Banu Mushtaq - Heart Lamp (And Other Stories, 2025) ***½

Banu Mushtaq is an activist, lawyer and writer from the southern Indian state of Karnataka. She writes in the Kannada language. She describes in this collection of twelve stories, the daily struggles of muslim women in their families and community, especially in the context of male dominance and religious hypocrisy. Her characters are taken from life itself, imperfect, with lots of selfishness, powerlessness, ignorance, short-sightedness and kindness at the same time. Many characters - especially the men - sacrifice their feelings and duties for greed and societal respect. Women are usually the victims of the whims of the men: cheap labour, no decision-making power, excluded and subordinate. Banu Mushtaq's story may seem exaggerated at times, but they crystallise in their tight plots a lot of human suffering and a rare insight behind the walls of the houses of the Indian muslim community. She is quite daring at times, which unsurprisingly has led to demands for censorship. Material possession drives all other values. 

"Material things had become priceless, and human beings worthless. Behind those material possessions, people's feelings were on sale. Things decided the relationships between small people with big shadows. A fridge had the capacity to change the life of a young bride. The different colours it came in could play Holi on her young dreams. Such possessions held a prominent spot not only in the house, but also in making life decisions. People were running, having tossed their worthiness and their relationships into the air. Tired, collapsing in exhaustion, sweating, they were running. Aha! The golden deer is more than roaming about, it is making everyone mad too. It has brought everyone under its spell. The tale of its magnetism - no one could grasp it in their hands - this was the grand mark of civilisation!" (p. 123)

The last story is a letter to God, called "Be A Woman Once, Oh Lord". By addressing God directly and reproaching him for what is happening in the world, she breaks through every convention and level of acceptability for her community. 

"Whether you have time for these small problems striking my limited thoughts, whether you feel my entire life is a three-hour play, whether I seem like an actor to you, keep one thing in mind: my happiness and sadness are not borrowed. They are not to be performed. They are to be experienced. You are just a detached director. When one of your own characters assaults my mind, have you no duties as a director? Grant me one solace at least. What is my fault in all this, tell me?" (p. 203)

 Her stories are at the same time revealing, interesting and audacious. Her language is full of local words that defy translation (food, religious names, clothes, ...) which gives the stories an additional strong quality and authenticity. The story-telling itself is at times meandering and less tight than we could expect from modern day writing. Whether this collection of stories deserves to win the International Booker Prize is of course another matter. 

Octavia E. Butler - Parable Of The Sower (Headline Publishing, 1993) ***

It's an older book that I was advised to read in the context of the current situation in the United States. With "Parable Of The Sower", Octavia Butler wrote a dark dystopian novel, about the US West Coast in some distant future, namely the period between 2024 and 2027. The world has collapsed as the consequence of climate change, corporate greed and social inequality. The main character, Lauren Olamina lives with other people in a fortifide compound, protecting themselves from gangs who own the streets. The people have no revenue, no income, no future. Life is bleak. Events make Lauren leave her place in the hope of finding something better elsewhere, but at the risk of being killed in the process, yet staying where she lives does not offer better perspectives: 

"I like Curtis Talcott a lot. Maybe I love him. Sometimes I think I do. He says he loves me. But if all I had to look forward to was marriage to him and babies and poverty that just keeps getting worse, I think I'd kill myself." (p. 82)

 Lauren is also hypersensitive, and hyperemphatetic: she feels the pain of others as strong as the person she sees having pain. This makes her predicament even worse in the context of the horrors they encounter on their journey. 

"He messed up our family, broke it into something less than a family. Still, I would never have wished him dead. I would never wish anyone dead in that horrible way. I think he was killed by monsters much worse than himself. It's beyond me how one human being could do that to another. If hyperempathy syndrome were a more common complaint, people couldn't do such things. They could kill if they had to, and bear the pain of it or be destroyed by it. But if everyone could feel everyone else's pain, -who would torture? Who would cause anyone unnecessary pain? I've never thought of my problem as something that might do some good before, but the way things are, I think it would help. I wish I could give it to people. Fail­ing that, I wish I could find other people who have it, and live among them. A biological conscience is better than no conscience at all." (p. 108)

Because of her capacity to feel, she is also generous towards other people, but always in a context of suspicion caution. She joins forces with some other young people of her compound, they encounter other lone travellers on the way, or groups they have to avoid or team up with or fight with. It's a long journey north, into the unknown. Other people are the biggest danger, but also a necessity to become stronger as a group. 

"They deserve to know that I'm a sharer. For their own safety, they should know. But I've never told anyone. Sharing is a weak­ness, a shameful secret. A person who knows what I am can hurt me, betray me, disable me with little effort. 

I can't tell. Not yet. I'll have to tell soon, I know, but not yet. We're together, the three of us, but we're not a unit yet. Harry and I don't know Zahra very well, nor she us. And none of us know what will happen when we're challenged. A racist challenge might force us apart. I want to trust these people. I like them, and ... they're all I have left. But I need more time to decide. It's no small thing to commit yourself to other people." (p. 167)

She is fundamentally alone, and she concocts a kind of religion in the process, trying to have other individuals join her belief system that "god is change", "that everything is change" and even that adherents can "shape god". She calls this system Earthseed. Maybe this concept is one of the weakest points of the story, with little elaboration and just some semi poetic hymns to introduce each chapter. It's an empty shell that she proposes. 

The novel is of interest because of its predictive power and the dark atmosphere. 

 

Peter J. Hotez - The Deadly Rise Of Anti-Science (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023) ****

If there is one topic of interest for all of us, is the rise of anti-science. Out of the political frustration and dissatisfaction with their fate, many people have huddled together in a weird movement that rejects reason, science, evidence and even education. They seem tired to be on the wrong side of rationality, hence they accept any theory to feel equal to people who completed higher studies and have acquired some intellectual expertise, whether in medicine, chemistry, biology or engineering. 

Peter J Hotez is clearly a true expert. He is an American scientist, pediatrician, and advocate in the fields of global health, vaccinology, and neglected tropical diseasecontrol. He serves as founding dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine, Professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology & Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine, where he is also Director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and Endowed Chair in Tropical Pediatrics. He also serves as a University Professor of Biology at Baylor University.

He is also very active on X (Twitter) to keep advocating for evidence-based medicine, crusading against anti-scientists on a daily basis, and risking his own life and that of his family in the process. 

In this book he gives an overview of the rise of anti-science in the world, and how it has become its own kind of business, generating huge amounts of money for snake oil salesmen. 

With the appointmentof Robert Kennedy Junior as Health Secretary in the United States, it appears that the battle for reason and evidence has been lost, with all results already showing in terms of the spread of measles, small pox and other infectious diseases in the United States. I only hope people will soon realise why experts and expertise is highly needed. 

