Boek

A.F.Th. van der Heijden

Het Hof van Barmhartigheid

De tandeloze tijd 3, eerste boek

After the appearance of the first parts of his cycle of novels De tandeloze tijd (The Toothless Time), A.F.Th. van der Heijden was heralded ‘the voice of his generation’ and a king among chroniclers. Now that these two massive books which record the seventies have appeared, the jubilant critics and readers leave no room for doubt – Van der Heijden is not only the greatest writer of his generation but also an author whose literary aims go far beyond the description of the Zeitgeist.

In the first two parts of the cycle the similarities between the main character Albert Egberts (1950) and the author (1951) are obvious: both grew up in Brabant and attended Nijmegen University, both moved to Amsterdam halfway through their studies. In Part Three it becomes clear that this is the point where their paths diverge. Albert, who is trying to arrange his life according to the philosphical principle of ‘living life full scale’ (escaping linear time by simultaneously participating in as much as possible), becomes addicted to heroin. The other characters also opt for rigorous solutions to their longing for resistance and their desire to reinvest life with real colours, smells and tastes in a time of excess and uneasiness. In the morass which Van der Heijden exposes beneath the pavements of Amsterdam, murder, alcoholism, racism, rape and child pornography are the order of the day. Albert’s friends Flix and Thjum seek an intermediary path between visual art and theatre, and do it so hyper-realistically that one of them does not survive.

One thousand four hundred pages, split up into a torrent of chapters of ten or so pages, each of which follows one character: this breathtaking composition allows Van der Heijden to view a single day from a multiplicity of perspectives and thus stretch out time. He succeeds in achieving what his characters just long for: the listless seventies are dissected and restructured until they begin to stink and sparkle. The writer dispenses his dazzling analogies with unrestrained generosity. His expressive style even manages to uncover a spark of poetry in the horrors he describes. Van der Heijden succeeds in putting a face to the toothless times. Working class hero Albert Egberts dreams of an authorship in which he feverishly pursues words. That his compulsive need for intensification, so typical of his generation, is elevated to mythical and archetypal proportions is wholly due to his spiritual father’s dedication to his art.

Albert Egberts’s personal odyssey has become one of the most impressive achievements in the postwar Dutch literary novel. A triumph of Dionysian writing.

Jeroen Oversteijns, De Standaard

In the hands of A.F.Th. van der Heijden disillusion is given a fabulous lustre. Like Baudelaire, that other poète maudit, he is familiar with the art of turning mud into gold, the morass into an artwork.

Arnold Heumakers, de Volkskrant

Those who know Amsterdam can indulge themselves in this book. Not only the topography but the whole atmosphere of seventies Amsterdam, with its squatters and junkies, bars and misplaced artists, the whole lost generation is evoked with unequalled skill.

Rob Schouten, Trouw

Vertalingen

A.F.Th. van der Heijden

A.F.Th. van der Heijden (b. 1951) studied psychology and philosophy in Nijmegen, but after moving to Amsterdam he turned to writing. His first two books appeared under the pseudonym Patrizio Canaponi: the short-story collection Een gondel in de Herengracht (A Gondola in the Herengracht, 1978; Anton…

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Details

Het Hof van Barmhartigheid. De tandeloze tijd 3, eerste boek (1996). Fictie, 656 pagina's.
Oplage: 60.000

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