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M.A. Orthofer
A fundamental cosmopolitanism in Lomark and the Wieringerwaard
Contemporary Dutch fiction from a foreign perspective
Almost every national literature has different contours for foreign readers than it does for domestic ones, but in the case of Dutch literature the differences are especially pronounced. Several significant authors barely figure abroad: Gerard Reve's work is fairly well-known in France, but has never made any real inroads in Great Britain or America, despite the fact that he occasionally wrote in English (The Acrobat; A Prison Song in Prose); his De Avonden has not even been published in English. Jan Wolkers is remembered only as the author of Turkish Delight [Turks fruit], and that only because of the film version - much as the prolific Ferdinand Bordewijk is known, if at all, only as the author of a book that was made into an Academy Award-winning movie, Character [Karakter]. Meanwhile, due to their sheer mass, the epic works by J.J. Voskuil and A.F.Th. van der Heijden are unlikely to ever reach much of a foreign audience, regardless of how acute their depictions of contemporary society are (though for now van der Heijden's books do continue to appear regularly in translation at least in neighboring Germany).
The Netherlands is a famously flat country and seen from abroad, via translation and the hearsay of reputation, its literature seems similarly inconspicuous, the country's topographic low profile matching its literary one. Contours change - Willem Frederik Hermans has finally begun to emerge in translation, and take his rightful place in the modern European canon - but at a distance, beyond the national and linguistic borders, little seems to stand out. Certainly, Dutch literature lacks the towering classical author(s) that so many other national literatures have, its own Goethe, Shakespeare, or Cervantes. There is no obvious pre-eminent modern figure either
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- not even a second-tier Nobel laureate to fall back on, as Dutch-writing authors remain shut out from the prize that continues to be the ultimate literary validation. Yet even without relying on some of its greatest names - Bordewijk, Reve, Voskuil, among others - Dutch literature has established itself internationally. What at first seems entirely unassuming turns out to be far more pervasive and popular. Modern Dutch fiction, like Dutch business interests, has a significant global presence, one considerably greater than might be expected, given the size of the population of the Netherlands. Its success is not limited to a few authors, either, but spread among many, suggesting a more fundamental solidity and appeal to it: there's something about Dutch literature, it would seem.
Nowhere near as much Dutch fiction is translated into other languages as that originally written in English, French, or other much more widely spoken languages, but it more than holds its own among those with similarly few speakers. To focus on Dutch fiction in translation amounts to skimming the surface - a few dozen of the leading titles in a good year, not all of them translated into the same languages - and certainly does not make for an entirely representative picture. But in considering the position of Dutch writing in contemporary Europe and beyond it can be helpful to look at it from this more limited and foreign vantage point, skewed though it is - as it is that odd skew of what is translated and what is not that is particularly indicative of how Dutch fiction fits in elsewhere.
A robust Dutch reading culture allows for a fertile writing culture: there are enough readers, critics, booksellers, and publishers - or, to put it more fundamentally, there is enough interest - to sustain a largely thriving domestic market. That alone is no small thing; few nations manage quite as well on all these fronts, and especially in providing support - in terms of money, respect, and attention - to writers. From the domestic institution of the Boekenweek to efforts at promoting Dutch literature abroad, now led by the Nederlands Letterenfonds, advocacy for every aspect of literary production and consumption is amazingly broad-based. This is merely a foundation, as far as writing goes, but its solidity makes for a reassuring
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bulwark for writers. It also means that Dutch writers are relatively secure (compared to writers elsewhere, certainly) and this is, at least in part, reflected in their writing. Dutch authors aim less desperately for the sensational or experimental - or for base populism - than writers elsewhere. They do not try (or at least do not succeed) storming foreign best-seller lists, and are not a strong presence in any particular genre (as, for example, Scandinavian authors currently are in crime fiction). They hardly count among the literary avant-garde, either (though that is a very thin field these days). A few titles catch on abroad and sell in larger numbers, but for the most part the best they manage are what are politely called critical successes. It is a very solid body of work, but it is not loud or exhibitionist. It does not get noticed first - but then it neither tries nor has to. Indeed, it is almost as if they cannot help themselves: even a book like Flemish writer Paul Verhaeghen's Omega Minor, which has all the elements of - and is, in part, written in the style of - a crowd-pleasing airport thriller, is seen primarily as a serious novel of ideas.