I selected some related excerpts from his book, showing the way forward not only for the scientific community but for all of us to ensure that people get the right information and are not the victims of selfish conmen. 

"One of the most challenging aspects of confronting anti-science aggres­sion is that those promoting its agenda have acquired wealth, power, and organization. The anti-vaccine/anti-science ecosystem now in­cludes the most widely viewed nighttime cable news shows, far-right members of the US Congress and extremist groups, and a formidable array of contrarian intellectuals or pseudointellectuals. From my per­sonal experience, I learned firsthand that these groups play hardball. Not only are they aggressive, but as I have tried to make clear, they do not feel compelled to be truthful. They sometimes seek to trigger waves of hate e-mails and attacks via social media. 

Another challenge is the simple reality that anti-science very much runs along a partisan divide. The anti-vaccine and anti-science move­ments are fully enmeshed in extreme conservative or far-right politics. At times, this can include extremist politics, such as when the Proud Boys and other White nationalist groups participate in anti-vaccine ral­lies and messaging. Therefore, combating anti-science means it is often not possible to remain politically neutral." (p. 134)

"In the biomedical sciences, anti-science groups exploit to their advan­tage two key tactics that make it difficult for the scientific community to counter their influence. First, anti-science in America is currently spurred by a strong partisan divide, but the scientific professions re­main committed to political neutrality. Next, health freedom propa­ganda often dismisses mainstream science as little more than science dogma perpetuated by high priests working at elite research universi­ties or institutes. To make matters worse, the anti-science groups dom­inate the modern public square-the Internet and social media-know­ing full well that our profession looks inward, seldom engages the public, and prefers journals and scientific conferences where we speak only to other scientists. 

Therefore, success in combating anti-science aggression requires that we must at some level be prepared to do battle on multiple fronts. It means that at least some biomedical scientists must show a willing­ness to learn and practice science communication in the public market­place." (p. 140)

"However, these actions do not address those generating the content from the far-right, the role of the disinformation dozen in monetizing the Internet, or the Russian government's weaponized health commu­nication. Given the 20 years of relative neglect by the US government in tackling anti-science aggression, I believe we must realize that this issue goes way beyond the health sector. We need input from other branches of the federal government such as the Departments of Homeland Secu­rity, Commerce, Justice-and even State, given the Russian involve­ment. We must seek ways to demonetize the use of the Internet by the disinformation dozen or halt the anti-science aggression emanating from Fox News and elected officials, but in ways that do not violate the Bill of Rights or the US Constitution. Although the health sector may not know what can and should be done to address anti-science aggres­sion, there are those who do and who could come to the table with ex­periences that taught them how to combat global terrorism, cyberat­tacks, and nuclear proliferation. We must learn from them. Along those lines, the White House should consider establishing an interagency task force to examine such possibilities and to make recommendations for action to slow the progression of anti-science." (p. 159)

There is work to be done. We try to participate in this where possible. 

An important book that should be read by everyone in politics. 

 

Solvej Balle - On the Calculation of Volume (Faber & Faber, 2024) ****

The great thing about this novel is that it's very original and memorable. The main character, Tara Selter is caught in a kind of time warp, endlessly imprisoned in the 18th of November. As time progresses, she always returns to the same day, forever. How this could have happened is unclear, and whether there's a way out, is equally unclear. Because she has already lived through the same day so often when the book begins - 122 times - she can generally predict what will happen, when it will rain, when the neighbour will walk the dog, what her husband Thomas will say. Luckily she has some freedom of movement and freedom of choice so that she can move through this day with some slight alterations. 

Of course she can discuss this with her husband, but the next day, he will have completely forgotten about it, starting anew on the same day. Sometimes she gets through to him, when showing evidence of her incredible predicament: 

"And then it kicks in: the emergency response, and could tell, as I sat there in my hotel room, still dazed by having wit­nessed the repeated fall of a slice of bread, that that was what had happened to Thomas. I could tell by his voice. The quiet panic when he realised what had happened and his falter­ing attempts to come up with a reasonable explanation. It wasn't a problem with the line. It was the ground under his feet falling away, his emergency response being triggered, his first-aid box being unpacked. The door opening onto a world in which everything can be subject to change. A time falling apart, a day repeating itself, experiences disappearing from memory without a trace, dust returning to places from which one knows it had been wiped away." (p. 36)

 It is clear that the absurdity of her situation quickly touches the borders of rationality, because many aspects of her life become totally contradictory and impossible. But that's part of the novel's charm: it puts us in a situation where we ourselves start thinking more deeply about time and what it actually represents. Things we have always taken for granted appear to be less so. Not that it's a lesson in physics, but it raises deep questions. 

"Actually, though, we had no shortage of explanations, we had plenty of those, but explanations which could stand up to critical scrutiny and at the same time embody all our many observations, those we could not find. All our lines of enquiry came to dead ends, we explored each strand thoroughly and returned empty-handed every time. There were flaws and a lack of coherence, there were facts that didn't fit, there were contradictions and paradoxes. Every system fell apart the minute we tried to put all our data together to form a whole. There was no consistency, we could not get the facts of the day to square with certain of our theories, we could not construct coherent systems or find any pattern, and all our detailed explanations had to be rejected one after the other. Every time we came to a dead end we had to go back to the facts: Thomas was subject to the laws of forgetfulness, and I was accumulating too many days in my memory. (p. 89)

The only challenge for Tara is that she gets older, instead of being renewed each morning. Her body is affected by time as can be expected in linear time: hair turning grey, skin starting to wrinkle, etc. Strangely enough, the question that I would have raised does not seem to enter her mind: is there another Tara whose life continues after November 18? Is this cyclical day just an anomaly for one part of her that gets trapped when another part just moves on? Is there even a day as November 19 for everyone else, or has time stopped on this day for everyone? Maybe these questions will get answered in the next six volumes of this story. 

Balle writes well, and despite the dozens and dozens of repetitive days that she describes, the text is well-balanced, with new little facts making the text interesting and captivating at the same time. I'm not sure whether I will read the full septology, but the first book was very enjoyable. 

Ota Pavel - How I Came To Know Fish (Penguin Classics, 2025) ***

Ota Pavel was a Czech author who died in 1972 at the age of 42. His father was jewish and his mother Christian. His father and two brothers were captured by the Nazis in the second World War imprisoned in concentration camps, from which all three returned alive after the war. The second determining fact about Pavel's life was his bipolar disorder, which resulted in him setting fire to a farm in Innsbrück during the Winter Olympics which he was attending as a sports journalist, his formal profession. 

"I went mad at the winter Olympics in Innsbruck. My brain got cloudy, as if a fog from the Alps had enveloped it. In that condition I came face to face with one gentleman - the Devil. He looked the part! He had hooves, fur, horns, and rotten teeth that looked hundreds of years old. With this figure in my mind I climbed the hills above Innsbruck and torched a farm building. I was convinced that only a brilliant bonfire could burn off that fog. As I was leading the cows and horses from the barn, the Austrian police arrived..."

