Category: Holland/Netherlands

Atria, Author, Book review, Books in translation, Fiction, Holland/Netherlands, literary fiction, Marjolijn van Heemstra, Publisher, Setting

‘In Search of a Name: A Novel’ by Marjolijn van Heemstra (translated by Jonathan Reeder)

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Fiction – paperback; Atria International; 198 pages; 2020. Translated from the Dutch by Jonathan Reeder.

Marjolijn van Heemstra, is a Dutch poet. Her beguiling novella In Search of a Name feels like a memoir but is actually a fictionalised account of her family history.

In this tale, originally published in the Netherlands in 2017, the narrator is a woman called Marjolijn, who is pregnant and trying to determine her unborn son’s name.

She has inherited a signet ring that belonged to her great uncle — a hero of the Dutch Resistance in the Second World War — and has promised her late grandmother, who bestowed it her, that she would name her firstborn after him.

But while Marjolijn likes the grand-sounding name — Frans Julius Johan — her partner, D, isn’t so sure. He challenges the idea of naming their baby after a man that neither of them knows very little about, apart from a story that’s been handed down within the family and may or may not be true.

D is right again. What I know can be summed up in a single sentence: Resistance hero delivers a parcel bomb disguised as a Sinterklaas present to an ex-Nazi.
I write “bomb”, but according to the family narrative, the bomb was always a “little bomb”, the Blackshirt was a “rat”, and Bommenneef [the nickname for her great uncle] “a rascal”. It was my grandmother’s generation that kept the tale alive, repeating it every chance they got, to whoever would listen. Rascal startles rat with bomblet.

Reads like a crime thriller

What follows is a highly personal detective story that reads like a historical crime thriller as Marjolijn seeks to find out the truth about her great uncle. Were his actions heroic? Or is there a darker side to the tale?

Her research takes her across the country — and even to Spain — as she tracks down leads and hunts out clues. She meets distant relatives, befriends fellow researchers working in the national archives and finds herself immersed in confidential dossiers, biased news stories and incomplete paperwork.

My irritation grows with every step. Why didn’t anyone take the trouble just to write down what happened? Why must I now make do with a couple of barely legible Ausweises and a pile of junk from a desk drawer? A bomb exploded, people were killed and men were sent to jail, lives were compromised, and all that’s left is this two-bit legend full of holes and cracks.

Working to a deadline

The book is structured around Marjolijn’s growing pregnancy — each chapter is headed with the number of weeks to go before her baby’s arrival — to hammer home the point that she’s working to a deadline.

Further suspense is created by the growing tension within Marjolijn’s relationship with her partner and her decision to ignore health advice when she is diagnosed with high blood pressure as a possible precursor to eclampsia.

When it looks likely that the birth may have to be induced, Marjolijn’s sense of panic is heightened, not by the birth itself, but at the lack of time to determine if her great uncle’s name is worthy of being handed down.

[…] my son has to be given the right name, and to do that I have to have the right story, and since the story I had turns out to be inaccurate I have to at least come up with a good ending — all’s well that ends well — but at the moment I am stuck in a cul-de-sac of unanswered emails and Facebook messages and I haven’t put anything right or even gotten my head around things, there are only questions that lead to more questions, I don’t even know any more if this is about courage and justice, who knows, maybe now it’s about chaos and regret.

Who knew that a story about research methods could be so exciting?

Blurred lines

What I liked most about In Search of a Name is the way the author teases out the blurred lines between fact and fiction, where nothing is as black and white as it might seem, and where family mythology, passed down from generation to generation, gains potency — and embellishment — over time.

At its heart, this novel is about truth and the ways in which it can become obfuscated, whether by accident or design.

Atlantic Books, Author, Book review, Books in translation, crime/thriller, Fiction, Herman Koch, Holland/Netherlands, literary fiction, Setting

‘The Dinner’ by Herman Koch

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The-Dinner

Fiction – paperback; Atlantic Books; 311 pages; 2012. Translated from the Dutch by Sam Garrett.