Like the Scandinavian nations, the Netherlands has, in many ways, been a model country for several decades now, a wealthy, prominent center of trade and a leading, often exemplary tolerant liberal social democracy. (The fractures evident since the rise and assassination of Pim Fortuyn may well lead to a reassessment, but have not obviously done so yet.) The Netherlands has often been at the forefront of the social and cultural change faced in the Western world and beyond since the end of the Second World War, from the declining role of Christianity and leveling of class differences to greater sexual (and general) permissiveness and all the manifestations of rapid globalization. Dutch authors have often been among the first to address and integrate these in their fiction; more significantly, they have come to do so in books that are not simply conspicuously issue-oriented but rather treat these subjects incidentally, presenting what have become ways of life. As such, Dutch fiction has often portrayed a society slightly ahead of the times from the rest of most of Europe. In this way Dutch fiction has often pointed the way, suggesting to readers elsewhere what the repercussions of
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coming change might be. In a Europe that has trended increasingly rapidly towards the uniform, especially since the fall of the Soviet Union, more and more of the Dutch experience applies across the continent. While other national literatures still deal with particular domestic (and often transient) issues, such as the adjustments eastern European society is making or the greater social divides in some of the southern European countries, the Dutch body of literature has consistently been more widely relevant throughout Europe and beyond.
An awareness of the moral, philosophical, and political issues of the day (and an often almost casual way of treating these in fiction), as well as what exists beyond the homeland - in literature and the arts, in thought, in commerce - is discernible in much Dutch writing. Contemporary Dutch writing is, for want of a better word, cosmopolitan rather than provincial, even where it is intimate and local. Hence even a book such as Gerbrand Bakker's The Twin [Boven is het stil] - describing ways of life that are largely outmoded, and as intimate as any Dutch novel of recent years - could readily find international acclaim and be awarded one of the most prominent international literary prizes, the impac Dublin Literary Award (2010). This fundamental cosmopolitanism is not an entirely new phenomenon, and hardly surprising in a country that has long been internationally oriented in commerce and culture, but it has clearly become much more pronounced in the decades since the Second World War.
The contemporary European writing that most resembles the Dutch is that of Scandinavia (excluding its extraordinary recent wave of crime fiction success, a phenomenon in a category all its own), which shares similar high living standards, economic and political stability, and a liberal orientation. In Scandinavian fiction one finds a very similar form of engagement with culture and society, though it tends more towards isolation, the geographical separation of the Nordic countries reflected in their writing. Dutch fiction often appears very inward looking, the action even set in some out-of-the-way locale - as in Bakker's novel, or the fictional Lomark in Wester- | |
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veld in Tommy Wieringa's Joe Speedboat - but it is invariably informed by Dutch cosmopolitanism. (Contemporary Norwegian fiction is the most strikingly similar in this regard, with the works of writers such as Per Petterson, Jan Kjaerstad, Dag Solstad, Lars Saabye Christensen, Karl Ove Knausgård, and Jon Fosse.)
The outward awareness of Dutch authors - their sense of the world at large, even when the focus of their writing is on the domestic - is a marked characteristic of much Dutch writing, and likely also of its success. Long a trade-oriented economy, this attitude is presumably deeply ingrained in the society in general, though other factors also contribute to its influence specifically on authors. Among them is the nature of the Dutch literary market, which faces vigorous competition from English and, to a slightly lesser extent, German-language books, with a large Dutch audience able and often willing to turn straight to them rather than waiting for or relying on a translation. There are other countries where the use of English as a second language is widespread enough for there to be a significant readership of books in it, but Dutch is the only language which likely bestsellers, by writers such as Donna Tartt or John Irving, are regularly translated into even before any English-language edition appears anywhere else (including the United States or England).
It is not as if Dutch authors are threatened with being entirely crowded out of their own market by foreign ones, but clearly they cannot afford quite the complacency that seems to be prevalent in countries that are more uniformly monoglot and where local authors enjoy a more secure homefield advantage. This external pressure is surely a factor in a general orientation towards a European and even global audience - i.e. extending beyond the Netherlands - that is one of modern Dutch literature's defining attributes. More than almost anywhere else, Dutch writers seem to implicitly recognize that they are part of a larger market, while also being secure enough not to pander to it.
An international orientation among Dutch writers dates back at least to Louis Couperus. One might say he perfected it like no other: arguably, Couperus bridged more European writing than any other
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author of his times. From French naturalism to Wildean decadence to colonial and historical exoticism, Couperus's versatility still amazes. Already in his first novel, Eline Vere, Couperus turned away from the stale writing prevalent in the Netherlands at the time, trying to follow instead in the footsteps of the foreign masters of the day, including Zola and Tolstoy. His novel is a decidedly European one, a pivotal step in the history of Dutch literature. Couperus continued to find inspiration outside Holland, both in foreign writing and his own experiences abroad, but his fiction always went beyond the imitative, as he proved very adept at adapting influences. Several of his novels center on the Dutch colonial experience, notably The Hidden Force [De stille kracht] and Old People and the Things That Pass [Van oude menschen, de dingen, die voorbijgaan...], yet Couperus makes these more broadly accessible - in a way that, for example, Multatuli's idiosyncratic Max Havelaar cannot. As a work of fiction the ambitious Max Havelaar outshines any of Couperus's work, but it falls short of Couperus's facile and crowd-pleasing cosmopolitanism; it is a Dutch classic, but remains entirely too steeped in Dutch experience alone to be fully appreciated by modern foreign audiences.