His third determining fact is his love of fishing and fish, which is the red line in this small book (126 pages) of fourteen short stories. At the beginning I wondered whether this would be something for me, because his fishing expeditions to the local ponds are described with lots of passion, but it's not a subject that interests me at all. Yet gradually, you come to appreciate the quality of his autobiographical writing, and especially the small family, somewhere in Czechoslovakia minding its own business, yet seriously impacted by life and especially the foreign power of Germany. He describes how a platoon of singing German soldiers destroyed the local pond, making fishing impossible. 

"With hoes and spades they turned the soil so that even God wouldn't recognize it. They dynamited the pond where I used to go with the boys of Lidke, scattering its water as they scattered the church. They diverted the brook from Hrebec, and paved the roads with white marble tombstones so they could walk on the names of those who had been sleeping peacefully. And they sang and sang, stopping only to prepare more dynamite. After all, it was impossible, using only hoes and spades, to wipe out white villages from the face of the earth. The Lidke fields were all around me. Mama had worked there, and potatoes and small white flowers grew up everywhere. Potatoes even grew on the graves of executed men and boys, and when the women dug them out they resem­bled human hearts. That was a warning, and nobody took those potatoes home. Only the greedy Hanackova tried it, lugging a bag to her house, and she was dead within a year." (p. 99)

It's a smalltown life sucked up in the grand wheels of history. Pavel's writing does not condemn as much as describes what is happening around him, with a gentle and compassionate view, humour and a precise writing style. 

If you get the chance, read it. There's lots to enjoy in these short stories. 

 

António Lobo Antunes - Midnight Is Not In Everyone's Reach (Dalkey Archive Press, 2025) ***½

António Lobo Antunes is one of Portugal's most celebrated authors, and this book is his masterpiece, now available in English. I am really in two minds about the novel. It is well-written and very creative in its approach, but it's far too long for the writing style he has adopted. I am used to read difficult or very long books (thinkg of "Gravity's Rainbow", or "2666"), but here I dropped out after more than 200 pages, with almost another 400 still to read. 

The book describes the last three days of a young woman, who reflects, and who reconstructs the events leading up to these days in the past decades of her life, not by actually describing the events, but by indirectly recreating them in an endless stream of consciousness of her own thoughts (now or some other time) and the verbatim comments of other characters, mostly without reference about who is actually speaking. The effect of this style is quite desorienting and requires a lot of attention of the reader. 

"- It's a pinky, what a relief

inattentive to the pines, from afar walking down to the kiosk where Senhor Manelinho, all flattery and friendship 

-Take a look at this flower of a man

forget-me-nots, snapdragons, birds of paradise, at school with an atlas with all of that in pictures, the names in Portuguese and Latin below them, the Biology teacher 

-An endless collection

Senhor Manelinho' s wife pointing out my father to a customer browsing magazines

-He was a perfect man

now deformed and red, with difficulty speaking, sentences that took time to unravel, he liberated his tongue a little in the cafe with the foosball table, thanks to the drink 

-I feel better already

ready to go far if his liver gave him permission but it didn't, 

the rascal, the body turns against us if we trust it, Senhor Manelinho, whose heart was betraying him 

-You have to train them like the animals

and even training it like the animals, which was his case, God knows, Senhor Manelinho stabbing his chest

-I have two plastic veins

not in bed eighteen, in a nursing home in Coimbra, looking at lines on a display

-I spent twelve days after the operation looking at that movie and stitches in his thorax patching up disasters, lunches through a straw, dinners through a straw, an Indian squeezing his sides forcing him to cough 

-Cough up the mucous from your lungs, partner

and my father going up the street with us holding on to the sides of the buildings" (p. 255)

Other authors have used the same technique - such as Mario Vargas Llosa in "Conversation in the Cathedral" - but never in such an obscure and hard to grasp way. The whole world become almost intangible and abstract, despite the very concrete action. The world is a little beyond understanding, and can only be reached by adding layers of memories, fragments of sentences and quick observations followed by emotional responses. Nothing happens, or nothing definite happens. In this respect, the reading experience is quite exceptional, but it requires true courage to read it till the end. It's great, but too long. Or maybe that is also a point he wants to make. You just don't know. 

Greet De Cock & Philippe Meersseman - Grenzen Aan Genezen (Lannoo Campus, 2024) ***

In dit zeer relevante boek stellen verpleegkundige Greet De Cock en arts Philippe Meersseman terecht de vraag waar de grenzen liggen van onze zorg. Hun bekommernis komt vooral van hun ervaringen met patiënten die ten allen koste behandeld blijven, zelfs al is de levenskwaliteit of de overlevingskans van deze mensen na behandeling zeer laag. We hebben naar aanleiding van de lancering van dit boek een gesprek gehad met een tiental specialisten vanuit verschillende stakeholdergroepen, uiteraard inclusief beide auteurs. 

Als we alleen naar de cijfers kijken, dan blijkt de toekomst er niet rooskleurig uit te zien: "Tegen 2050 zal het aantal 80-plussers verdubbelen. Dat is een stijging van 640.000 in 2024 naar 1,2 miljoen over 25 jaar. Samen met de leeftijd nemen ook de chronische gezondheidsproblemen toe. Van de huidige 80-plussers heeft bijvoorbeeld 20% dementie, bij 90-plussers is dat dubbel zoveel. In 2023 zijn er in Vlaanderen ongeveer 130.000 mensen met dementie, in 2040 zal hun aantal toegenomen zijn tot 190.000". 

Tijdens onze discussie kwamen we al snel tot de vaststelling dat verschillenden onder ons begrepen hadden dat de auteurs wensten dat mensen na een bepaalde leeftijd niet meer behandeld zouden moeten worden, wat duidelijk niet hun insteek is. Het gaat wel om het correct te kunnen inschatten wat de mogelijkheden zijn van een individu na behandeling, en welke begeleiding mensen zouden moeten kunnen krijgen, zowal qua correcte informatie, als bij ondersteuning bij een keuze voor al dan niet verder behandelen. 

Ze geven heel veel voorbeelden in hun boek, en ik veronderstel dat elke lezer er nog tientallen kan aan toevoegen. Mijn schoonmoeder heeft voor euthanasie gekozen nadat bij haar abdominale kanker was vastgesteld. Het was een impactvolle maar waardige en zinvolle keuze van haar. Mijn schoonvader heeft de ziekte van Parkinson en hij wil dood, maar is onvoldoende wilsbekwaam. Dus blijft hij maar in het systeem zitten (driedubbele bekkenbreuk na val, incontinent, verschillende opnames in verschillende ziekenhuizen, waar hij agressief wordt, dan naar een WZC waar hij diep ongelukkig is, nu terug thuis maar met permanente begeleiding en zorg wat ook niet langer mogelijk is). En mijn moeder van 91 is nog in goede gezondheid, en heeft vorig jaar beslist te stoppen met tennissen omdat ze er uiteindelijk toch moe werd als ze match speelde. Ze woont alleen, rijdt nog met de auto, doet nog vlot alle administratie voor zichzelf, en bereddert zich prima. 