Appearances can be deceptive and so it is with Herman Koch’s rather dark and delicious novel, The Dinner, which looks like a simple story that unfolds over the course of a family dinner, but which turns out to be so much more than that.

A five-course menu

The book, which is set in Amsterdam, is divided into five parts — Aperitif, Appetiser, Main Course, Dessert, and Digestif — across 46 relatively short chapters. As you might expect from its title and the naming convention of the sections, it’s set in a restaurant — one of those fancy, upmarket nouvelle cuisine type restaurants, where there is more white plate on show than food. Or, as our often witty and slightly sneering narrator puts it when his wife’s appetiser arrives:

The first thing that struck you about Claire’s plate was its vast emptiness. Of course I’m well aware that, in the better restaurants, quality takes precedence over quantity, but there are voids and then there are voids. The void here, that part of the plate on which no food at all was present, had clearly been raised to a matter of principle.

Over the course of the meal, we become familiar with the two couples sitting around the table, each of whom has a 15-year-old son. There’s an undeniable tension between them from the start, mainly because the narrator, Paul Lohman, and his wife, Claire, would have much preferred to eat in a more down-to-earth establishment, a local café, but they have already agreed to meet Serge and his wife, Babette, at the fancy restaurant because that’s the kind of place they like to eat at.

Serge, it turns out, is not only pretentious and a bit of a wine snob — “all this I-know-everything-about-wine business irritated the hell out of me” — he’s a renowned (and popular) politician. In fact, he’s the leader of the Opposition in Holland and is expected to be the country’s next Prime Minister.

But there’s more to this initial tension than mild envy: it turns out to be a ferocious — and unspoken — clash between parenting values, because their teenage sons have committed a rather horrendous crime and each couple wants to deal with it in a different way. The subject, however, isn’t one that can readily be discussed over pink champagne and goat’s cheese salad…

An unexpected and compelling read

I have to say that I didn’t quite know what to expect from The Dinner, but it turned out to be a highly original, often uncomfortable and totally compelling read, by far the most unusual book I’ve read in a long while. It’s not quite a black comedy, but I did laugh a lot, mainly at the narrator’s sneering, judgemental tone and witty one-liners. The further I got into the story, however, the more my laughter simply felt wrong, because this is the kind of book that tilts your whole axis and tests your empathy for certain characters to the absolute limit.

It’s a hugely entertaining read, but there’s a lot of social commentary here, some of which is clearly tongue-in-cheek — for example, the whole pretentiousness of Western cuisine and food writing — and most of which is not. I’d like to use the term “hard-hitting” to describe it, but that’s too overused — a cliché if you will —  and it doesn’t quite convey the creeping sense of unease I felt as I got closer and closer to the ending.

The Dinner is a disturbing morality tale of the finest order, the kind of novel that makes you marvel at the writer’s ingenuous plot, filled as it is with unexpected turns and eye-opening revelations, all carefully structured and perfectly paced to keep the reader on tenterhooks throughout — think Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, but less showy and more intelligent. It’s bold, daring and shocking, but it’s also bloody good fun.

Author, Bloomsbury, Book review, David Park, Fiction, Holland/Netherlands, literary fiction, Northern Ireland, Publisher, Setting

‘The Light of Amsterdam’ by David Park

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Light-of-amsterdam_final

Fiction – hardcover; Bloomsbury; 384 pages; 2012. Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

They say travel broadens the mind. It can also shake us out of complacency or give us the opportunity to see things in a new light. This is what happens to three people from Belfast who travel to Amsterdam for a long weekend one December.

Three diverse characters

Alan, a university art teacher, is still coming to terms with an adulterous “fling” that resulted in the end of his marriage. Karen, a worker at a care home, is struggling to save enough money for her daughter’s upcoming wedding. And Marion, who runs a garden centre with her husband Alan, is feeling old and unloved.

