Belgian Literature

[Eric]

Belgian literature comes in two flavours: that written in French and that written in Dutch.

Because there are more powerful countries on either side that speak these two languages, Flemish and Wallonian literature are not as well known in Britain as they might be. But consider this: there are Flemish authors writing in Dutch in Ghent, Aalst, Brussels, Antwerp, Bruges, and so on, which are cities that are, as the crow flies, nearer to London than Edinburgh or Glasgow! While Brits know "everything" about Irvine Welsh, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Muriel Spark, Neil M. Gunn, Alasdair Gray, Liz Heron, Ian Rankin, and a host of other names from Scotland, they know virtually nothing about what the Flemings wrote in French, and write in Dutch.

If you asked, say, 2,000 people on the streets of central London, only a dozen (apart from Belgian, French and Dutch tourists) would be able to name one Belgian author, let alone actually having read one. And nine of those would be clever-dicks who had realised that Simenon was Belgian, not French.

In the nineteenth century, when the language of education in Belgium was French, there were quite a few Flemish authors who spoke a dialect of Dutch at home, but would write in the language of elegance and education, French. Authors like Maeterlinck, Verhaeren, Ghelderode and a host of more minor authors were French-writing Flemings.

Scroll forward to 2008. Nowadays the Belgian literary communities are more neatly divided into Dutch and French-writing authors. The tragedy is that authors writing in both French and Dutch in Belgium are almost always published abroad, i.e. in France or the Netherlands. The Belgian publishing industry is not strong - and yet some of the most innovative authors are Belgian. So Nothomb, Harpman and Toussaint are recognised as Paris authors, and Boon and Timmermans would never have become as famous as they are (in the Low Countries, as they are virtually unknown in Blighty) if they hadn't published in the Netherlands.

I hope to be able to write things about Belgian authors on this forum, but I cannot deny that interest will soon pall on the World Literature Forum, unless those that cannot read Dutch or French find a few translations available.

There are a few English translations doing the rounds (Google for more information). Louis Paul Boon and Ivo Michiels have both had novels of theirs published in English translation. The recently deceased Hugo Claus also has his major novel "The Sorrow of Belgium" in English translation. Nothomb I have dealt with elsewhere. But there are quite a considerable number of contemporary Flemish and Wallonian authors that will be entirely unknown in Britain. I hope I can introduce people to a few, over time.

One final point about language usage. The culture, history and geography are Flemish or Wallonian, the language is Dutch or French. Except in one case: those writing in a very strong dialect of French, or language in its own right, depending on taste, do write in Wallonian. But most Flemish authors do not write in dialect, they write in standard Dutch, with some regional vocabulary input.

[Stewart]

Originally Posted by Eric

Louis Paul Boon

I have his Summer In Termuren but it's a huge book and, from what I remember when I last looked, he wasn't one for many capital letters or, indeed, paragraphs. I'm more likely to give Chapel Road a try before that, which makes sense, since Summer In Termuren is seen as a sequel of sorts.

[Eric]

Yes, it would seem eminently logical to start with "Chapel Road", then, if you're still on board, read the sequel, which does revisit many of the characters. They are thick books, no doubt about that.

If you want to read more about Boon, you can find my article at:

http://www.centerforbookculture.org/...no19/boon.html

There is also the brief storyline of the two books set out at:

http://www.centerforbookculture.org/...list/boon.html

"Chapel Road" was translated into English by a Dutchwoman and her American husband, about 30-40 years ago, while the sequel "Summer in Termuren" was recently translated into English by the former Professor of Dutch at London University, Paul Vincent.

These two books are, rightly, the most famous of Boon's novels as they were very innovative when written in the early and mid-1950s. But, as you can read in my article, he also wrote several committed novels, as Boon's political affiliations hovered somewhere between Communism and Anarchism. One shorter book, available in English and, in my opinion, more readable is "Minuet".

One aspect of Boon's wide-ranging interests cropped up again recently, involving what I described in the article:

Between the ’50s and Boon’s death in 1979, his authorial focus narrowed to two main interests: politics and sex. While maintaining his socialist-anarchist commitment to the underdog, Boon became more and more interested in the production of erotic literature. He began collecting photographs of naked or barely dressed women in 1954, and had, by the time of his death, nearly 24,000 pictures of this kind, all of them meticulously classified in various thematic series. In his writing too, he began to display a penchant for teenage girls, and as time went by, this interest—which was by no means kept a secret from his readers—
began to dominate his work. It’s not unlikely that his predilections in this arena cost him the Nobel Prize, for which he’d been nominated many years in a row.

This collections of naked women and girls was banned from Antwerp recently by the council, but the city of Ghent gladly staged the exhibition of photos from it instead. Boon freaks can't get enough of it. See the Wikipedia (in English):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenomenale_Feminateek

But despite his dirty old man aspect, the Socialist side of him caused him to write umpteen novels about the pretty grim lot of the working classes in Flanders during the Industrial Revolution in Belgium. In those days, the French-speakers owned the factories and the Flemish factory workers were looked down upon. Now, anno 2008, the tabled are turned. The Flemings wield the political and economic power (since the Wallonian coal mines closed down) and it is the French-speaking south of Belgium that is relatively poor and chaotic. And Boon's penchant for teenage girls is, quite obviously, no longer a laughing matter after the Dutroux affair and, more recently, the arrest of the man termed The Butcher of the Ardennes.

[Eric]

Kristien Hemmerechts

Here are a few details by another Flemish author, quite different to Louis Paul Boon, called Kristien Hemmerechts (born 1957). I find it strange that more or less nothing written by her has appeared in English translation.