Er zijn geen goede antwoorden. Elk individu is anders. Maar als iemand die veel met patiënten bezig is als vertegenwoordiger van enkele organisaties, vind ik wel dat de mogelijkheid tot keuze van euthanasie sterk moet uitgebreid worden. Ik heb de mensonwaardige aftakeling gezien bij mijn eigen vader, en nu bij mijn schoonvader. Hoeveel leed kan worden bespaard, hoeveel leed kan de directe familie worden bespaard, en hoeveel capaciteit verkwisten we in onze zorg aan mensen die niet meer willen leven, maar buiten de wettelijk toegelaten criteria vallen voor euthanasie. We moeten dit debat als samenleving durven aangaan. Vandaar dat dit boek een goede insteek geeft. 

Welke politici durven dit debat mee aangaan? 

Vincenzo De Meulenaere - Coudenberg (Borgerhoff & Lamberigts, 2025) ****

In "Coudenberg" brengt geschiedkundige Vincenzo De Meulenaere het kasteel van Coudenberg weer tot leven. Op de "mons frigidus" zoals de heuvel in het oude Brussel ooit heette, werd in de tiende eeuw een versterking (castrum) gebouwd, die gaandeweg uitgroeide tot het koninklijk paleis voor vele koningen uit onze geschiedenis, om dan te worden vernietigd door een grote brand in de nacht van 3 op 4 februari 1731. De oorzaak hiervan is onbekend, maar het betekende het einde van het paleis, dat nog lang als een ruïne bleef bestaan tot het uiteindelijk in 1774 met de grond gelijk werd gemaakt. 

Vandaag zijn enkele ruïnes van dat paleis nog te bezichtigen onder het Koningsplein in Brussel. Het Koninklijk Paleis staat eigenlijk op dezelfde plek vandaag. Het Coudenbergpaleis heeft een gigantische geschiedenis gekend, en ongeveer al wie ooit macht had in Europa, van de vroege middeleeuwen tot de 18e Eeuw heeft er zijn intrek genomen of is er te gast geweest. Het is de verdienste van De Meulenaere om dit op een heel overzichtelijke en frisse manier weer tot leven te roepen, met veel aandacht voor anecdotes en zin voor detail. Het zijn vaak dezelfde hoofdfiguren als in "De Boergondiërs" van Bart Van Loo, maar hier geconcentreerd op een enkele plek. 

Als Brusselaar vind ik het fantastisch dat hier zoveel aandacht aan wordt geschonken, maar ik denk dat elke Belg verrast zal zijn dat een dergelijk paleis volledig verdwenen is. Ik heb ook in Tervuren gewoond, waar ook een gigantisch kasteel stond aan de vijvers, maar dat ook totaal is verdwenen, en ongeveer in dezelfde periode ook uitgroeide van een kasteel tot een paleis. 

De Meulenaere schrijft met veel liefde en belangstelling voor zijn onderwerp, wat het lezen ook de moeite waard maakt. Op het eind van het boek worden nog enkele kleurplaten weergegeven van schilderijen over het paleis en zijn protagonisten op verschillende tijdstippen. Van mij hadden dat er gerust veel meer mogen zijn, omdat het visuele natuurlijk ook zijn aantrekkingskracht heeft, maar ik weet dat het niet altijd eenvoudig is om reproductierechten te krijgen voor publicaties. 

Wie van onze vaderlandse geschiedenis houdt en van onze hoofdstad moet dit boek zeker lezen. Een aanrader. 

Vincent Delecroix - Naufrage (Gaillimard, 2023) ****½

In November 2021, when a migrant boat sank in the English Channel, twenty-seven people died. Despite their numerous calls for help, the surveillance centre failed to send help. Inspired by this real event, Vincent Delecroix's novel, a work of pure fiction, raises the question of evil and collective responsibility, by imagining the portrait of an operator at the centre who may also have been shipwrecked that night.

The whole weight of the migration crisis is put on the shoulders of the narrator, a telephone operator in France who somehow completely misjudged the calls for help coming in. She gets interviewed by her superiors and by the police to understand what truly happened. She gets accused with all the wrongs of this world, including racism, extremism, lack of human compassion. Throughout the dialogues and plot all other possible causes for the death of these people are included: the lack of democracy and prosperity in the countries from which these migrants fled in the first place, the lack of political will by France and the UK to help solve the problems in the countries of origin, the lack of adequate support in the country in which they arrive or pass through, the suboptimal control of small boats leaving the continent to the UK,  the lack of insight by the people themselves to step into ramshackle boats with too many other people,the lack of agreements on when the French or when the UK coast guards have responsibility to answer emergency calls, etc. The whole world fails, and basically everyone is to blame, yet the young woman gets grilled by the media and her direct environment. 

The novel power is to have crystalised this broad sense of guilt on this one individual, whose knowledge and training are clearly suboptimal. Instead of looking for solutions or showing empathy with the victims of the boat incident, one single individual gets all the blame. Delecroix holds a mirror to society and to the reader. Despite the programmatic and political character of the book, it is sufficiently well written to sympathise and sometimes despise the narrator. She is not perfect, for sure, and that is of course the power of the ambiguity that Delecroix creates. 

Colm Tóibín - Long Island (Picador, 2024) ***½

In "Long Island", the story of Eilis, the main character from Tóibín's earlier novel "Brooklyn", picks up again some twenty years later. She lives in the same neighbourhood as the Italian family of her husband Tony, with two grown-up children. When she finds out that her husband has made a child with another woman, and that the husband of that woman wants to dump the baby on her, Ellis needs time to think and get her life back together. She takes a long trip back to Ireland, to visit her mother in the company of her children. Also in Ireland, things are more complicated and stressful than anticipated. 

Tóibín is an excellent writer, which he demonstrates here again. The story has a good pace, the characters are well-rounded and nuanced, the plot twist and situations interesting. It's entertaining and easy to read, but it lacks the power and emotional devastation of some of his other novels. It is moving, but not gripping like som of his other work. 
 

Christian Kracht - Eurotrash (Serpent's Tale, 2024) ****

The cover and the title of the book are somewhat deceptive. Yes, the story takes place in Switzerland, and it relates the story of a middle-aged Swiss man who picks up his mother for a trip around the country. The narrator - called Christian Kracht, so I assume it's somewhat autobiographical - has a hate/love relationship with his mother, not only due to the wealth that his (grand)-parents gathered, partly due to sympathy and collaboration with the Nazi's. He has no qualms about emptying his mother's bank account, and to use it on a spending spree on their road trip. His mother has been in psychatric care for a large part of her older life, and the trip acts as an endeavour to come to terms with his past as well as to reconcile with his mother before she will die. Furthermore, she has a stoma pouch which leads to further complications. 