All three, who do not know each other, are middle-aged. But they have other things in common, too. Each one nurses a private hurt, lacks self-esteem and is beginning to think that life has passed them by. Their individual trips to Amsterdam — all taken on the same weekend and on board the same flight — show them it is possible to change things for the better.

It also shows them that their loved ones are not the people they imagined them to be.

Multiple narratives

As with David Park’s previous novel, The Truth Commissioner, the book is comprised of multiple narratives. But this time around, instead of isolating each narrative thread in a self-enclosed section, Park intertwines them in alternate chapters. This choppiness helps keep the momentum going and reveals the unusual and often unpredictable ways in which these characters bump against each other, both in Belfast and in Amsterdam. And it also helps highlight the similarities between them, such as their poor personal morale and the need to find new meaning in their life and relationships.

As each character’s story unfurls, we get to see their flaws and weaknesses — as well as their understated strengths. There are “lightbulb moments” for each character as they suddenly see things in a new light — the light of Amsterdam of the title — and realise there is a way forward out of their current rut.

Alan, who is trying to relive his youth by attending a Bob Dylan concert, finds a new way to reconnect with his monosyllabic teenage son, who has reluctantly joined him on the trip. Karen, who is on her daughter’s crazy hen party, realises she no longer has to be taken for granted by the self-absorbed young woman she has struggled to raise alone. (I loved this bit, and I think a cheer may have emitted from my lips when the pair of them have the world’s biggest row.) And Marion, in Amsterdam for her birthday, discovers that she has misunderstood her husband’s needs for far too long.

A compassionate novel

The Light of Amsterdam is a gentle, worldly-wise novel about human relationships. It explores the gap between generations — and within marriage — and shows how our desire to be loved and respected is a common trait among all people, regardless of age or background. But it’s also a lovely and evocative portrait of Amsterdam, its tree-lined canals and quiet cobbled courtyards.

The Light of Amsterdam is David Park’s eighth novel. It has just been named on Fiction Uncovered’s list of British fiction for 2012, so expect to hear more about this book and its Belfast-born author in the weeks and months ahead.

Author, Book review, Fiction, Harper Perennial, Holland/Netherlands, Joseph O'Neill, literary fiction, London, New York, Publisher, Setting

‘Netherland’ by Joseph O’Neill

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Netherland

Fiction – paperback; Harper Perennial; 248 pages; 2009.

Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland was famously long-listed for last year’s Man Booker Prize, attracting a flurry of support from mainly North American critics who loved the cricket element of the book. (The Vulture section of the New York Times has quite a good summary of the acclaim it garnered upon release. And President Obama also turned out to be a fan. )

But on the other side of the pond the response was more mixed. And if you dare check the Amazon.co.uk reviews you’ll see the broad spectrum of views it’s attracted which range from glowing five-star accounts to less-than-complimentary one-star assessments.

Thinking that the novel was about cricket, I picked it up at the start of the Ashes series last month hoping to get myself in the mood for a summer of competitive sport between two old rivals, Australia (my homeland) and England (where I now reside). Six weeks on, the five-match series is now at level pegging and the deciding final match will be played this coming Thursday, so what better time to review the book?

Living in the netherland

While Netherland could be regarded as a paean to cricket, this is not a novel about cricket. This is a novel about what it is like to be an outsider and living in the fringes, or as O’Neill’s apt title suggests, in a state of being neither here nor there — the netherland.

For while the protagonist, Hans van den Broek, chooses cricket as his refuge, there’s a lot more going on here than the “gentleman of sport”. Hans is an immigrant — Dutch-born but educated in Britain and now residing in Manhattan, with his wife and young son. He’s desperate to fit in and goes through the whole rigmarole of gaining his US drivers license, if only to become that little bit more embedded in the culture.

