Nicolaas Matsier

Gesloten huis. Zelfportret met ouders (Engl. "Closed home. Self-portrait with parents"), is a reflective and unpretentious novel. After the death of the parents, the children, the narrator, Tjit Reinsma, is one of them, come to clear out the home: all the furniture, possessions, books, papers and diaries of the deceased parents must removed. Various possessions, photos, and objects, recall memories, not only in the narrator in the story, but also in the reader. Remembered stories of the show more parents war-time experience, finding food and kindling during the cold "hunger winter", in the last year of the war, 1944, walking all over North-Holland, are memories shared by many people in that province.

There are many tender memories in the book: recognizable for anyone who grew up in the Netherlands between 1960 and 1980; household items, brand names of typical products. The novel is a warehouse of Dutch cultural images of the Twentieth Century.

The life of the Tjit Reinsma mirrors the life of many Dutch contemporaries, particularly the lives of the baby-boomers, many of whom have suffered a form of manic depression. After clearing out the parents home, Tjit turns to clean out his own home, to deal with the ghosts in his own life. The hardest task are the removal of the parents diaries, and papers he wrote during his depression. They do not only describe the siblings earliest youth, but also the family mystery: the tragedy that had been shrouded, and was never talked about, buried in the mists of the past. The post-war welfare state brought affluence and prevented unnecessary deaths, as for instance the death of children at an early age, as could still happen during the early Fifties. These lost and painful experiences, the knowledge of what had happened to the two siblings of the narrator, Jan and Rita, when he was only five years old, a truth he can barely face.

Gesloten huis. Zelfportret met ouders was first published in 1994. He gave the main character his real name: Tjit Reinsma. Reinsma was born in Krommenie, as small town in North-Holland. show less

Well-written but not memorable.

Het - grootste - stuk, over de herinneringen over de familie, eigenaardigheden, wel en wee, dagelijks leven rond het huis en het omgaan met het leeg opleveren van het huis, leest fijn! Voor mij hadden de bladzijdes over 'het gat' er niet op die manier in gehoeven. Stijlbreuk. De oorzaak ervan komt toch wel naar voren.
Het verhaal spreekt extra aan omdat ik in Den Haag woon

The - biggest - piece , the memories of the family , oddities, ups and downs , everyday life around the house and dealing show more with the empty yield of the house, i a great read ! For me were the pages of ' the gap ' not useful. it's a fracture in style . It's cause will be cleared up later though.
The story address me because I live in The Hague show less

Het visitekaartje was published as a relational gift, published for the New Year of 2005-2006 in a limited edition of 250 copies. The text was first published as a column in a newspaper in 1995, and later collected in the volume Dicht bij huis, published in 1996 to commemorate Alje Olthof. Olthof was a graphic designer.
Het visitekaartje is a smallish booklet that tells the story of the design of a business card for the author, Nicolaas Matsier.