The story is cynical and funny, primarily because the mother has her own kind of personality: direct, smart and brutal. A woman who no longer cares what people think of her. She drinks what she wants whenever she wants, and self-medicates at her heart's content. In the process of re-builing the mother-son relationship, the story gives a broad cultural picture of our times: novels, politics, economic inequality, the power of the media (his fater worked for Axel Springer of the publishing company with the same name).

The power balance between both characters shifts as the story unfolds. His initiative and relative dominance over his mother gradually shifts, and she takes gradually more control. She is not entirely who he thinks she is, and that is possibly one of the best parts of the book, next to the fact that it is very well written. It's also tightly composed, entertaining as well as relevant. 

 

Julian Baggini - How To Think Like A Philosopher (Granta, 2024) ****½

Excellent book on the clarity of thinking for philosophers. The title is somewhat misleading, in the sense that it gives the false impression that the book is addressed to a lay audience wishing to think like a philosopher, whereas the book is more written for philosphers or aspirant philosophers than for lay audiences. The content could be of interest to all of us in our daily lives, yet the book itself is full of references to philosophers and today's - mainly anglosaxon - community of philosophy, and as such primarily addressed to insiders of that community. 

His thoughts are refreshing, and especially on how to use philosophy in our everyday world, asking the right questions, making the goals of thought more important than the formal logic underlying it (which has of course its own limits), discussing things to come closer to the truth instead of winning the argument, being generous with your feelings when people make judgments because they may have formulated things not correctly, ...

I am happy that he makes a reference to Robert Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", the book about which I wrote my Master's degree dissertation, and I agree that this book is much better than Pirsig's next book "Lila: an Inquiry into Morals". 

One of the more surprising facts in the book is the isolation of the philosopher in his or her thinking. He compares this to the more collective thinking in the East vs the "isolated islands" that individuals represent in the West. This may be true for philosophy, but in most other disciplines, whether research or corporate decision-making, collective reasoning with clear processes requiring expert input from various disciplines is the standard. It is odd that philosophy remains a kind of individual sport instead of a team sport.

I also like his balanced views on how to think: 

"Both gratuitious iconoclasm and slavish conformity are to be avoided. Just as we need to relinquish a sense of ownership of our ideas, we need to give up misguided feelings of loyalty to a particular thinker, theory or school. We need to be non-partisan. Reasoning well is not about taking sides". (p. 219)

At the end of the book, he adds a number of essential points: Attend, Clarify, Deconstruct, Connect. I give you a short view on "Clarify", because I think it essential to understand the value of uncertainty in the context of rational thought: 

"Time and again we find that the yearning for certainties, for universal validity, for principles that will cover all eventualities, turns out to be quixotic. Take the philosophy of science. Pretty much every scientist agrees that no description of 'the scientific method' captures all that scientists actually do. 'I'm sceptical that there can ever be a complete overarching theory [of sci­entific method] simply because science is about rationality,' says physicist Alan Sokal. 'Rationality is always adaptation to unforeseen circumstances - how can you possibly codify that?' Philosophers who believe they can fully prescribe the scientific method fail to recognise that 'the world is just extremely com- plicated.' They project their ways of thinking on to scientists so there is 'too much formal logic and too little reasoning that is close to what scientists actually do in practice'. Some are disappointed that a rational life leaves so much uncertain and so many loose ends. The dream of enlightenment turns out to be the reality of a bit less darkness. But disillusion is often the result of starting out expecting too much. A. C. Grayling says there is often a false assumption that 'If reason was so wonderful, things should be perfect.' No wonder that "hen things evidently aren't perfect, the conclusion drawn is that reason is not so wonderful" (p. 262)

One thing that disturbs me in his book, is the author's own prejudices and generalisations about industry. Without any evidence, he puts all pharmaceutical and food companies in the same basket of intentionally lying and robbing people of their money. Why this sloppy approach when he is so rigorous and open-minded on other topics? 

But let me end with a positive note. Almost everything Baggini writes and discusses is both excellent and useful. As he writes, thinging correctly is hard work: 

"If this sounds like hard work, that's because it is. Rigorous thinking is largely a matter of effort and application. We have evolved to be 'cognitive misers' using as little mental energy as we need to get us the next meal and the next offspring. It's easier not to think and if we must, it's more fun if we do so lacka­daisically, tossing off opinions around a boozy dinner table or spitting out hot takes on social media. No one is blameless, but there is an important difference between those who strive to do better and those who don't, those who push their intelligence to the limits and those who stay within them." (p. 277)

... and this makes his book all the more relevant. He summarises the key take-aways after every chapter, which makes it easy to return to when needed. Because everything he writes is so relevant for our daily struggles and the many mistakes in clear thinking we encounter in science, in policy-making, in journalism and other societal activities that it would be absolutely fantastic to write the same material for the lay person, and to integrate it in the curriculum of secondary schools. 

Elif Shafak - There Are Rivers In The Sky (Penguin, 2025) ****

Elif Shafak gets better by each book. "There Are Rivers In The Sky" brings the triple story over time and geography: Mesopotamia/Iraq/Turkey and London. The album starts in the realm of Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian emperor, educated and cruel. A rare cuneiform lapis lazuli tablet and a raindrop are the recurring motives or red thread throughout the lives of the three protagonists: Arthur, living in the 19th Century, is a very poor and very intelligent young man, and his promise is luckily noticed by an archeologist of the British Museum. Narin, a young Yazidi girl, living with her father and grandmother near the Tigris on the border between Turkey and Iraq. Zaleekha, a young woman living in London in 2018, a hydrologist researcher who just separated from her husband. 

The waters of the sky, the Thames and the Tigris are recurring motives in the book, unifying the stories of the three protagonists, as is the lapis lazuli tablet with text from the Gilgamesh epic, and the 'lamassus', the huge sculptures that represent human, bird and lion. 

Elif Shafak's writing is brilliant, and alternates between epic descriptions, situational dialogue, historical/cultural facts and little pieces of wisdom or smart descriptions. 

The book starts like this, and it immediately made me laughing out loud for the beauty of the writing, the imagery and the epic value of nature. A majestic opening. 

