Godfried Bomans (1913–1971)

This is an uncharacterisable, but quite glorious, bit of sophisticated silliness: Bomans pretends to be editing the unfinished memoirs of the distinguished elder statesman Pieter Bas, which unfortunately "end where most political memoirs begin", at the point where Bas is just about to leave university and embark on his long career in local, national and international politics. Despite a substantial advance from his publisher, all that His Excellency has got around to committing to paper by show more the time of his death is a jolly account of his childhood in Dordrecht in the 1850s and 60s, with special reference to the eccentricities of his teachers and to the pretty girls he used to take for walks along the Merwede, and a few notes of his student days in Leiden.

Bomans was a big Dickens fan, the Dutch translator of Pickwick Papers, and a lot of the humour and atmosphere here is straight out of Dickens, but there's also obviously a lot that comes from his own memories of growing up in a middle-class family in a Dutch provincial town, and from his father's political career. It's not heavy-duty political satire, by any means, but a gentle teasing of people who take themselves too seriously and forget that the experience of childhood and adolescence is not merely a training ground but — crucially — also an important part of life in itself.

The Victorian-style drawings by Bomans' partner-in-crime, Harry Prenen, are exactly what the text needs to complete it. show less

A charming mixed bag of parodies, fantasy pieces and serious essays, mostly from the 1940s and 1950s, by North Holland’s leading Dickens enthusiast. To give us a clear flavour of what to expect, the book opens with a mock-serious report supposedly describing the narrator’s work as part of a commission charged with eliminating the scandalous amounts of nudity to be found on public sculptures in Dutch cities. Gentle irony was Bomans’s favourite tone, and we find a lot of it here: it all show more feels delightfully old-fashioned. But it’s not just frivolity: there’s also plenty of acute artistic judgment here. When he’s talking about Nicolaas Beets or about Dickens or Goethe, he knows what he wants to say, and he has the evidence to support his opinions. Good reading fodder for a cold winter evening. show less

One of my all-time favourite story collections. Originally published in 1947, Bomans' “Kopstukken” presents twenty little tongue-in-cheek interviews (well, mostly interviews) with self-appointed VIPs, taking a satirical look at pettiness and self-importance. Bomans expertly pokes his delicate fun at the human tendency to want to stand out, the need to feel valuable and special. The Gamelan specialist (“De gamelan-kenner”) is a particularly fine example: the audience's comically show more exaggerated reactions to what they perceive to be an authority on something as arcane as gamelans are minutely planned and skilfully executed. All stories are presented in a charming, playfully archaic Dutch that is eminently suited to the theme.

That is not to say that these stories do not have drawbacks. In a collection of twenty roughly similar stories in which, basically, only the interviewee differs, it does get hard to keep on presenting new techniques and devices to bring out the pettiness. But even with Bomans' recycling of tricks, this collection does not bore easily, mainly because the interviews are so short (around two or three pocket-size pages), and because his interviewees differ enough in their occupations and in the way they carry their self-importance.

Some interviews end quite abruptly once the point has been made, evidently because Bomans didn't feel like dragging it out any further – the rather unsatisfying The Grandmaster “De grootmeester” is a case in point. One or two stories (e.g. The conversation “Het gesprek” and The clairvoyant “De helderziende”) don't have much of a central idea, at least not enough to support the entire tale. But these are easily outweighed by magnificently composed pieces like The Vondel jubilee in Beetsterzwaag “De Vondelherdenking te Beetsterzwaag” or The fire station manager“De Brandmeester”. These two are surely the finest tales in this collection.

None of these stories will make you laugh out loud -- the satire is too mild and too subtle for that. But if you're in for half an hour of private little smiles, then this book will not let you down. show less

Fris en fruitig alsof het gisteren geschreven was en niet in 1940. Bomans treft precies de juiste naïeve toon en heeft een vlotte vertelstijl. Af en toe opgeleukt met typische Bomans-grapjes. Het hoofdstuk over de doodgravertjes is meesterlijk. Merkwaardig is wel dat de schrijver denkt dat bijen hun honing direct uit de bloemen halen, in plaats van nectar. Vergeet ook de voorwoorden bij de verschillende drukken niet te lezen, komische stukken op zichzelf.