The Swordfish
by Hugo Claus
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During the cause of an idyllic summer's day in the country a senseless crime is committed. In its wake, fantasies and passions, desire and loss unite the destinies of the villagers. Most affected is young Martin: his fertile imagination inspires him to identify now with the swordfish--terror of the seas--now with Clint Eastwood, but above all with Jesus Christ.Tags
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A summer afternoon in a Flemish village turns out a lot less idyllic than it looks, with all kinds of sexual and religious tensions floating around. The involvement of a police inspector makes it clear that something has gone badly wrong, but we are left until the last page to find out precisely who has been murdered.
Hugo Claus uses the 1989 Boekenweek novella to perform another hit and run attack on the Flemish middle classes: no-one comes out of this one well, with the partial exception of the murderer, for whom Claus seems to have at least a little sympathy.
Hugo Claus uses the 1989 Boekenweek novella to perform another hit and run attack on the Flemish middle classes: no-one comes out of this one well, with the partial exception of the murderer, for whom Claus seems to have at least a little sympathy.
Rather uninteresting novella, by the Flemish author Hugo Claus.
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Author Information
Author and artist Hugo Claus was born in Bruges, Belgium in 1929. While in Paris, in his early twenties, he explored surrealism, existentialism, and modernism as a member of the Cobra group of experimentalist artists. Later in Rome he concerned himself with filmmaking and actually produced a film called Friday for which he wrote the script show more himself. He can be regarded as the primary developer of a technique which has become known as intertextuality. Its application in The Sign of the Hamster led to accusations of plagiarism, an accusation which many critics rejected because of the recognizability of the references which vary from the classics to the Middle Ages and his own time. He gained recognition as painter, poet, playwright, filmmaker, and writer of classical, psychological, modernist, and experimentalist novels. His best known work is The Sorrow of Belgium. The book consists of two parts, the first strongly autobiographic, situated in a Roman Catholic boarding school in Belgium, from which Louis, the protagonist, is expelled. The second part describes the experiences of a large number of people, including Louis's mother and father, during and shortly after World War II. He was charged with blasphemy for the play Masscheroen because of his irreverent representation of the Holy Trinity on the stage. This charge and the possibility of plagiarism identify Claus as a controversial writer. He died by euthanasia in Antwerp, Belgium on March 19, 2008. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Has as a student's study guide
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Swordfish
- Original title
- De zwaardvis
- Original publication date
- 1989
- Important places*
- Brugge, West-Vlaanderen, België; België
- Epigraph*
- Hoe zal het zijn wanneer de zwaardvis nadert
in 't wassend water der barbaarse dromen?
MAURICE GILLIAMS - Dedication*
- Voor Oscar, met mijn dank voor zijn Italiaans Concert
- First words*
- Sibylle Verhegge, die acht maanden geleden nog Sibylle Ghyselen heette, zit in haar bikini in een ligstoel op het terras haar teennagels parelmoer te lakken.
- Last words*
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)'Natuurlijk bloedde zij.'
- Original language*
- Nederlands
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
- Genres
- General Fiction, Fiction and Literature
- DDC/MDS
- 839.31364 — Literature & rhetoric German & related literatures Other Germanic literatures Netherlandish literatures Dutch Dutch fiction 20th Century 1945-1999
- LCC
- PT6410 .C553 .Z413 — Language and Literature German, Dutch and Scandinavian literatures Flemish literature since 1830 Individual authors or works
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 319
- Popularity
- 99,630
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (2.71)
- Languages
- 8 — Danish, Dutch, English, German, Norwegian (Bokmål), Norwegian, Spanish, Swedish
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 9