"It is an early-summer afternoon in Nineveh, the sky swollen with impending rain. A strange, sullen silence has settled on the city: the birds have not sung since the dawn; the butterflies and dragon­flies have gone into hiding; the frogs have abandone_d their breeding grounds; the geese have fallen quiet, sensing danger. Even the sheep have been muted, urinating frequently, overcome by fear. The air smells different - a sharp, salty scent. All day, dark shadows have been amassing on the horizon, like an enemy army that has set up camp, gathering force. They look remarkably still and calm from a distance, but that is an optical illusion, a trick of the eye: the clouds are rolling steadily closer, propelled by a forceful wind, determined to drench the world and shape it anew. In this region where the summers are long and scorching, the rivers mercurial and unforgiv­ing, and the memory of the last flood not yet washed away, water is both the harbinger of life and the messenger of death" (p. 3)

Likewise, this introduction to the Thames was also worth mentioning: 

"Winter arrives early in London this year, and once it presents itself it does not wish to leave. (...) Ready for the cold spell, caterpillars and frogs gently allow themselves to freeze, content not to thaw until next spring. Prayers and profanities, as soon as they leave their speaker's mouths, form into icicles that dangle from the bare branches of trees. They tinkle sometimes in the wind, - a light, loose, jingling sound" (p. 20). 

The whole book is about the triangle of Arthur pulling himself up, despite all the odds against him, to become an explorer and archeologist, the devastating story of Narin, who wants to live and whose life is in danger for the simple reason that she is a Yazidi girl. And Zaleekha who is uncertain, who lives between worlds, torn between the Middle-East and the West, struggling with her identity, her family, her future and her feelings.  

"She was silent when she should have spoken; she spoke when she should have been silent. Either way, guilt is her most loyal companion" (p. 205)

I'll give some more excerpts, starting with the most gruesome: the horror of humanity which is omnipresent in the novel. It is a dialogue between young Narin and her grandmother: 

"'Well, this-world is a school and we are its students. Each of us studies something as we pass through. Some people learn love, kindness. Others, I'm afraid, abuse and brutality. But the best stu­dents are those who acquire generosity and compassion from their encounters with hardship and cruelty. The ones who choose not to inflict their suffering on to others. And what you learn is what you take with you to your grave.' 

 'Why so much hatred towards us?' 

'Hatred is a poison served in three cups. The first is when people despise those they desire - because they want to have them in their possession. It's all out of hubris! The second is when people loathe those they do not understand. It's all out of fear! Then there is the third kind - when people hate those they have hurt. 

But why?' 

'Because the tree remembers what the axe forgets.' 

'What does that mean?' 

'It means it's not the harmer who bears the scars, but the one who has been harmed. For us, memory is all we have. If you want to know who you are, you need to learn the stories of your ancestors. Since time immemorial, the Yazidis have been mis­understood, maligned, mistreated. Ours is a history of pain and persecution. Seventy-two times we have been massacred. The Tigris turned red with our blood, the soil dried up with our grief­and they still haven't finished hating us.' (p. 43)

Or the following: 

"Remember though, what defies comprehension isn't the mysteries of the world, but the cruelties that humans are capable of inflicting upon each other". (p. 222) 

Shafak's nature is alive, even the immaterial things: the stones speak, water has memory, the same drop of water falls on the heads of different characters.  

  "For too long the Londoners have been saying that the river is a silent murderer. But Arthur understands that it is, actually, the other way round. It is humans who are killing the water" (p. 158)

"It scares Arthur, travelling by river (on the Tigris). The vessel sways, its timbers creaking under the pressure, and it unsettles him, the velocity of the flow, foaming with wrath. Along the way he spots destitute villages. Poverty has a topography all of its own. It rises from the ribs of the earth, stretching its naked limbs against the sky, its features dry and gaunt, sore to the touch. Poverty is a nation with no borders, and he is no foreigner in it but a native son." (p. 312)

Despite all the horror of humanity, there is hope: the individuals who manage to rise above their situation, despite their limitations and their vulnerabilities. But they are kind and generous, which gives us a feeling that not everything is lost, that there are possibilities for better, even in small efforts.  

"Grandma loves the strong tea from Russia, which she drinks with a cube of sugar squeezed between her teeth. She says if you drink tea this way, the words you speak will be sweeter" (p. 140)

It's an excellent book, one that I loved reading: smart, entertaining, captivating, and highly relevant for our time. If I have to give to things that I liked less, these two come to mind. First, the stylistic power of her writing diminishes as the novel progresses, not unlike her previous novel. Second, the little recurring motives are a little too programmatic and gimmicky for me. 

Yet I can highly recommend it. 

Lucas Bracco - A World Of Fallacies (Prometheus, 2023) ***

I have always been a keen fan of formal and informal logic. Every single day, you can hear and read people with high functions in politics, goverment, industry or other influential places to say things are logically incorrect. When debating their points, they easily fall back on an ingroup vs outgroup position, or claiming that they have other views on society, even if these responses are beside the point, because my comment had nothing to do with the content of their utterances, but everything with the technical aspects of reasoning. 

Lists of all fallacies exist, on Wikipedia, or the Cognitive Bias Codex with its great visual representation. 

This little book is also of interest, with a lot of quotes from everyday life to explain why some statements and reasonings are biased or wrong. Many of the fallacies presented were familiar to me, so I assume the book is more addressed to people without prior knowledge, although I wonder if any of them would spend money on a book on the topic. Nevertheless, it's an nice introduction. 

I never understood why logic is not part of our education system, since it is essential for critical thinking in everyday life, for policy and for science. It appears so vital for the quality of our society and democracy. 

 

Richard Whatmore - The End Of Enlightenment (Allen Lane, 2023) ****

In the back cover I read: "Richard Whatmore carefully reconstructs the historical context (of the Englightenment) and presents it as a powerful echo chamber for our own troubled times", and "This intellectually exhilarating book is particularly relevant today, when liberal democracy us facing new dangers, which threaten to drag us back into the darkness once more". These quotes gave me the wrong idea that Whatmore would make the link between 18th century enlightenment philosophy and liberal democracy today. 

That is not the case. He reviews the - primarily British - Enlightenment thinkers such as Hume, Shelburne, Macaulay, Gibbon, Burke, Brissot, Paine and finally Mary Wollstonecraft, all the subject of a chapter each. Whatmore explains the context for their philosophies and ideas, their reception, and the ensuing debates in the historical setting of the French Revolution, the American constitution and other political game-changers. 

Despite all the years of philosophy at university, and my subsequent reading of philosophy books, this book requires quite some knowledge to grasp everything and is clearly written for specialists, rather than for the interested lay person like myself. 

