Louis Paul Boon

[Stewart]

Louis Paul Boon (15 March 1912 - 10 May 1979) was a Flemish journalist and novelist who is considered one of the major 20th century writers in the Dutch language. He forsook the literary Dutch of the Netherlands for regional Flemish words and expressions with which he colored his writing.

Born Lodewijk Paul Aalbrecht Boon in Aalst, Belgium to a working-class family, Boon left school at age 16 to work for his father as a carriage painter. During evenings and weekends he studied art at the Aalsterse Academie voor Schone Kunsten but soon had to abandon this because of lack of funds.

Boon discovered he had a talent for writing and found work as a journalist, first for De Rode Vaan (1945-1946), Front (1946-1947) and De Vlaamse Gids (1948). Later he contributed to the newspaper Vooruit after which he established himself as a freelancer. In subsequent years, Boon divided his energies between a constant stream of novels and journalistic pieces for Het Parool, De Zweep, Zondagspost. and other newspapers and magazines.

In 1969, he stopped writing -- except for his "Boontjes" columns -- and devoted himself to painting in his home in Erembodegem. Boon died in his home in 1979 at the age of 67. His wife was at the hairdressers because they were going out later that evening. When she left for the hairdressers, she said "Make sure you are ready to go when I get back" to which Boon answered "Of course I will. But don't forget I have a bad character".

Boon's literary legacy is a varied one, ranging from journalistic pieces on Belgian politics and society to erotic novelas. In historical novels such as De Bende van Jan de Lichte, De zoon van Jan de Lichte, De Zwarte Hand, and Daens, he depicted the oppression of the working class in 19th century Flanders; in his controversial Geuzenboek, he wrote of the Spanish domination of the Low Countries in the 16th century. Nearly all of Boon's work was infused by his profound commitment to socialism; in experimental, modernistic works such as Vergeten straat, Boon projected an ideal society but at the same time shared his doubts as to whether human nature could achieve utopia.

Boon was thought to have been shortlisted for a Nobel Prize in Literature in the late 1970s. Very little of his writing has been translated into English, but "De Kapellekensbaan" and "Zomer in "Ter-Muren" are both available in English translation from Dalkey Archive as "Chapel Road" and "Summer in Termuren."

BIBLIOGRAPHY


Het brood onzer tranen (1939)
De voorstad groeit (1943)
Abel Gholaerts (1944)
Vergeten straat (1946)
Mijn kleine oorlog (1947)
Boontje's uitleenbibliotheek (1949)
Boontje's twee spoken (1952)
De Kapellekensbaan (1953) [Eng: Chapel Road]
Boontje's reservaat 1 (1954)
Boontje's reservaat 2
Wapenbroeders (1955)
Menuet (1955) [Eng: Minuet]
Boontje's reservaat 3 (1955)
Boontje's reservaat 4 (1956)
Zomer te Ter-Muren (1956) [Eng: Summer In Termuren]
De kleine Eva uit de Kromme Bijlstraat (1956)
Niets gaat ten onder (1956)
Grimmige sprookjes voor verdorven kinderen (1957)
De bende van Jan de Lichte (1957)
Boontje's reservaat 5 (1957)
De paradijsvogel (1958)
Vaarwel krokodil of de prijslijst van het geluk (1959)
De liefde van Annie Mols (1960)
Gustaaf Vermeersch (1960)
Reportages (1961)
De zoon van Jan de Lichte (1961)
Blauwbaardje in Wonderland en andere grimmige sprookjes voor verdorven kinderen (1962)
Dag aan dag (1963)
Het nieuwe onkruid (1964)
Reservaat (Verzamelde reservaten, 1965)
Dorp in Vlaanderen (1966)
Wat een leven! (1967)
16 (1968)
Geniaal... maar met te korte beentjes (1969)
Twee spoken (Maagpijn - Uitleenbibliotheek) (1969)
3 Mensen tussen muren (1969)
De bom (1969)
90 Mensen (1970)
Boon-apartjes verzameld door Gerd de Ley (1971)
Pieter Daens (1971)
Als het onkruid bloeit (1972)
Eten op zijn Vlaams (1972)
Mieke Maaike's obscene jeugd (1972)
De meisjes van Jesses (1973)
Zomerdagdroom (1973)
Blauwbaardje in de ruimte (1973)
Davids jonge dagen (1974)
Verse boontjes (1974)
Menuet en andere verhalen (1974) Omvattend : Twee spoken / Menuet / De kleine Eva uit de Kromme Bijlstraat / Vaarwel krokodil of de prijslijst van het geluk
Memoires van de heer Daegeman (1975)
Verscheurd jeugdportret (1975)
De zwarte hand (1976)
Het jaar 1901 (1977)
Het geuzenboek (1979)
Verzamelde gedichten (1980)
Eros en de eenzame man (1980)
Ook de afbreker bouwt op (1982)
Proleet en fantast (1982)
Een operatie
Het zoutvat van Boontje Boon samengesteld door F.-J. Verdoodt (1985)
Hij was een zwarte en andere reportages (1986)
Memoires van Boontje (1988)
Boontjes 1959-1960 (1988)
Zondagsleven van Pomponneke (1988)
Vertraagde film (1988)
Brieven aan Morris (1989)
Vertellingen van Jo (1989)
Als een onweder bij zomerdag (1989)
Brieven aan literaire vrienden (1989)
Boontjes 1961 (1989)
Boons scenario's (1989)
Niets dan wat oorlog (1989)
L.P. Boon radio actief (1991)
Eens, op een mooie avond (1992)
Boontjes 1962 (1992)
Soldatenbrieven (1993)
Boontjes 1963 (1994)
Het literatuurkritische en kunstkritische werk. I. De Rode Vaan (1994)
Het literatuurkritische en kunstkritische werk. II. Front (1994)
Het literatuurkritische en kunstkritische werk III. De Vlaamse Gids (1995)
Boontjes moppenencyclopedie (1995)
Het literatuurkristische en kunstkritische werk. IV. Vooruit (1997)
Boontjes 1964 (1998)
Het boek Jezebel (1999)
Brussel, een oerwoud (1999)
Fenomenale Feminateek (2004)
Eenzaam spelen met Pompon (2005)