Much else that Couperus wrote is no longer as fashionable: a fairy tale like Psyche, or his many historical fictions, such as his Heliogabalus-novel, De berg van licht (which, despite its sensational subject matter, was never even translated into English). Ultimately, Couperus's work may simply be too varied: generally we prefer our classical authors' writings to be more predictable. But much of it continues to hold up, and many contemporary Dutch authors share attributes with Couperus, the influence of their international orientation and experiences on their writing being the most obvious of these. The Dutch colonial experience - more limited than that of the French or English and, in what became Indonesia, more abruptly terminated - has been particularly influential, whether on those with direct experience of it such as Multatuli and Couperus or more recent writers, once removed from it, such as Adriaan van Dis. Since the end of the Second World War, however, a much broader international consciousness has permeated Dutch fiction; van Dis's
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fiction is one example of how it has extended beyond the colonial experience alone. (Peripherally, one cannot avoid mentioning Hella S. Haasse - born in Batavia while Couperus was still alive - who continues to enjoy considerable success with her historical novels. It is a genre whose audience tends to be particularly fickle, and it speaks for Haasse's mastery that she has enjoyed sustained success domestically and abroad. It is also noteworthy that her work is not restricted to this genre. Like Couperus she spent much of her youth in the Dutch East Indies, and like him she has also used that effectively in her other fiction; like Couperus she remains an exceptional case in Dutch literature.)
It is not all that common for writers to live for extended periods abroad, or at least in a country where a different language is spoken (unless, like authors from Joseph Conrad to Milan Kundera, they adopt that second language as their working one), presumably because of the difficulties of continuing to write in one language while everyday life passes in another. There are many exceptions - such as the many Latin American writers who worked in their countries' diplomatic corps - and political exigencies continue to yield a steady stream of writers-in-exile, but generally writers at best travel extensively, rather than live abroad. The Netherlands has been a country where, in recent years, a significant number of foreign writers, even without obvious previous ties to the country, have chosen to settle for extended periods. Dutch conditions, specifically a cosmopolitan, liberal-democratic environment that was, at least until recently, seen as very open and relatively welcoming, were no doubt major factors in leading authors to move there, but the strong literary culture likely also played a role. Some foreign-born authors have turned to writing in Dutch (from the likes of Lulu Wang to Kader Abdolah) while others continued writing in their native languages (Moses Isegawa, Dubravka Ugrešić); regardless of the extent to which they are integrated into the local community their presence certainly also helps to invigorate the domestic literary establishment, serving as another close and constant reminder of the world (and literature) beyond the Netherlands.
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The flow of international relocation goes in both directions, and the number of prominent Dutch writers who have spent extended periods abroad - or still do - is also considerable. With the United States the preferred second home, these include Leon de Winter, Arnon Grunberg, and the Flemish Paul Verhaeghen - as well as, going farther back, Janwillem van de Wetering, and Robert van Gulik, who both also turned to writing in English. These moves abroad do not necessarily lead to more direct and overt engagement with that specific foreign culture, at least in their fiction: much of de Winter's and Grunberg's fiction is at least partially set abroad, but while they have used American settings these hardly dominate. Indeed, typical of much Dutch fiction, theirs is worldly in a more general way, their characters - mostly white men who are the sons of capitalist liberal democracy, with minimal financial-existential concerns (but loads of philosophically existential concerns) - travel or live abroad in a world that has become very small. Cees Nooteboom, perhaps the ultimate wandering literary Dutchman, features similar protagonists.
The outward awareness of these authors, deep-rooted and feeling entirely natural, stands in contrast to the often still self-conscious fiction by writers from former colonized countries, in which characters constantly measure themselves against the foreign. Dutch fiction remains European through and through, rarely making empathetic leaps in considering other cultures, especially the economically less developed: the developing world (beyond the historical Dutch East Indies) is confronted, for example, but from the point of view of outsider, interventionist, or what amounts to sightseer; a work such as Arthur Japin's The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi [De zwarte met het witte hart] is an exception (and also takes an historical approach, distancing the material from the contemporary reader's circumstances). The fiction of first-generation immigrants such as Kader Abdolah, Hafid Bouazza, and Abdelkader Benali is an important corrective, introducing additional perspectives, but ironically often remains - in fact, if not in the actual writing - turned inwards, more limited to a Dutch audience: readers elsewhere who are drawn to treatment of this subject-matter are more likely to simply turn to si- | |
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milarly situated writers in their own countries, writing in their own languages. Fiction of the immigrant experience (in the broadest sense), even in its most imaginative and striking forms, simply often does not travel well, much like another staple in every country, local crime fiction.
