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His family epic about the Boon sisters (Het tegendeel van zorgen) and his two magical-realistic tales about six brothers who are sent to war (Hoe Tortot zijn vissenhart verloor and Hele verhalen voor een halve soldaat) belong to the canon of Dutch youth literature.

Benny Lindelauf

In Whole Stories for a Half Soldier, the brothers try, against their better judgment, to keep the war at bay by telling stories. ‘There’s no better medicine for the horrors of this world than the horrors of the imagination,’ a character observes in the story of the Fifth-Eldest Brother.There’s also another reason why the brothers are so passionate about telling stories, a reason that remains hidden from the reader for a long time and which is connected to the Youngest Brother. Readers of Lindelauf’s previous novel Hoe Tortot zijn vissenhart verloor (published in English as Tortot, the Cold Fish Who Lost His World and Found His Heart) will recognise him as Half-George, the young deserter in the gherkin barrel who lost his legs on the battlefield.Whole Stories for a Half Soldier is the prequel to that anti-war parable, although the book also stands alone. In this new frame story, Lindelauf performs at the peak of his stylistic skill; his evocative language sparkles and glows.The stories, set in an unspecified past and coated with a delicious layer of cruelty, couple strange events with a sublime realism. A baker cooks orphans in his pies, a mother sells her tiny daughter (‘as delicate as a piece of lacework, her head would fit inside a ladle’), a boy is so beautiful that the people in his village would like to murder him – the horror is casually incorporated in stunningly beautiful prose that is reminiscent of the magic realism of Patrick Süskind and Gabriel García Márquez.Ludwig Volbeda, who also illustrated Tortot, has completed this masterful book with his melancholic pictures of desolate desert landscapes in faded colours.

In his new book, Whole Stories for Half a Soldier, Benny Lindelauf shows himself to be a master storyteller.

No book is more fitting in this current time of missing our families.

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Hele verhalen voor een halve soldaat

Six brothers are called up to go to war. They pass a border guard who demands a donation for the peace effort from each of the brothers. The brothers own nothing, but they do have stories to tell. This is a constant in Lindelauf’s work: in his award-winning masterpiece 'De hemel van Heivisj' (published in English as Fing’s War), it’s also stories that save the characters when nothing else remains.

Whole Stories for a Half Soldier

But in this touching sequel to Lindelauf’s magic-realist novel Nine Open Arms, no one gets to escape “actual reality”. The German invasion puts an end to the relatively carefree childhood of Fing and her sisters Jes and Muulke, who form a very close trio. “When the war came, it felt as though time had been on a slack rope that was now pulled tight with a reverberating twang.”Fing gets a job with the Cigar King, working as a maid and a playmate for Liesl, his wife’s annoying German cousin. Only when the persecution of the Jews becomes more intense and the girl suddenly disappears does Fing realise what Liesl was doing in Limburg and why she behaved so strangely. One great thing about this book is that it does not only show the “spectacular” side of the war. Life in the village goes on as normal. You could even say that this is more of a coming-of-age novel than a classic war novel. The story is actually all about Fing becoming an adult.Lindelauf describes, very precisely and sympathetically, how Fing enters into puberty and separates herself from her sisters. She finds it childish now when they say goodnight to the ghosts in the house. Her periods start, she falls in love and she finally realises: I’m not a child anymore. Few writers can portray their characters in such a breathtakingly realistic and original way as Lindelauf. Take tough old Grandma Mei, who unflappably runs the family home. “She treats life like a troublesome toddler,” Lindelauf writes. And when Grandma Mei actually shows that she’s finding things difficult: “As always, her sorrow seemed like a borrowed sorrow. Like an expensive frock that she had to return in good condition.” Beautiful thoughts like this appear on almost every page of this outstanding novel, evocatively sprinkled with Yiddish, German and Limburg dialect, making you see the world and life in a new light. And that’s the power of great literature.

