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Een dwaze maagd by Ida Simons
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Een dwaze maagd (1959)

by Ida Simons

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1217224,107 (3.63)13
It is the middle of the roaring twenties, and Gittel is living The Hague with her parents, whose blazing rows are the traditional preserve of Sundays and public holidays. What luck, then, that Gittel is Jewish, and must submit to "the double helping of public holidays that is the lot of Jewish families". After every matrimonial slanging match, Gittel's mother runs off to her parents' home in Antwerp - with her daugher in tow. Much to her delight, Gittel makes the acquaintance of the well-to-do Mardell family, who allow her to practise on their Steinway. Gittel feels that she is taken seriously by Mr Mardell, the head of the household, and by thirty-year-old Lucie, whom she adores. When these friendships turn out to be nothing but an illusion, Gittel learns her first lessons about trust and betrayal. Her second comes soon after, when her father, whose talents for business leave much to be desired, attempts to make a quick killing in Berlin on the eve of the Wall Street Crash. Though this intimate portrayal of familial strife is set in the shadow of the Holocaust, Simons says little about the horror that awaits her characters, yet she succeeds in giving the reader the sense that the novel is about more than a young girl's loss of innocence. In a fluid, almost casual style, she has written a masterly and timeless ode to a relatively carefree interlude in a dark and dramatic period. Translated from the Dutch by Liz Waters… (more)
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Title:Een dwaze maagd
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A Foolish Virgin by Ida Simons (1959)

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» See also 13 mentions

English (4)  Catalan (1)  Norwegian (1)  Dutch (1)  All languages (7)
Showing 4 of 4
Short and sweet, a cross between the narration of To Kill A Mockingbird and the plot of The Go Between, with a poignant hidden depth of meaning. Must read again for the details I probably missed! ( )
  AdonisGuilfoyle | Jan 16, 2021 |
Narrator Gittel looks back to her life aged 12/13 in a Dutch Jewish family. It's the 1920s and the family are flawed and comical- squabbling parents, Mother going back to stay with her family in Antwerp at regular intervals.
Here Gittel befriends the much older Lucie Mardell; flattered by her friendship, Gittel is - obviously to the reader but not Gittel- embraced as a 'chaperone' to allow a romance to continue unremarked.
Mildly interesting, evokes a time and an era; the sadness comes from the knowledge of the author spending time in Westerbork Concentration Camp. One can certainly read this as an allegory of the blindness and 'foolishness' of those Jews who didnt realise what was being planned all around them (although no mention of politics/ antisemitism enters the story.)
As a 2020 reader, one thinks too of the pandemic hoax being currently rolled out onto as credulous and eager-to-believe-the-propaganda populace... ( )
  starbox | Oct 18, 2020 |
"....humour is the colourful piece of cloth made to cover a wound".

Simon´s humour relies on the juxtaposition between the quick eye of a 12 year old girl who picks up everything that goes on around her and the immature voice and analyzing apparatus of the innocent with which she tells and interprets what is happening around her. The reader of course understands, and the differences between the child´s and the grown up´s interpretation comes across as very, very funny.

"The Foolish Virgin", the book´s title and the fact that the author of the girl who remembers, Ida Simons survived the concentration camp both at Westerbork and Theresienstadt, are the only things that gives away the book´s serious theme.

"The Foolish Virgin" is an allusion to the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins (Mathew 25). The parable begins: “Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to..... " What Simon describes through the voice of Gittel, is a paradise; people are poor, but live good lives, the "catastrophes" are the ups-and-downs of daily life, that really are of no consequence. People want it to be so, the harsher side of reality are not confronted. When Gittel`s friend Aaron dies from polio, death is elaborately hidden from her. None of her memories touches anything near the dark political reality her family´s story is set within, being a jew in a growing anti-Semitic Europe which, again of course reflects the community´s (active) lack of interest. The one person that nearly uncovers the truth about Aaron, tells her not to grow up as "a foolish virgin", is considered mad by the rest of the community. They are collectively like the " "virgins who forgot to bring oil to the lamps".....
Ida Simons define what foolishness is: This is not a book about a child´s innocence, child innocence is used to reflect how unaware the Jewish communities of Europe was when WWII came. It is a picture of the innocence of the blind, of the ostrich. She points the finger at the same thing which later became Hannah Arendt´s message.
  Mikalina | Mar 29, 2017 |
In haar boek Een dwaze maagd geeft Ida Simons een inkijk in het leven van gegoede Joodse gezinnen in Den Haag en Antwerpen in de jaren twintig van de vorige eeuw. Het boek draagt een sterk autobiografisch karakter. Met veel humor beschrijft zij haar Joodse omgeving. ( )
  timswings | Mar 11, 2015 |
Showing 4 of 4
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Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Ida Simonsprimary authorall editionscalculated
Tillema, MiekeAfterwordsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed

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'Iedereen is in staat een wanhopige te weerhouden op het laatste ogenblik. Men moet hem op het gepaste moment een kop koffie geven of een borrel of men moet hem zeggen dat hij er als lijk onappetijtelijk of dom zal uitzien. Hoofdzaak is dat men zich aan die kleine plicht niet ontrekke: men moet de koffie of de borrel omzeggens in zijn hart klaar hebben.'

Marnix Gijssen, De man van overmorgen
Anyone is capable of restraining a desperate person at the last minute. You need to give them a cup of coffee or a strong drink at a suitable moment or tell them they'll look unappetising or stupid as a corpse. The main thing is not to shirk that small duty; you have to have the coffee or the drink ready in your heart, as it were.....Marnix Gijsen, "The Man of the Day after Tomorrow"
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Voor Corry Le Poole-Bauer
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Van jongs af aan was ik eraan gewend mijn vader, ongeveer dagelijks, te horen zeggen, dat hij zijn medemensen ernstig benadeeld had omdat hij niet begrafenisondernemer geworden was.
From a young age I was used to hearing my father say, almost daily, that he had done his fellow man a serious disservice by not becoming a funeral director.
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It is the middle of the roaring twenties, and Gittel is living The Hague with her parents, whose blazing rows are the traditional preserve of Sundays and public holidays. What luck, then, that Gittel is Jewish, and must submit to "the double helping of public holidays that is the lot of Jewish families". After every matrimonial slanging match, Gittel's mother runs off to her parents' home in Antwerp - with her daugher in tow. Much to her delight, Gittel makes the acquaintance of the well-to-do Mardell family, who allow her to practise on their Steinway. Gittel feels that she is taken seriously by Mr Mardell, the head of the household, and by thirty-year-old Lucie, whom she adores. When these friendships turn out to be nothing but an illusion, Gittel learns her first lessons about trust and betrayal. Her second comes soon after, when her father, whose talents for business leave much to be desired, attempts to make a quick killing in Berlin on the eve of the Wall Street Crash. Though this intimate portrayal of familial strife is set in the shadow of the Holocaust, Simons says little about the horror that awaits her characters, yet she succeeds in giving the reader the sense that the novel is about more than a young girl's loss of innocence. In a fluid, almost casual style, she has written a masterly and timeless ode to a relatively carefree interlude in a dark and dramatic period. Translated from the Dutch by Liz Waters

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