Rituals

Man is a sad mammal that combs its hair….

Recently in a lit forum, a poster started a thread bemoaning the lack of “Existential Novelists” in contemporary world literature. “Where are the new Sartres and Camus?” he asked…
The Dutch Novelist Cees Nooteboom (pronounced Case Note-bom) won the Pegasus Prize for his 1973 novel Rituelen (Rituals in the English version wonderfully rendered by Adrienne Dixon). While I am willing to wager that Nooteboom would not be comfortable in going so far as to call this an ‘existential novel’, it most definitely takes the Big Absence question head on, even having one of the major characters quote the crusty (largely now absent) author of Nausea repeatedly.

Viscera (aka Good Faith/Bad show more Faith)
Inni Wintrop our hero wanders Amsterdam in the book’s three sections, taking place in the 60’s, 50’s and 70’s. We meet him after his wife Zita has left him for an Italian, and he botches a suicide attempt. The novel’s second section looks back at a younger Inni and his fateful encounter with the first of the two characters (or ‘Others’) that will give the narrative its hinge points: Arnold Taads, one of the more intriguing characters in contemporary literary fiction. The last section’s narrative jumps to the 70’s and is centered around the enigmatic Philip Taads, (unacknowledged) son of Arnold.

Bones (aka Despair and Nausea)
This section was originally intended to be left blank by way of illustration, but I decided that like Inni Wintrop, amusement and distraction is helpful while floating detached above the void that is our existence. The 145 page novel is a condensed three movement work. Nooteboom places the named section Intermezzo first. The third person narrator, though unnamed, relates the story while drawing conclusions and observations in a wry understated voice as a self conscious teller of this tale. The tale teller distances the reader as an observer, which conducts the reader to experience Inni’s story with the same detachment as Inni’s experiences his world;


"He refused to allow them in, that’s what it boiled down to. He might be sitting in the audience following the action attentively, certainly if the actors were as fascinating as this one, but really to be a part of it was impossible. He remained, even if he felt sympathy for the actor, an onlooker. If you kept silent, the stories would come all by themselves."

After his wife abandons him and his failure to cease existing, inertia is overcome only by gravity, and Inni’s life somewhat reluctantly rolls along. We are not yet to judge Inni’s unwillingness to be an ‘actor’, to define himself (in the existentialist sense) since it is hinted that one has to allow that Inni is a most willing ‘experiencer’, open to the flux that is the possible. A friend comments to him that he does not so much live, as “allow himself to be distracted”. Time IS a major problem for Inni, more specifically, how he experiences it. As an unengaged reactant, he has little control over the tempo at which he is amused. Since he is open to the whims of chaos and uncertainty, (floating after all, does have its consequences) his attitude to the future is not so much dread as a helpless boredom. In an absurd version of ‘becoming’, Inni’s single ‘ambition’ is to interact, to connect with the sexual feminine. The unnamed narrator associates Inni’s act of climax as a twist on transformation in the spiritual sense. Since this carefully crafted novel explores rituals as a symbol of how three main characters relate to their idea of the world, physically and metaphysically, Inni’s conquests, of his tortured feminine construct is HIS ritual.

The Two Taads: (or East does not meet West)
Meeting Inni as a young man, the Sartre quoting Arnold Taads first trigger’s in our hero the idea of ‘Becoming’, that even the notion that one’s self could change, could transform, was a possibility. Arnold Taads leads a time afflicted monastic existence. He was raised a Catholic but estranged himself from the church after a sojourn into Sartre’s writings.
He has ritualized the basic functions of his existence, his eating sleeping and reading take place to the minute in his self imposed prison of time. Through Arnold Taads, Inni and the reader get a first hand penetrating exploration of one individuals grappling with the question of belief in a Godless universe. In a wonderful scene of dinner conversation between Taads and the Clergyman Monsignor Terrue , the exchange is acutely poignant overcoming its lighthearted tone. Inni distills from this the sense of utter isolation and loneliness of Arnold Taads:

"He had discovered from this that a distance can exist between people which expresses such a terrible otherness that anyone witnessing it will almost die of melancholy. Everyone knows these things, but no one has always known them-upright walking creatures of the same species, who moreover use the same language to make it clear to each other that there is an unbridgeable chasm between them."

The last ‘Other’ that Inni’s self is reflected against is Phillip Taads, the estranged son of Arnold Taads who Inni meets by sheer chance when Inni is now a balding 40something dilettante art trader.
Like the father, the son is similarly isolate and lonely, literally a monk in an apartment. Nooteboom works in symbolism of the trinity and transubstantiation, examining the rituals of both Eastern ceremony, and orthodox mysticism in counterpointing the two Taads. Philip is a Japanese student who is a practicing Taoist. Ironically like his father, he embraces the suffering aspect of the self’s coping with the aridity of nonexistence (or existence in a Godless void). The Japanese Ceremony of Tea is compared to the ritual of the Catholic Eucharist. The rituals are an expression of each individual’s belief . They share the idea of transformation. Wine into Blood is compared with the mixing of the tea in the sacred bowl in the eastern thought. This is ironically compared to Inni’s own ritual of transcendence, his epiphany of memory when he first drank malt whisky with Arnold Taads. For Nooteboom, this will to transform, or transcend as exemplified by the trinity of the Taads and the Monsignor are all in essence an expression of escape. Even to the extent of equating it with the absurd escape of this world by suicide. Notably Nooteboom’s Rituals refuses to release Inni into the atmosphere of despair and alienation untethered. The loneliness of Father and Son Taads, itself is absurd:

"The universe could do quite well without this world, and the world could do quite well without people, things and Inni Wintrop for a while. But unlike Arnold and Philip Taads, he did not mind waiting for events to take their course. After all, it might take another thousand years. He had a first class seat in the auditorium, and the play was by turns horrific, lyrical, comic, tender, cruel and obscene."