Just outside a village in Limburg stands a house with the name of Nine Open Arms, so called because if its nine residents open their arms wide, they can hug all the way around it. Fing lives there in the late 1930s with her four brothers, two sisters, their dad and Grandma Mei. It’s an almost fairytale place that is brimming with stories. And often it’s not entirely clear whether these stories come from the imagination of Grandma Mei and the children or whether they really happened.

Fing's war

The love and stories form the only richness of a family that keeps getting poorer. Because the living room of the new house is as long as nine open arms, the sisters baptize it ‘nine open arms’. It sounds like a hug but soon it is obvious that that the house offers so little protection against all kinds of disaster that reality cannot be embellished by dreams and stories.The book consists of three parts, each with its own tone and rhythm. The first part is a detailed story about the relationships between the members of the family and the grim circumstances in which they survive. The book regularly moves ahead of the actual events. Because of this, fragments of stories come up which later turn out to be part of a bigger context.Part two is about the tragic love history belonging to the house. It has the cadence and tension build-up of an oral story. In part three, a regular shifting to a higher or lower gear accentuates the entanglement of the different histories and of the present and the past. Grandmother had always determined which stories where to be heard.After a conflict with her granddaughter she exposes which ones were silenced and which ones were lies. By continually making ever-smaller nuances, Lindelauf shows how relative the truth is and how vulnerable the person who does or does not rely on it blindly.The whole story is larded with words and expressions in dialect because not only your territory but also your language is a validation of who you are and where you belong. Just like stories do: ‘Much can be told about a person’s life. Everybody’s story is attached to other people’s stories through tiny threads’.

'Nine Open Arms' is an astutely structured book with strong character portrayal. It is also beautifully written, with quickfire dialogues and clear imagery.

One of the best books to appear this year.

One of the best stories I’ve ever read, unusually heart-warming, in an exceptionally clever and distinctive style, and in language to revel in. 'Nine Open Arms' is written with great warmth, love of life, and infectious humour.

It is the end of August 1937, nine people – father, grandmother, four sons and three daughters – leave for what seems to be the end of the world: Sjlammbams Sahara, a place outside the safe walls of the city. Father is a man who does all kinds of odd jobs and none of them well but he is hopeful and full of love. Grandmother courageously carries her bag made from crocodile leather full of pictures and stories.

Nine Open Arms

While Lindelauf’s youth novels excel with their stylistic fireworks, this new story has a more classic atmosphere. Gili, a shepherd girl, accidentally lets a sheep escape one night, and she ventures out into the inhospitable desert landscape around Bethlehem to look for the runaway. She wants to prove to her father and brothers that girls can look after sheep, too. Since her mother died, she has been the only female in the family, and her relatives openly express their doubts about her ability to herd sheep.Gili is very aware that she’s in danger of getting lost, falling into a ravine or being attacked by a wolf. The problem with getting lost is that you don’t realise until it’s already happened, Lindelauf writes with wry humour. Which he follows up ominously with: ‘There are plenty of stories about girls and wolves – and they usually don’t end well.’But this is a Christmas story, so Gili passes a stable with a drowsy ox and meets a man and a woman on a donkey – and the only one who ends up in trouble during this night of adventure is the wolf.The attentive reader will already have spotted the references to the Bible story. However, that does not make this a religious book. Joseph and Mary remain nameless figures, and Jesus is a bald baby bundled up in blankets. That means that this Christmas story can just as easily be read as a universal winter’s tale.Marieke Nelissen’s illustrations are in line with the story: classic. Her colours are earthy, with a pink glowing desert and a dark-blue starry night. She subtly announces the arrival of the predator with wolf-shaped rock formations and a menacing shadow.

Benny Lindelauf’s magnificent Christmas book is so ingeniously constructed that it can be read on multiple levels. The atmospheric night-time scenes lend his words an enchanting Christmas glow

Children's books

Some years ago, a sentence from a Christmas song inspired Benny Lindelauf to create a musical performance for children. Last year, the book of the same name was published. 'They Had Counted Their Sheep' is a warm Christmas tale for children of around seven and up.

They Had Counted Their Sheep

More Benny Lindelauf

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