RELATED LINKS


Louis Paul Boon on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Paul_Boon)
Louis Paul Boon page at UCL (http://www.dutch.ac.uk/studypacks/english_language/boon/pages/intro.html)

[Stewart]

That is one hell of a bibliography, although looking at the dates with many being listed long after his death, the latter lot must be compilations of some sort.

I've got Summer In Termuren, bought before I realised it was a sequel to Chapel Road. But, looking at Summer In Termuren, which is huge, with neverending paragraphs and a deficit of capitalised letters, it's one you'd need to take a week or two off from reality just to get through.

[Eric]

Eric, i.e. me, wrote an article on Boon when Paul Vincent was translating "Summer in Termuren" for Dalkey. It appeared in their freesheet CONTEXT:

http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/article/show/156

An excerpt from Paul Vincent's translation is at:

http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/article/show/157

This excerpt is very typical of both "Chapel Road" and "Summer in Termuren" regarding style. Those two are his best books, but if you want to start at the shallow end of the swimming pool of Boon's work, "Menuet" was translated by a Dutchwoman, Adrienne Dixon, into English, about 30 years ago. That is a novella, but a typical good Boon one.

Boon then wrote a whopping great book about Pieter Daens, the rebellious socialist Flemish priest, who really existed. He was a committed socialist. "De paradijsvogel" in 1958 was one of his last real masterpieces.

***

What yours truly did not write about in my Dalkey CONTEXT article is that later in his career, especially towards the end, his œuvre began to have a p?do feel about it. It was all wistful soft porn with teenage girls, and so on. Titles such as "Mieke Maaike's Obscene Youth" are a dead giveaway. That was 1972. The following year he did a reworking of the Sharon Tate murder, called "The Girls of Jesses" or similar. The last books deteriorated stylistically into a lot of rather repetitive wanking and fucking (this is an ?sthetic, not moral judgement) :

"When the girls, one by one, had seen an erection, they grew a little older - a little, but not much - and they fingered and played with their pussies."

Excerpted by opening a page (number 11) at random of "Eens, op een mooie avond" (One Lovely Evening). Now, page 59:

"I love you, nice little whore", said the writer.... "Love me too and jerk my dick with your chubby little hand! I'm full of seed that I want to spurt it out for you". Well, she was curious to see a stiff cock a little more closely and what came spurting out of it, as it had done out of the other man's".

Then comes near blasphemy (page 115 - remember I'm still opening the book at random):

"She lay like that, her legs apart, with half the wafer / host hanging out of her pussy, so that everyone could congratulate her on her cunt-communion. 'Me too!" yearned Arlette... "But in my shit-hole". She immediately took up the position, with her wonderful arse, 19 times described already, up in the air..."

There's nowt like translating a bit of random porn to keep you young. But you get the picture. The subtlety was gone; Boon had become y'r classic Dirty Old Man with his huge collection of porn pics, cut out from magazines, his "Fenominale Feminateek", that the City of Antwerp recently refused to exhibit; Ghent took it instead... Not all Flemish cities are so puritan.

These works are available, even in reprinted editions, in normal bookshops (i.e not porn shops in the Red Light District of Amsterdam). I have the third edition of this particular piece of smuttitude. So, if you want to read filth and wallow in sex - learn Dutch! A good excuse for language learning, anyway.

But despite his early works of literary genius, you can imagine what the reputation of the Nobel people would have been in the late 1970s, when even in Sweden they were not ready for teenage whores.

[Eric]

WORKS BY LOUIS PAUL BOON CLASSIFIED:

G - works of genius
OK - not the very best, but literary
S - works of [anarcho-] socialist commitment
C - cruel stuff, bandits, murder, torture
J - journalism
F - sheer filth, but wistful and non-violent - see my previous posting

I've not marked everything, as he wrote so much that I don't always know myself, as I've only read a fraction of his works.