Connecting with people who play cricket in New York is yet another way he can “connect”, albeit with an immigrant underclass. And, tellingly, the one man with whom he forges a tentative friendship, Chuck Ramkissoon, winds up being pulled out of a New York canal with his hands tied behind his back. (Note, this isn’t a plot spoiler: O’Neill reveals this fact up front and much of the novel is about Hans recalling his relationship with Chuck, trying to pinpoint what it is about that man that could have resulted in someone wanting to murder him.)

Disintegration of a marriage

Netherland has also been described as a post-9/11 novel, but again, this label has been slightly misconstrued. While the book reflects the kind of “netherland” residents in Manhattan might have felt in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Centre, a kind of eerie state of no longer feeling comfortable in their homes, this isn’t the sole premise of the book.

O’Neill uses it as a vehicle to explain the disintegration of Hans’ marriage, for while Hans is content to be “carried along by the dark flow of those times” his wife is not. She no longer feels safe in the city and decides to return to her native England, taking their infant son with her. Hans, unable to commit to such a move, finds himself living a kind of transatlantic lifestyle, dividing his time between New York and London. Again, it’s a netherland existence, neither a New Yorker, nor a Londoner; neither a married man, nor a bachelor.

Ironically, having read this book, I, too, felt kind of ambivalent about it, not quite sure if I loved or loathed it. I finished it maybe a month ago but simply haven’t had the time to review it, but strangely, with the passing of time, the story has coalesced in my brain and I’ve found myself thinking about certain elements.

I wonder now what was holding Hans back, why he was passive on so many different fronts — his friendship with Chuck, who clearly had a lot of dodgy things happening in his life; and his foundering marriage — and let events wash over him without really taking any action himself. Was it a psychological netherland that constrained him, or would that be taking the netherland theme a step too far?

The healing power of cricket

One of things that has stuck in my head is the sense of belonging Hans achieved by playing cricket in New York, even though some of his fellow sportsmen could not speak English and he refused to adapt his batting style to the “American way” which meant “the baseball-like business of slugging and hoisting”. I loved that each weekend was spent in a van, travelling around the five boroughs, to play a “friendly”.

We sat mostly silent in the van, absorbed into the moodiness that afflicts competitors as they contemplate, or try to put out of their minds, the drama that awaits. What we talked about, when we did talk, was cricket. There was nothing else to discuss. The rest of our lives — jobs, children, wives, worries — peeled away, leaving only this fateful sporting fruit.

As an aside, I was watching BBC Newsnight a week or two back which featured a story about the NYPD running a cricket competition to help improve relations with the city’s ethnic minorities.  “That sounds just like Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland,” I told my Other Half, who was watching it with me. Then, lo and behold, the presenter Gavin Esler interviewed, via satellite, O’Neill, who came across as one of the most articulate, gentlemanly and genuine author interviews I’ve ever seen. You can watch it here. It was enough to make me want to read more of his work, so if you’ve read any of this other titles, I’d love to hear your thoughts…

Author, Book review, Books in translation, Fiction, Holland/Netherlands, literary fiction, Philibert Schogt, Publisher, Setting, Thunder Mouth Press

‘Daalder’s Chocolates’ by Philibert Schogt

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Daalder'sChocolates

Fiction – paperback; Thunder Mouth’s Press; 322 pages; 2005. Translated from the Dutch by Sherry Marx.

Joop Daalder, the youngest of three children, grows up in a large house in Holland under two emotionally distant parents who show him little love or affection. He is clumsy, has no friends and is constantly compared to his two sisters who share a talent for classical music.

Resolved to leading a lonely mediocre life, Joop is lifted out of his humdrum existence by a chance discovery: a passion for good food and, in particular, chocolate. Unfortunately no one understands this passion and he must rise above the ridicule cast upon him by family and friends.