For all their existential Angst, the characters in most Dutch fiction are sure of and comfortable with this central aspect of their identity: they are Dutch, or, more broadly speaking, modern European. The melding together of Europe has led to greater uniformity across the continent, and Dutch fiction is at the forefront of portraying the continental European identity that has taken such a strong hold. Cultural differences remain, but a fundamental existential security, more or less guaranteed by a state apparatus that is widely trusted (at least in this regard), is now widespread. Throughout Europe there is much less of any underclass - a once huge segment of society that seems, for example, long to have served as the very underpinning of Irish fiction. The opening to eastern Europe has filled some of the void, as does immigration from other continents, and a variety of minority issues have become more prominent. These all have also seeped into Dutch fiction but, in writing what they know, contemporary Dutch authors write from a shared foundation, a perspective of relative security and prosperity and, until recently, several decades of only limited and specific social turmoil. The Netherlands remains a fairly cohesive and homogenous society, even by European standards, and this is one of the strengths - and, quite possibly, limitations - of its fiction, with, for example, a uniformity of background among protagonists comparable only to that found among Scandinavian writers.
This consistency - or sameness - to Dutch writing, does not lead to simple monotony. For one, other identities are explored, most obviously in the creative handling of Jewish themes by writers such as Leon de Winter and Marcel Möring. There is also a continuing engagement with the Dutch and Flemish experience under the German Occupation (another trait shared with the similarly successful fiction from Norway), notably in the works of authors such as Harry
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Mulisch, Hugo Claus, Marga Minco, and W.F. Hermans. Fiction in both these categories also reinforces the outward orientation of Dutch literature, as they form distinctive subsets of the larger international bodies of writing about the Jewish experience and about the Second World War, both of which continue to have large, dedicated audiences.
Despite the amazing vigor of contemporary Dutch fiction, the question remains whether it can continue to flourish in the way it does today, in particular in its outward orientation. There has certainly always also been a segment of Dutch literature that is not only more inward-looking but truly provincial. Largely invisible abroad, it may perhaps come to dominate again; in the near term, however, this seems unlikely. True, if the current trend towards European integration stops or is reversed, or religious and ethnic conflict become entirely dominant issues, it becomes easier again for countries - and their writers - to get bogged down in the local, and lose sight of (and interest in) broader issues. However, as trade-dependant as the Netherlands is, and with its global business interests, it can hardly afford isolationist instincts. Withdrawal of any sort is not much of an option, and so it seems likely that Dutch writers will continue to engage globally.
Conversely, the spread of European sameness, with economies bound ever closer together and cultures melding into one another, arguably might make it harder for Dutch fiction to stand out. While the trend towards sameness sometimes seems inexorable, this process is unlikely to progress quickly or evenly, and for now Dutch writers continue to be well-positioned to continue leading the way in addressing it.
So far, since the Second World War, there have been smooth generational transitions, from the continentally oriented authors such as Harry Mulisch, with his Central European roots, and W.F. Hermans, to Cees Nooteboom's more global reach, and then that of authors like Leon de Winter and Arnon Grunberg, who, despite strong American connections, seem equally at home situating their protagonists anywhere. The works of authors such as A.F.Th. van
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der Heijden, whose novels are perhaps the prime examples of a comprehensive fictional treatment of the contemporary Dutch condition, are similarly cosmopolitan in their outlook and handling of their subjects, though they are largely doomed to fail to become part of the European literary corpus because of their tremendous scale, which makes it less likely they will be widely translated. Other talents, such as Paul Verhaeghen and Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer, suggest with their fiction some more radical possible turns, but there is not enough of this yet to judge whether these will be fruitful paths.
For both domestic and foreign readers, Dutch fiction today provides many satisfying encounters with any number of aspects of life in contemporary Europe, as it has for several decades now. As was the case for the fiction arising out of the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire, much of it is defining for its era, certainly in continental Europe. Local and external conditions seem particularly conducive to the production of this kind of fiction, with Dutch writers, working in a supportive literary culture, both firmly grounded in the native and also particularly open to the foreign. Not surprisingly, Dutch fiction most resembles that from similarly situated countries, most notably the Scandinavian ones, but it strikes the most even balance between the world within and the world without, a self-confident local cosmopolitanism that speaks to a wide range of readers. For now, its secure position in European letters seems assured; as ever, however, change can come quickly and unexpectedly.
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