Joe Speedboot

A quirky coming-of-age novel set in an archetypically shut-in small community behind the dyke of one of the Great Rivers that cross the middle of the Netherlands. Lomark is a place so obscure that when Rijkswaterstaat finally decide to build a bypass around it, they don't bother to provide the villagers with a connection, and it seems their only way out in future will be over Piet Honing's ferry.

The chronicler of Lomark life is Frans, who has lost the use of both legs and one arm in an accident in his mid-teens, and doesn't hesitate to see the worst in those around him. But he does form a bond with another outsider in the village, the boy who insists on being called Joe Speedboat, and with a couple of other slightly less marginal show more teens. Where Frans is necessarily someone who spends most of his time sitting in his wheelchair and watching, Joe takes life in both hands, committing himself to projects that should be well beyond his skill level, quite apart from being things no sane adult would allow him to do. Wieringa allows himself a bit of Tom Sawyerish bending of realism here to demonstrate how Joe's absolute conviction that he can do something usually permits him to achieve it, even if the results aren't always what he might wish. Joe's Egyptian stepfather Mahfouz ("Papa Africa") is credited with a similar semi-magical ability to complete projects.

This isn't exactly an escapist fantasy about adolescence, though. We're always being pulled down to earth by Frans's darkly cynical realism, and we are shown that these kids don't live happily ever after — they suffer the same fate as all the rest of us, and turn into adults who have to deal with the pointlessness, mediocrity and arbitrary pain of real life.

Wieringa is very good at what he does, there are a lot of sharp observations of provincial, working-class Dutch culture and some good jokes. But it's a bit hard to say whether there's any more than that. show less

Note: review in English, though I read the original Dutch version. Mild spoilers.

Joe Speedboot is one of those modern Dutch classics that makes it onto many a highschooler’s literature list, as did it on mine. Perhaps indicative of the student I was back in highschool, I never read Wieringa’s text though, and everything I knew about the book going into my exams was what I read in online summaries of varying quality. This is not to say I didn’t like reading, but I was a poor planner, and I simply didn’t have enough time left.
However, just reading poor summaries made me regret not having been a better planner, as the story of Joe Speedboot stuck with me.

Now, years later, I finally got around to picking up a copy and took the time show more to read it. As I knew the story but never read the original text, it was an odd sensation of familiarity, like coming back to a town you have visited years ago, and though much is the same, an equal amount has changed. And perhaps this sensation is fitting for the nature of the book.

Fransje Hermans is already disappointed with life, at least with how life is in a sleepy Dutch town in the nineties of the twentieth century, at thirteen. Although he may not have made the conscious decision that he wants to die, something makes him lay down in that field of tall grass with the knowledge that it will be mowed by large, industrial mowers, and something keeps him from getting up despite the sound of the mower getting ever closer.
In his own words, only one thing makes him turn back to the light after all days in a comatose state, the coming of whom he believes to be a messiah, someone who will alter life for the better, Joe Speedboot.

Joe Speedboot combines classical elements of Dutch literature, (the echo of the second world war, a disillusioned protagonist and a naturalistic setting) with fantastical events ripped straight out of a book for mischievous young boys. What books like those never show, however, is that even mischievous boys don’t stay young forever. In the Dutch nineties of Joe Speedboot, even Peter Pans have to grow up and have to deal with reality. Can a messiah exist in an ever more secularized society?

Besides being touching, exciting, humorous and gritty, in the present day Joe Speedboot is also becoming a testimony to a bygone age. show less

Si hay algo que me resulta difícil de encontrar es una novela en la que el personaje principal me resulte interesante. "Los hombres que no amaban a las mujeres" no sólo construye personajes profundos y multifacéticos, sino que se mete en el lado B del poder a distintas escalas con una crudeza que muchos quisieran poder imitar sin caer en lugares comunes de violencia explícita. Algunas situaciones son tan fuertes por lo que implican que no queda otra más que darse cuenta de que el mundo en el que vivimos debe tener, al menos, un personaje similar por cada uno de los que aparecen en el libro.

Espectacular.

This is the kind of book people are enthusiastic about, and I just don't get it. Yes, there are some absolutely brilliant jokes in it and yes, the style is very intelligent and yes the characters are deep.
However, the book is also very pompous. Frans thinks things no teenager would think, no matter how deprived of speech they are. It helped me get through the book rather quickly, because I skipped all those pages full of dull observations and I enjoyed the story all the more for it. Call me superficial, but it sure worked for me. Loved the ending of the book by the way.

Frankie wakes from a coma to find he has missed two months of school, is paralyzed, can't speak, and that there is a new kid in town. Self-named Joe Speedboat has moved into this small Dutch port town with a bang. Literally. Joe likes to build bombs. This small, gritty town is the setting for a coming-of-age story that features a tight group of boys, their infatuation with the adorable South African ex-pat, PJ, arm wrestling tournaments and more.
This reads like a contemporary Tom Sawyer and despite the poverty and bleakness of the setting, this is a beautiful morality tale with a deeply satisfactory ending.
The translation was wonderful, and the global perspective fascinating. I can't wait to publicize this book with students and teachers.

Wow, ik weet niet zeker waarom ik zo lang gewacht heb met het lezen van dit boek. Het past helemaal in mijn straatje, maar ik kon denk ik niet helemaal geloven dat een Nederlandse auteur dit soort werk geloofwaardig zou kunnen doen. Er gebeurt zo lekker veel. Een echte coming-of-age novel met echte helden en toch geen platte personages.

Fourteen year old Frankie Hermans is just coming out of a coma of 200 days, during this time a new boy arrived in the small Dutch town of Lomark, Frankie's home. Coinciding with Joe's arrival are several bomb explosions in the town, the two are not unrelated, and Joe's abilities go beyond creating a bang, he proves capable of building his own airplane from scratch, and finds a good use for a redundant bulldozer, he is truly a creative mechanic and a free spirit.

Frankie's recovery leaves him with severe physical limitations, but he and Joe soon strike up a friendship, along with Christof and Engel, and later the beautiful and desirable P.J. While Frankie is restricted in mobility and speech, he has the use of his right arm, which show more develops remarkable strength; under Joe's guidance he successfully enters the world or arm wrestling.

The account is related by an older Frankie as he looks back at his teenage years. The friendship he describes with Joe is one of unselfishness and care, Joe unquestioningly will do whatever is needed for Frankie, and even their rivalry for P.J.'s affections does not interfere with their friendship. Joe Speedboat is an unusual, beautiful and touching story of friendship and growing up in a small provincial town. show less