First look at the bibliography on the Wikipedia, at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristien_Hemmerechts

There, you will see, in this article in English, that Hemmerechts, who is herself a Professor of English literature, has published a lot of books. The Wikipedia, for some reason, doesn't bother to translate the words "novelle" (novella), "korte verhalen" (short-stories),"roman" (novel), "resiverhalen" (travel literature) and "dagboek" (diary), but these categories in themselves give an idea of the breadth of her work.

So, she's written at least ten novels, and a total of some 50 short-stories. In fact, the first three short-stories she ever wrote were in English; she was living with a Welshman at the time. But she soon realised that to express yourself fully, you have to write in your mother-tongue.

Her work covers life very much from a woman's point of view and is often (semi-) autobiographical, realist and contemporary: growing up, having children (and losing them!), human relationships, sexuality. Further articles in English about some of her work are at:

http://www.nlpvf.nl/basic/auteur1.php?Author_ID=214

http://www.radionetherlands.nl/radiobooks/080319rb

[Heteronym]

I believe I've only read one Belgian author to date: Georges Rodenbach. And his Bruges-la-Morte left me rather indifferent. It struck me as Hitchcock's Vertigo devoid of any excitement and twists. It had elegant prose and a morbid disposition, which I tend to admire, but the central idea seemed to uninteresting. The idea of a man falling in love with his dead lover's lookalike has been done a lot better since then. It'll never get better nor more obsessive than Ellroy's The Black Dahlia

Now for me the really great Belgian writers made their mark in comics: Hergé, Jean-Michel Charlier, Peyo, Edgar P. Jacobs, André Franquin, etc.

[Eric]

If you want excitement, you can indeed read comic strips, where your powers of imagination are given a visual crutch to lean on: pictures.

Whether you find Rodenbach interesting or dull (his other novel about a bell-ringer is also published by Dedalus) he was a Fleming. The sad thing is that when people speak about Belgian literature, they forget about Flemings who, nowadays, write in their native Dutch. While the literature of the Netherlands, also written in Dutch, tends to be more realist, the Flemings have some really interesting Modernist, postmodernist, and various other types of experimental literature. Some Dutch literature can be bombastic; most Flemish literature is more subtle.

Another point: Rodenbach wrote in the 1890s. Why don't Brits have the slightest idea what Flemings like him wrote in the 1990s? BelgLit doesn't stop at 1900. There is a fruitful tension in Flemish literature which doesn't exist in the literature of the Netherlands. This is stylistic influence from French. Even when writing in Dutch, the Flemings are always aware of the other national language. The Dutch, on the other hand, have put all their language eggs in the English basket. So they would rather ape the Brits or Yanks. And I for one don't want to read epigones of things I could more easily read in English.

[fausto]

Nice post here. A few names I'd like to add.

Classics:
Henri Michaux -- a tough one to include: got the French nationality in '55 and denied afterwards any link with Belgium. Top "surrealist" poet, and I guess a well known name.
Henry Bauchau -- still alive (he's 95), but already a classic. Probably our most famous poet right know, but also an apt novelist (Antigone being his better known title)
Willem Elsschot -- Flemish writer, from Antwero where he lived his whole life. Wrote less than 1000 pages of prose, but is a huge name -- although I guess he is now little read. He run an advertising agency and his family didn't know he wrote fiction while in the office. I read Kaas last year, incredibly funny book. A few of his books are available in English.
Michel de Ghelderode -- Belgium's number one playwright.

Odd-balls:
André Baillon -- wouldn't know how to describe his work. Tremendously funny portraits of low-life by a low-life. Very sad personal history. Cult author.
André Blavier -- "correspondant étranger" of Oulipo. Pataphysicien extraordinaire. Better known for his efforts to make the names of Queneau or Ionesco more respected than for his own works. Wrote both in French and wallonian (not a dialect, by the way).
Raoul Vaneigem -- Belgian situationist.

Contemporary writers:
Guy Goffette -- widely considered our best poet at the moment.
Pierre Mertens -- better known for Une paix royale, for which he got sued by some members of the royal family. No Hugo Claus though.
François Weyergans -- Goncourt 2005, he beat hot favourite Houellbecq.
Caroline Lamarche -- Great stylist in the Minuit school.
Thomas Gunzig -- Rising star of Belgian letters. Not bad, enjoyable but never convinced me. Used to work in the main bookshop of Brussels, where i go and buy my books.
Bernard Quiriny -- Upcoming short-story writers, already "approved" by Enrique Vila-Matas.
Vincent Engel -- loves to write romantic epics located in Italy either under Mussolini or during the 19th century in which there always seem to be a hot red-haired girl and some young and beautiful man modelled on the author. Clichéed and pseudo-poetic writing. I'm only mentioning him because he used to be my lecturer. Avoid at all costs. (Gave me good marks, so no revenge here).

Eric, thanks again for opening this thread.

[Eric]

Of the French-speaking Belgians, Pierre Mertens is one author I'be been thinking of reading for a long time. There is that fat novel about the royal family that Fausto mentions, which I'm always thinking about buying in Dutch translation, but never get round to doing.

I've always found the book catalogue published by Espace Nord / Editions Labor quite fascinating. Must tackle some of the authors there some day. Marie Gevers will be first. I bought a couple of books by her once.

Flemish authors I'd like to translate include Walter van den Broeck, Kristien Hemmerechts, Ivo Michiels and one or two others.