The real references to our time only come at the end of the book, which is aptly called "And By Confusion Stand": 

"The assumotion is that eighteenth century authrs, would, if they were beamed across time into the present, recognize and appreciate that many of their hopes and dreams about politics had been realized. They would praise the creation of democracies defending human rights. They would applaud the extent of toleration and the break­up of empire, even if the latter had been largely within living memory. They might accept that war remained part of the human condition, but the extent of social and technological progress would no doubt overwhelm them. Many of our intellectuals would seek to congratulate their ancestors on establishing the foundations of our world: many global traditions of revolution, we might tell them, can be charted from their historical moment, and so too can tradi­tions of gradual reform, the basis of breathtaking technological and social progress that deserves to be lauded" (p. 310)

"Those battling to prevent the end of enlightenment worried about the loss of cultural diversity, the loss of alternative political or economic systems, and the identification of happiness with the 

ever-growing consumption of luxury goods. They worried that their own world was a return to the past: to times of division, tur­bulence, sacrifice, war and death. Enlightenment figures saw what we call modern politics largely in religious terms, with politicians in free states presenting themselves as latter-day priests. They were concerned that fanatics had won the day, with enthusiasm the most powerful force in social intercourse. Political puritanism, they believed, had defeated enlightenment". (p. 312)

Indeed, I am one of those baffled and perplexed citizens who follow what's happening in the world almost by the minute, shocked by the lack of fact-based rationality, of social and legal justice, of human rights and the freedom of speech. We are witnessing a regression into darkness, with intolerance, brutal nationalism, imperialism and greed running politics. If only for this reason, every little brick that can help to bring society a step closer to real Enlightenment is welcome. Whatmore gave us the foundations again.

 

Jacqueline Harpman - Moi Qui N'ai Pas Connu Les Hommes (Stock, 1995-2025) ***

Apparently this novel gets some attention now that it's been translated to English as "I Who Have Never Known Men", which led to this re-issue in French too. The author was born in in 1929, the same year as my father, and like her, we are also born in Etterbeek, the same commune of Brussels, so there was some personal interest on my part to read this book. 

It's the story of 40 women who live in a cage, guarded by men, deep underground. The narrator is the youngest of them, and she has no recollection of what happened to bring them there, nor has she any notion of the context. The place and the time are not described, but we can assume it's sometime in the future. Early on, the guards leave in a hurry when the alarms go off, and the women manage to leave the cage, only to surface on an endless desert-like landscape with few reference points or signs of life, human or other. 

They gather some food and water and set out for the unknown. I will not go into further detail to avoid disclosing too much of the plot. 

When asked what the purpose of their existence is, the following dialogue ensues: 

"-      Les hommes, petite, c' etait être en vie. Que sommes-nous, sans avenir, sans descendance? Les derniers maillons d'une chaine cassée. 

- La vie donnait done tellement de plaisir?

- Tu as si peu idée de ce qu' était avoir un destin que tu ne peux pas comprendre ce qu'il en est d'être dépourvues au point où nous le sommes. Regarde notre façon de vivre : nous savons qu'il faut faire comme si c' était le matin car ils augmentent l' éclairage, puis ils nous passent la nourriture et à un moment donné les lumières baissent. Nous ne sommes même pas sures qu'ils nous fassent vivre sur un rythme de vingt-quatre heures, comment mesurerions-nous le temps ? Ils nous ont réduites au dénuement absolu." (p.61)

What is life without any future, any past, any action, any plans, any joy, there is not even a sense of time since the women live by the rhythm of the artificial light in the cave.  

The story is dark, dystopian, depressing. There seems to be no hope for the women, despite all their efforts. It's worth reading because of the coherence in the narrative, its singular plot and setting. The story is sufficiently strong to hold a mirror to the reader about his own life, and the sense of direction we have with all connections and perspectives. 

On the downside, there are a lot of contradictions or narrative problems. There is no reason why the main character suddenly starts asking questions when the narrative begins, as if she - like the reader - had never been in this place before. It's also bizarre that when they reach a river, the women do not decide to follow the river downstream, as this would be the easiest tactic to encounter other people, and to have drinking water at all times. 

Anyway, I will be generous in my comments. It's worth reading, and definitely a memorable novel. 

Philippe Claudel - Quelques-uns Des Cents Regrets (Stock, 2005) ***½

When his mother dies, the narrator returns to the place where he grew up, a small town in the north of France flooded by a rising river. During the three days he spends there, he is reminded of the figures that have disappeared: his mother, of course, whom he once loved more than anything else, and the more disturbing figure of his absent father, who, according to legend, died in a distant war.

In his youth, a photo on the bedroom wall in an aviator's uniform evoked the missing hero. But one day the family legend collapsed: the teenager discovered that his mother had lied to him about this mysterious father. He left home suddenly. He was only sixteen. Now that is mother is dead, he returns full of grief and unresolved emotions. 

He talks to the few locals, trying to recreate and understand his own past. In his typical sensitive style, Philippe Claudel takes us by the hand to scrape away layer upon layer of unknown aspects in the narrator's life, with the precision and care of an archeologist, with the big difference that as he digs deeper into the past, the emotional weight starts shifting. He came for the funeral of his mother, more as a formality as the only son, yet gradually he starts to understand his past a little better. 

The overall atmosphere of melancholy and sadness is possibly the novel's greatest strength. Everything in the old village is a shadow of former times, the people who stayed are old and cannot go anywhere, the sense of desolation and decay is everywhere. 

Hannah Arendt - The Freedom To Be Free (Penguin Books, 2018) ***

In this little book, actually a compilation of three lectures, philosopher Hannah Arendt explores the value of freedom. She distinguishes throughout the lectures on various forms of freedom, negative freedom (to be free from oppression, to be free from want, to be free from fear) and positive freedom (to be free to participate in democratic society). 

Even if I can appreciate her conclusions and general vision on freedom, the way she presents it, with little evidence or substantiation other than what other philosophers wrote on the topic, makes it a little old-fashioned, while the subject is of course very relevant in today's context. Many of her statements are just statements, without any link to earlier premises and without connection to earlier steps in her reasoning. Or sentences such as : "Where everyone does the same, nobody acts in freedom, even when nobody is directly coerced or compelled" are hard to understand without any examples. A counter-example could be a rave party for instance. Why would the dancers not act in freedom? 

Nevertheless, despite the somewhat aged style and the lack of substantiation - it is after all just a lecture and not a scientific article - her thoughts remain of interest in today's world, where freedom is still far from being achieved for the large majority of the population, and certainly not the freedom to be free. 

Juan Carlos Onetti - De Werf (Meulenhoff, 1978) ***½

Ik heb me blind gezocht naar een Engelse vertaling van dit boek van de Uruguyaanse schrijver Juan Carlos Onetti, maar die zijn niet meer betaalbaar tweedehands, en niet meer beschikbaar als nieuw exemplaar. Na lang zoeken, heb ik toch een Nederlandstalige versie gevonden.

"El Astillero" (1961) is een aangrijpende verkenning van existentiële thema's aan de hand van het verhaal van de antiheld Larsen, die na een ballingschap van vijf jaar terugkeert naar het fictieve gebied Santa Maria. 