Het brood onzer tranen (1939)
De voorstad groeit (1943) OK
Abel Gholaerts (1944) [about a Van Gogh fiigure] OK
Vergeten straat (1946) OK
Mijn kleine oorlog (1947) G
Boontje's uitleenbibliotheek (1949)
Boontje's twee spoken (1952)
De Kapellekensbaan (1953) [Eng: Chapel Road] G
Boontje's reservaat 1 (1954) J
Boontje's reservaat 2 J
Wapenbroeders (1955)
Menuet (1955) [Eng: Minuet] G
Boontje's reservaat 3 (1955)
Boontje's reservaat 4 (1956)
Zomer te Ter-Muren (1956) [Eng: Summer In Termuren] G
De kleine Eva uit de Kromme Bijlstraat (1956) [poem] a bit sick
Niets gaat ten onder (1956) J
Grimmige sprookjes voor verdorven kinderen (1957) F
De bende van Jan de Lichte (1957) C
Boontje's reservaat 5 (1957)
De paradijsvogel (1958) G
Vaarwel krokodil of de prijslijst van het geluk (1959) J
De liefde van Annie Mols (1960)
Gustaaf Vermeersch (1960)
Reportages (1961) J
De zoon van Jan de Lichte (1961) C
Blauwbaardje in Wonderland en andere grimmige sprookjes voor verdorven kinderen (1962) F
Dag aan dag (1963)
Het nieuwe onkruid (1964)
Reservaat (Verzamelde reservaten, 1965) J
Dorp in Vlaanderen (1966)
Wat een leven! (1967)
16 (1968)
Geniaal... maar met te korte beentjes (1969)
Twee spoken (Maagpijn - Uitleenbibliotheek) (1969)
3 Mensen tussen muren (1969)
De bom (1969)
90 Mensen (1970)
Boon-apartjes verzameld door Gerd de Ley (1971)
Pieter Daens (1971) S
Als het onkruid bloeit (1972)
Eten op zijn Vlaams (1972) [about Flemish food]
Mieke Maaike's obscene jeugd (1972) F
De meisjes van Jesses (1973) C + F
Zomerdagdroom (1973) F
Blauwbaardje in de ruimte (1973) G ?
Davids jonge dagen (1974)
Verse boontjes (1974) J
Menuet en andere verhalen (1974) Omvattend : Twee spoken / Menuet / De kleine Eva uit de Kromme Bijlstraat / Vaarwel krokodil of de prijslijst van het geluk G
Memoires van de heer Daegeman (1975) probably F
Verscheurd jeugdportret (1975)
De zwarte hand (1976) S
Het jaar 1901 (1977)
Het geuzenboek (1979) OK [about the Geuzen anti-Catholic warriors]
Verzamelde gedichten (1980) [poems]
Eros en de eenzame man (1980) F
Ook de afbreker bouwt op (1982)
Proleet en fantast (1982)
Een operatie
Het zoutvat van Boontje Boon samengesteld door F.-J. Verdoodt (1985)
Hij was een zwarte en andere reportages (1986)
Memoires van Boontje (1988)
Boontjes 1959-1960 (1988)
Zondagsleven van Pomponneke (1988)
Vertraagde film (1988)
Brieven aan Morris (1989)
Vertellingen van Jo (1989)
Als een onweder bij zomerdag (1989)
Brieven aan literaire vrienden (1989)
Boontjes 1961 (1989)
Boons scenario's (1989)
Niets dan wat oorlog (1989)
L.P. Boon radio actief (1991)
Eens, op een mooie avond (1992) F
Boontjes 1962 (1992) J
Soldatenbrieven (1993)
Boontjes 1963 (1994) J
Het literatuurkritische en kunstkritische werk. I. De Rode Vaan (1994) J
Het literatuurkritische en kunstkritische werk. II. Front (1994) J
Het literatuurkritische en kunstkritische werk III. De Vlaamse Gids (1995) J
Boontjes moppenencyclopedie (1995)
Het literatuurkristische en kunstkritische werk. IV. Vooruit (1997)
Boontjes 1964 (1998) J
Het boek Jezebel (1999)
Brussel, een oerwoud (1999) [brilliant essay-like cameos]
Fenomenale Feminateek (2004) [dirty pictures]
Eenzaam spelen met Pompon (2005) [the title means "playing alone with /your/ Pom-Pom]

Recent Dutch reprints:

http://www.lpbooncentrum.be/verzameldwerk/

[Stewart]

Dalkey Archive are putting out another Boon novel in January 2010. It's My Little War (Mijn kleine oorlog, 1947), translated by Paul Vincent.

[Eric]

Good to hear that "My Little War" is appearing. As I have mentioned before, Boon has two sides to him: the committed socialist & anti-war humanist, and the melancholy pornographer. This book belongs to the former side of Boon. I'm also wondering whether "Minuet" will be reprinted (which belongs more to the latter).