A long-time, albeit critical, fan of Grunbergs work, I was happy to enjoy Tirza, after not having appreciated much his previous novel, Onze oom. Tirza starts on quite a slow pace, without getting tedious, and the more rapid pace later on works very well with the way the plot develops. The main character is worked out very well (IMHO). I'm curious about the movie, as I can't really see this story work just as well on the screen.

I had high expectations when starting this book, but I must say that the brother's storyline took things a little too far into the absurd. I would have liked to see the parents' characters and the relationship between them developed more. As it is now, it feels like a lot has been left unsaid, which of course is not necessarily a bad thing, but to me there is a bit of imbalance between the 'surreal' and the 'real'.