While on a university excursion to France, Joop meets a chocolateer, Jerome Sorel, who offers him the chance of a lifetime. Against his parent’s wishes, Joop drops out of his art history course to accept Sorel’s offer of an apprenticeship. With just the clothes on his back and a small amount of cash for company, he hitchhikes across Holland to the little French town of Avallon and Monsieur Sorel’s old-fashioned chocolate shop.

Good food, good company and a  good career ahead of him, for the first time in his life Joop feels happy and at one with himself.

Later, when he falls in love with Emma, a Dutch nanny who lives in the same village, life couldn’t get any more sweeter… or could it?

Daalder’s Chocolates is a simple tale that charts one man’s life in pursuit of a dream: becoming a chocolateer and running his own shop. Reminiscent of a fairytale, it can be no coincidence that Joop often compares himself with an ugly duckling that has turned into a beautiful swan.

The circular narrative begins where it ends, with Joop as an old man on the brink of closing down his chocolate shop in Toronto because a super-deli has moved in next door. Unhappy, lonely and defeated, it’s almost like meeting the boyhood Joop all over again.

Set in Holland, France and Canada, the book is broad in scope, if occasionally lacking in detail. Sometimes the story jumps ahead without filling in the gaps, as it were, but whether this is poor writing or poor translation, it is difficult to tell. I suspect it may be the former because the chapters are often surprisingly (and sometimes annoyingly) short.

The characterisation, however, is strong and one can’t help but fall in love with Joop’s wife, Emma, even if you sometimes want to shake her by the shoulders and tell her to get a life. But it is Joop, the complicated, flawed and incredibly driven main character, that makes this book what it is.

I initially felt sorry for Joop, but then I grew to like and admire him, respecting his one-eyed pursuit of a personal dream. But later, I despised him, for ignoring the things that should have been important to him, such as his wife and child. But then was it any wonder Joop could not express his love for them when he had grown up in such an emotionally cold environment himself. In the end, I felt sorry for Joop, my feelings in many ways mirroring the circular narrative.

Ultimately, Daalder’s Chocolates is a heart-warming — and sometimes heart-wrenching — tale about finding your place in the world. It’s by no means a perfect book and in good need of some ‘fleshing’ out, but it’s an enjoyable one nonetheless. A word of warning though: the descriptions of food will make you feel a little on the hungry side, so if you’re reading this in bed, take some chocolate with you!

Alexandre Dumas, Author, Book review, Books in translation, Fiction, Holland/Netherlands, literary fiction, Penguin Classic, pre-20th Century classic, Publisher, Setting

‘The Black Tulip’ by Alexandre Dumas

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BlackTulip

Fiction – paperback; Penguin Classics; 288 pages; 2004. Translated from the French by Robert Buss.

Set in Holland during the 1670s, this short, cinematic story is essentially a love triangle between two people and a flower – the much sought-after black tulip, tulipa negra.

The opening scenes, bloody and gruesome, put the reader in the thick of the action right at the outset, but this is deceptive: the story is not the ghastly violent one the first chapter may lead you to expect. Instead, it is a gentle, well-plotted romance interwoven with real life events from Dutch history. But on a slightly deeper level it is also a tale about righting wrongs, fighting tyranny and seeking justice.

When Cornelius van Baerle, a humble tulip grower, is (wrongly) thrown into jail it looks like he is going to lose his life — at worst — and lose his chance to grow the perfect specimen of the tulip negra — at best. His tulip-growing rival, the “evil” Isaac Boxtel, sees this as the perfect opportunity to thwart van Baerle’s chance of winning the top horticultural prize.

But then Rosa, the jailor’s beautiful and headstrong daughter, finds a way to help van Baerle achieve his heart’s desire despite the odds and the looming figure of William of Orange.

The Black Tulip might sound a little soppy, but the plot is very good and moves along with great momentum. The writing could do with a little judicious editing here and there, and the ending is wholly predictable, but overall this is a simple tale, relatively well told and a fascinating insight into a time known as “tulipmania”.