Maxim Februari

In a dormitory-village in the Dutch countryside, an exclusive book-club is pressured into reading a new novel by a young woman who grew up amongst them. And, naturally, old wounds are reopened, and the members of the club — mostly lawyers and top civil servants — find themselves confronted with the moral consequences of their own actions.

It's a fun idea to shake the book-club out of its normal role as passive consumer of literature, and Februari gets some mileage out of the moral show more ambiguities of liberal western society in the early 21st century, but this otherwise struck me as an oddly tentative book, that keeps stepping back on the brink of going deeply into any of the main characters. An enjoyable, but slightly odd, mix of moral critique and superficial society novel. show less

Heerlijk associatief geschreven.

Onconventioneel om alles wat in je opkomt, als in het schrijven van een brief als adolescent aan een geestverwant, in de tekst te zetten.

Blijkt bij navraag natuurlijk dat het allemaal overdacht gecomponeerd is; net als de opbouw van radiouitzending van vee-pee-ree-oos Ron-flon-flon op woensdagmiddag destijds.

Ondertussen zijn er twee verhaallijnen vervlochten. Twee? Niet bij te houden hoeveel; En dan mis ik nog kennis van Filosofie en Recht om alles te show more begrijpen, twee keer lezen kan geen kwaad. show less

This was a story of a group of powerbrokers - bankers, legal, academics - who lived in a village outside Amsterdam and used the book club as a networking opportunity. The members had business relationships with many powerbrokers throughout the world and were able to use their influence to benefit themselves and to change policy in countries throughout the world. In this particular scenario the members were well aware of how 80 children in a third world country die after ingesting cough show more medicine which was contaminated. The owner of the business who sold the contaminated product was a well known member of the book club. Mysteriously all evidence linking him to the disaster disappeared and the parents of the children were unable to sue the company. Even though the others members of the book club were aware they did nothing to assist the grief stricken parents. They totally ignored the situation hoping it would just go aware. Things came to a head when the daughter of the disgraced business man wrote a book. This book was not easy to read however I persevered. I wonder how often this scenario actually happens in real life. More often that we think I am sure. show less

As of late, the author prefers and uses 'Max' or 'Maximiliaan' while his official last name is Drenth. Previous work listed and was published under a multitude of pseudonyms, which could be categorized into two groups of each three names. The initial "M" which sometimes refers to the female side of the author, as Marjolein Drenth or M. Februari and M. Drenth von Februar, and recently the male side of the author, Max.

The same ambivalence is found in Een pruik van paardenhaar & Over het lezen show more van een boek. Amartya Sen en de onmogelijkheid van de Paretiaanse liberaal which is neither purely a novel nor exclusively as a thesis, although it did fulfill this role as a PhD thesis. The title suggests a dual publication under dual authorship, while in fact, it is a single work under two pseudonyms which refer to a single author.

An earlier novel, De zonen van het uitzicht (1989) was anaemic and bland, but hailed as promising. This was followed by Een pruik van paardenhaar & Over het lezen van een boek. Amartya Sen en de onmogelijkheid van de Paretiaanse liberaal more than a decade later, in 2000. Presenting the work as literary or consisting of both literary and scientific passages is somewhat deluding. The work is a highly cerebral, theoretical and philosophical work on ethics.

Not for ordinary readers, extraordinary, perhaps. show less