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Louis Paul Boon
Paperback | Pages: 140 pages Rating: 3.64 | 550 Users | 24 Reviews
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| Original Title: | Mijn kleine oorlog |
| Edition Language: | Dutch |
| Literary Awards: | Vondel Prize Nominee for Paul Vincent (2011) |
Chronicle Conducive To Books Mijn kleine oorlog
Louis Paul Boon (1912-1979)
KICK PEOPLE HARD TILL THEY GET A CONSCIENCE
Twice during his lifetime the Flemish journalist and author Louis Paul Boon had to endure a German invasion of his country; as a little boy he witnessed the murder of a prisoner by German soldiers and as a grown man he himself became a prisoner of war of the Germans almost immediately after the commencement of the Blitzkrieg. Are there traces of that childhood trauma in his eyes?
Boon as prisoner of war (1940)
Fortunately, he was released alive and relatively quickly - I suppose the Germans didn't know he was a leftist, and they certainly didn't know that he was to be, briefly, editor of the De roode Vaan, the central organ of the Dutch speaking communists.(*)
Early in 1944 he started writing stories about his imprisonment and the occupation and published the first book version of Mijn kleine oorlog (My Little War) in 1947. Apparently the initial reception was not overwhelming, so thirteen years later Boon published a revised and further expanded version in the Netherlands. This version was much better received, but also by that time Boon was beginning to be recognized as one of the leading Dutch language authors of the 20th century. In the 70's he was in the running for the Nobel Prize.
Self-avowedly influenced by John Dos Passos, Boon was not interested in composing a linear, chronological novel about the war. In fact, what he wanted was to "Sling it in our faces, hurl it at our dismayed consciences." And so what one gets in Mijn kleine oorlog is highly compressed bits and pieces of chaos, carnage, fear, opportunism, death and naked survival held together by bitter irony and black humor. No real stories, just vignettes, impressions, snapshots.
An additional, unexpected layer of irony - and I don't know how much of this was added in 1960 - is provided by Boon's post-modern meta-fictional contortions. For example, many of the characters are called "What’s-his-name", at one point one of the "What’s-her-name"'s name is remembered with some tongue in cheek relief, and later Boon tells us “There are 36 people who think they’re What’s-his-name, and eleven gentlemen who give this particular writer angry looks whenever they walk by because they recognize themselves in Mr. Swaem—although he had only a symbolic Mr. Swaem in mind.” The post-modern irony is laid on with a trowel in a section called "Self-Defense" in which he turns upon the reader, encourages him to write his own "Little War" and then offers him advice like
First and foremost the writer of a Little War has to believe that books are a form of public entertainment in which there can be no swearing or spitting on the ground and in which no one’s sleeping conscience is ever startled awake. And then he has to remember that he needs to keep his eyes open at all times yet never write anything down as he actually sees it, because that isn’t art—so the literary people tell us—that’s just making yourself into a camera. And a writer has to be particularly careful not to walk down any dark alleys, since he might bump into someone who thinks he recognizes himself in Mr. Swaem the profiteer or that gentleman from the meat-inspection board or Proske or even What’s-his-name himself.
Some of the would-be Mr. Boone's in the imaginary readership have gotten surly to the author's wife, upon which "I threatened to come and personally drag him out from behind his desk."
OK, then...
Mijn kleine oorlog is a discomfiting text. Horrors are described, some of humanity's worse sides are displayed, and these (admittedly partial) glimpses of reality are nearly negated by mischievous authorial poses and metafictions. Since I expect that the latter were not to be found in the chronicles published in installments late in 1944 (the earliest version of this text) and probably not in the reportedly raw 1947 version, it seems clear that they were not a necessary distancing device for the author in order to cope with the lacerating material. So, why? That is an honest question, not a veiled criticism,(**) and one I cannot answer now. But I am intrigued by this surprising little text and have not done with Louis Paul Boon at all.
(*) Apparently, he couldn't toe the rapidly changing official party line.
(**) Although this question is not addressed, you might be interested in reading an interview with Boon at: http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/intervie...
Identify Epithetical Books Mijn kleine oorlog
| Title | : | Mijn kleine oorlog |
| Author | : | Louis Paul Boon |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 140 pages |
| Published | : | 1968 (first published 1947) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Cultural. Belgium. Novels. War. Academic. School. European Literature. Dutch Literature. Literature |
Rating Epithetical Books Mijn kleine oorlog
Ratings: 3.64 From 550 Users | 24 ReviewsCriticize Epithetical Books Mijn kleine oorlog
Great book with stories about the 2nd World War as it was by ordinary people in occupied Belgium. What a great writer LPB is!Senryu Review:Postwar postmoderntake on wartime ennui inbeguiling vignettes.
Korte vertellingen en schetsen uit de Tweede Wereldoorlog, gezien door de ogen van de gewone man.Het ruwe, krachtige en felle proza is doordrenkt van een ingehouden woede en verdriet dat schrijnende, troosteloze, kleinzielige, goudeerlijke en gewetenbeproevende verhalen oplevert, met een grote liefde voor de mens en een dito afkeer voor onrecht en onnadenkendheid. Een monument voor iedereen die die jaren heeft moeten meemaken. Petje af.
KICK 'EM HARD"My Little War" is a fictionalized account of the Flemish writer Louis Paul Boon's travails as a frontline soldier during World War II. But don't mistake it for a hero's journey. Boon was captured after just three days of action, sent to a German prisoner-of-war camp and eventually allowed to return to his village in occupied Belgium. This slender volume, originally published in 1947 but only now available in English for the first time, is an anti-epic. Boon is less interested in
This book is following in the footsteps of Louis-Ferdinand Céline, but it did not catch my attention as much as Céline did (That's quite hard, Céline is one of my favorite writers). Surely, Louis Paul Boon is a great writer, but the storylines were sometimes hard to follow. Boon offers a heavy dose of symbolic disillusionment and self-conscious sentimentality, while writing almost nothing about the war itself. He cannot identify anything connected with the war, but this has a reason. It makes us
Prachtig, ontroerend en verschrikkelijk
De taal is soms moeilijk te volgen, ik las het boek fluisterend of hardop om meer grip te krijgen op het verhaal. Het is wel een gevaarlijk realistisch beeld van wat de mensen tijdens de oorlog voelden en dachten. Prachtig.
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