin American character. It experiments with a variety of scenes—from a library described through the eyes of a mouse, to flashbacks of visits to European cities.
While The Shadow of the Object is praised by the judges with good reason, I am still torn in my own judgement. Yes, the novel is definitely mysterious and free-wheeling, but its so-called meditational and meaningful layers seem made up by the judges themselves. There is a lot to like about the book, and for the most part I had a good time reading it. Yet I cannot help but feel like this enjoyment competes with the lack of familiarity I felt with the characters and the confusion I experienced while reading the novel.
In short, The Shadow of the Object by Chloe Aridjis is a beautifully written novel with an interesting story and vivid images. Despite its displaced scenes, the sense of distorted reality that Aridjis tried to achieve certainly made its way onto the pages. However, many passages in the novel made very little sense. Additionally, the novel felt rushed, giving the reader almost no opportunity to get to know the characters. As someone who appreciates character-based stories, this novel might not have been for me. However, if you enjoy atmospheric writing and books that do not focus on characters, and do not mind feeling puzzled while reading from time to time, I would definitely recommend picking this one up.
Lindy Klompstra (she/her)
I am a master’s student at Utrecht University and have a Bachelor of Arts in English Language and Culture. I am interested in a wide variety of books, depending on what piques my interest at that moment. When I’m not reading, I can be found alongside my cat, tending to one of my many hobbies, or rewatching some of my favourite shows.