De roman beschrijft zijn vergeefse pogingen om weer aanzien te krijgen door een betekenisloze rol aan te nemen als algemeen directeur van een vervallen scheepswerf die eigendom is van de ongrijpbare Jeremias Petrus. Larsens dagelijks bestaan wordt gekenmerkt door een gevoel van verval en ontgoocheling terwijl hij zich vastklampt aan de hoop om de scheepswerf nieuw leven in te blazen, ondanks de schijnbare irrelevantie en het ontbreken van functioneel personeel. Interacties met verschillende personages, waaronder de geestelijk gehandicapte dochter van Petrus en cynische collega's, benadrukken thema's als misleiding, zelfbedrog en de absurditeit van de menselijke conditie.

Niemand heeft enig respect voor de ander in dit verhaal. Larsen werkt gratis, hopend op een deel van de inkomsten als hij de scheepswerf weer financieel vlot trekt, maar die werf is niet meer te redden volgens de boekhouder en ingenieur die er vreemd genoeg nog rondhangen, en regelmatig materiaal verkopen om nog een bron van inkomsten te hebben. Larsen is laf, net zoals de meeste andere personages. Ze zijn kleingeestig, inhalig, en wat ze doen lijkt volledig nutteloos in hun kleine universum. Echte communicatie is er niet, laat staan dat ze een gemeenschappelijk doel hebben. Een plot zonder karakters waarmee de lezer zich kan vereenzelvigen, lijkt het beste recept voor een slecht boek, maar Onetti slaagt erin om deze klip toch te omzeilen, vooral dan door zijn elegante - maar iets ouderwetse - stijl en door het algemeen gevoel van totale bevreemding en machteloosheid tegen een vaak niet te begrijpen realiteit. Vrolijk is het allemaal niet, maar wel intrigerend. Enkele voorbeelden: 

"Schor, gesmoord en weinig overtuigend klonk driemaal ach­tereen een misthoom op de rivier. Larsen tastte in zijn zakken naar sigaretten, maar hij had niet de kracht zich te ontdoen van de natte jas die om hem heen plakte en hem bedwelmde met z'n trieste, laffe geur, z'n stank naar een kater en naar ver­schraalde lotions uit eindeloos weerspiegelde kapsalons die mis­schien al jaren waren afgebroken en hoe dan ook irreeel ge­worden waren. Ineens vermoedde hij wat iedereen vroeg of laat beseft: dat hij de enige levende mens was in een wereld vol schimmen, dat communicatie onmogelijk en niet eens wenselijk was, dat medelijden niets meer waard was dan haat, dat ver­draagzame afschuw en half respecterende, half zinnelijke par­ticipatie het enige was wat een mens kon verlangen en moest geven." (blz. 96)

"Daarom moet Larsen, toen hij het plein dwars was over­gestoken, af en toe even in de motregen en wind zijn blijven staan om met verbazing, afschuw en onbeschrijflijke opwin­ding tot de ontdekking te komen dat het feit dat de werf een complete, oneindig geisoleerde, autonome wereld geworden was, het bestaan van de andere wereld, waarin hij nu liep en zelfs ooit gewoond had, niet uitsloot" (blz. 100)

Dit zijn misschien enkele frappante voorbeelden, maar zo is ongeveer het hele boek. Je vraagt je af waar het allemaal om gaat, je voelt de verlatenheid, de uitzichtloosheid, de zinloosheid van wat er gebeurt in elke zin. En naast het creëren van deze bevreemdende sfeer, houdt Onetti dit gevoel aan doorheen het boek. 

Het zoeken waard. 

 

Stefaan Top - Volksverhalen uit Vlaams-Brabant (Het Spectrum, 1982) ***

Op een rommelmarkt gevonden en gekocht, samengesteld door Prof. Stefaan Top, hoogleraar Volkskunde aan de KULeuven, van wie ik ooit les had kunnen hebben, maar niet gedaan heb. Het boekje bevat meer dan honderd verhalen die zijn opgetekend uit de mond van ouderen - soms zelfs genoteerd zoals uitgesproken - maar velen ook uit oude teksten. Het zijn sprookjes, straffe verhalen, religieuze gebeurtenissen, sagen en legenden. 

De term "Vlaams Brabant" moet zeer ruim worden geïnterpreteerd: er zijn verhalen uit Leuven, Overijse, Schaarbeek, maar ook uit Ninove. Enkele voorbeelden: 

Van den man, die zingen moest

Arjaan moest den kelder van Mijnheer Pastoor witten.  De pastoor dacht bij zichzelf: Ik moet zorgen, dat hij van mijn wijn afblijft.  'Arjaan,' zei de pastoor, 'ge moet zingen, terwijl ge werkt. Dan gaat het goed vooruit!' 

En Arjaan trok den kelder in en zong, dat heel de pastorij er van dreunde, eerst al zijn liedjes uit de jongelingsjaren, dan de kerkzangen en ten slotte de mis der overledenen. 

Zoo had hij reeds verscheidene uren al zingende in den kelder doorgebracht, zonder een enkele minuut te zwijgen. 

Toen hij aan 't slot der mis gekomen was, ging hij over 't baar­kleed zingen: 

'Pater noster ... ' klonk het plechtig, en Arjaan zweeg. 

'Nu drinkt hij,' zei de pastoor.

Van een Vrouwken, dat alleen woonde

De man was dood en begraven, en luttel tijd daarna bracht de pastoor aan de weduwe een bezoek. 

En om haar te troosten sprak hij over den Hemel en over de eeuwige rust, welke heur man daar genoot. 

En nog, vrouw lief,' zei de goede pastoor 'gij moet eens denken op onzen God, op Kristus, die voor ons gestorven is .. .' Is die brave man ook al dood?' steende het vrouwken. 'Ja, wij weten toch van niets: wij wonen hier ook zoo alleen.

Sinter-Wijen als peerdeknecht

Sinter-Wijen, patroon van Anderlecht, was eerst peerdeknecht in die gemeente. Al het brood dat hij voor zijne peerden mede­nam naar 't veld, deelde hij uit aan de arme lieden. Dat was den eigenaar ter oore gekomen, en op zekeren dag trok hij naar 't veld bij zijn knecht, ten einde zich met eigen oogen te over­tuigen of Guido werkelijk het brood der peerden durfde wegge­ven. Toen Guido hem zag afkomen was hij heel en al uit zijn lood geslagen, en, in zijn schrik, raapte hij haastig eenige aard­kluiten op en stak ze in het broodzakje der peerden. En zie, de meester ging regelrecht op het broodzakje af, en vond het gevuld met brood. 

Deze korte vertelsels als voorbeeld van wat de lezer kan verwachten. Interessante lektuur, een leuke inkijk in de cultuur van onze voorouders, maar ons niveau van humor is - gelukkig - toch nogal wat geëvolueerd, net zoals het plezier in de spot te drijven met de goedgelovigheid van andere mensen. Alhoewel, misschien is het nu wel allemaal een stuk brutaler.