Afgang

The penultimate part of Het Bureau takes us into the mid-1980s, when office life had been changed forever by the invention of the Post-It note and the computer was making inroads even into the humanities and social sciences. Government cuts are still the flavour of the moment, and the Institute seems to be under threat.

Maarten Koning is now in his late fifties, starting to become a little battle-weary, and he declines to apply for the post when his boss for the last twenty years, Jaap Balk, steps down. There’s a lot of complex infighting around the appointment of the new director, and the usual range of crises around serious concerns like office furniture or trivialities like the future of the subject and the balance between show more publication pressure and quality of research. Meanwhile, as tends to happen more and more when you get to that age, Maarten has to deal with the deaths of friends and family. Voskuil’s strictly chronological narrative continues to tease us with plot threads that get tucked away to be resumed hundreds of pages later when that particular committee has its next meeting. Insanely detailed, but still full of stuff that anyone who has ever worked in a public-service office will be able to identify with. show less

This is the sixth book in the “Het Bureau” series, the autobiographical story of Voskuil’s working life. In this part, the institute’s director retires, there is a political struggle to determine who will replace him, several people close to Maarten and Nicolien die, and at the end of the book, Maarten retires himself.
The book, like the last one, focusses more and more on Maarten’s personal life, and his emotional reactions to his working life. The subjects, the papers, articles and conferences are not as important as they were in the beginning, which makes the book a lot more readable. Other than that this is a continuation of the previous five books, and I really liked it.

Nog steeds als afdelingshoofd op het bureau (het A.P. Beerta-Instituut), met voortdurend de dreiging van bezuinigingen dan wel opheffing van het bureau, vreemde benoemingen van hogerhand, gekonkel in het bureau, maar Maarten houdt stand. De onzekerheid blijft en na lezing van tot nu toe zes delen, weet ik nog steeds niet of een dergelijk instituut bestaansrecht heeft. Maarten gaat aan het eind van het boek met de VUT.
Nog één boek te gaan...

Vorige week vrijdag is het laatste deel van "Het bureau", deel 7 gepubliceerd. Ik ben dus bijna bij. IN deel 6 sterven verschillende mensen die een voorname plaats in de serie hebben ingenomen: Meneer Beerta, de oud-directeur, de moeder van Nicolien en Frans Veen, een vriend van Maarten en Nicolien. Verder neemt Jaap Balk afscheid als directeur en op het eind van dit deel gaat Maarten met de VUT. Opnieuw is dit deel zeer gedetailleerd beschreven en een genot om te lezen.
UItgelezen: vrijdag 24 november 2000