What I Took Away (to the background music of Float On by Modest Mouse)

This novel has been I think rightly referred to as a fable. This maybe be the most thought-provoked-per-page of fiction I have read in recent memory. It contains enough quotable sentences to provide forum signatures for years. The remarkable part is that it manages be profound and penetrating while being accessible and eminently interesting. A lot of this has to do with creating characters as captivating as the protagonist and two major players as potent as the Taads. Certain swedes could do much worse than awarding Cees Nooteboom the holy grail of literary prizes. show less

The story of Rituals is told by Inni Wintrop, a man with enough money to float through life dabbling in a handful of ad hoc professions. Through family and work he first encounters Arnold Taads, a former champion skier, deeply unhappy, who has regimented every minute of every day in order to avoid living in them. Many years later Inni meets Philip Taads, the son Arnold never acknowledged. Philip leads an austere, timeless existence attempting to efface himself in meditation and the purity of tea ceremony.

Although the plot may seem, well, rather plot-less, I found the book to be completely enthralling. The language is exquisite and the thoughts on the nature of existence were mostly handled with a light touch -- not overly academic or show more preachy, but blended into the narrator's thoughts without becoming a 20-page treatise. I cannot begin to explain how mesmerizing I found this novella. show less

Nadat hij het goed deed als eerste boekenlijstroman, heb ik hem ditmaal voor de tweede keer gelezen. Bewonderenswaardig, sterk in nagenoeg elk aspect. Het is een verhaal doordrenkt met, zoals de titel al doet vermoeden, verschillende rituelen; variërend van Christelijke gebruiken tot de uitvoering van de Japanse theeceremonie. De ceremonie is dan ook een terugkerend thema, evenals de tijd (en het omgaan daarmee) en de zelfverkozen dood.

Er zijn drie belangrijke hoofdpersonen in het verhaal waarvan één, de verteller, Inni Wintrop: een alles en iedereen observerend personage, op een vreemde manier betrokken bij het leven maar toch niet echt eraan deelnemend. Dan komen vader en zoon Taads nog aan bod: beiden gekweld door een zelf show more opgelegde extreme eenzaamheid, buitenstaanders van een wereld die zij, elk op hun eigen, totaal verschillende maar in essentie gelijke manier haten en zoveel mogelijk proberen te ontvluchten. De personages hebben ieder een eigenaardige, zelfs krampachtige manier van omgaan met de tijd: waar vader Arnold Taads zijn leven exact op de klok inricht staat de tijd voor zijn zen-extremistische zoon eerder stil, terwijl Inni leeft in een wirwar van verleden en toekomst waarbij het heden eigenlijk het enige is waar hij grip op heeft (of beter gezegd, wat hij bevatten kan).

De omgeving die Cees Nooteboom schetst spreekt erg tot de verbeelding, het boek is doordrenkt van vergelijkingen, associaties en verstopte verwijzingen.
Één van de beste boeken die ik ooit in mijn handen heb gehad. show less

Exceptional, strong 4.5. We follow our central character, Inni, through his wanderings as he seeks his unique solution to life. Inni is an odd individual (as all Wintrops are!) who sees and feels very intensely, but differently to others, all that happens around him. This is by turns entertaining, sad and fascinating, as Inni has an inheritance drop in his lap that allows him to wander through life in relative freedom in Amsterdam post WW2. This doesn't in any way capture the quality of this wonderful novel, but neither does the introduction of this edition by A.S. Byatt, one simply has to read it to get the experience.

"The orderliness that reigned in the room was frightening. The only form of accident was the dog, because he moved. It was, though Inni, a room like a mathematical problem. Everything was in equilibrium, each thing fitted in with the other. A bunch of flowers, a child, a disobedient dog, or a visitor arriving ten minutes early would wreak havoc here. All the furniture was gleaming white, of a vindictive, Calvinist modernity. The irresponsible sunlight drew geometric shadows on the linoleum. For the second time that afternoon he felt fear." (pg. 29)

Well structured short novel with taught descriptions and strong characterization. Explores elements of existentialism, phenomenology, Catholicism, and mysticism without being didactic or show more esoteric. Some elements haven't aged well (e.g. objectification of all female characters by the narrator as well as the protagonist; vague "oriental" and African exoticism), and the perpetually sardonic tone of presentation begins to tax your stores of empathy as a reader - still, there is some great prose here, and despite the thin plot I found it hard to put the book down by the second section (suspense and dread propel you forward even though there are no real intrigues or surprises). show less

I took this book to be an exploration of how people can deal with the feeling of emptiness in their lives. Some people follow strictly regimented schedules, others fall back on traditions and complicated ceremonies. Still others fall back on a code of doing nothing seriously and instead live a life of aimless wandering and dabbling. All of these strategies are the titular rituals, by which we attempt to cover up the world's meaninglessness with wobbling structures of our own creation. Maybe some of these rituals are healthier than others, as the novel demonstrates that the collapse of such structures (brought about, perhaps, by the realization that they are also ultimately without meaning) can have undesirable consequences. I very much show more enjoyed this book as a meandering intellectual examination of life and what we do to try and survive it. If you're after a book with a plot, look elsewhere. show less

The story follows Inni Wintrop as he wanders through life looking for Meaning (in the absence of a god) and encounters father and son, one of whom has adopted time as his savior and the other for whom Zen-like rituals lets him escape time. This has numerous interesting thoughts and ideas about life and being and the writing is of very high quality. It wasn’t, however, a particularly enjoyable read for me as the characters are ideas rather than people and I had had an easier time had this been a straight-forward philosophical essay. If you’re into Existential or Post-Modern literature, it will most likely be a better read for you than it was for me.