Oorlog en terpentijn

by Stefan Hertmans

Vlak voor zijn dood in de jaren tachtig van de vorige eeuw gaf de grootvader van Stefan Hertmans zijn kleinzoon een paar volgeschreven oude cahiers. Door de verhalen uit zijn jeugd vermoedde Hertmans dat de inhoud wel eens onthutsend kon zijn. Jarenlang durfde hij de schriften niet te openen. Tot hij het wél deed, en onvermoede geheimen vond. Het leven van zijn grootvader bleek getekend door armoedige kinderjaren in het Gent van voor 1900, door gruwelijke ervaringen als frontsoldaat in de Eerste Wereldoorlog en door een jonggestorven grote liefde.

Hij sublimeerde zijn verdriet in de stilte van de schilderkunst. In een poging dat leven te doorgronden schreef Hertmans zijn herinneringen aan zijn grootvader op. Hij citeert uit diens dagboeken en kijkt naar diens schilderijen,om uiteindelijk de ware toedracht te ontsluieren. Hertmans vertelt dit verhaal met een verbeeldingskracht waarover alleen grote schrijvers beschikken, en in een vorm die een onuitwisbare indruk op de lezer achterlaat.

Oorlog en Terpentijn vormt een aangrijpende zoektocht naar een leven dat samenviel met de tragiek van een eeuw – en een postume, bijna mythische poging dat leven alsnog een stem te geven.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, War, Belgium, Literature, World War I, Novels

336 pages, Hardcover

First published September 2, 2013

About the author

Stefan Hertmans is a Flemish Belgian author, poet and essayist. He is the author of a literary and essayistic oeuvre - including poetry, novels, essays, plays, short stories. His poetry has been translated into various languages and he has taught at the Ghent Secondary Art Institute and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent. He has given lectures at the Sorbonne University, the universities of Vienna, Berlin and Mexico City, the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. and University College London. His work has been published in The literary Review (Madison) The Review of contemporary fiction (Illinois) and Grand Street (New York). He was awarded the ECI Literatuurprijs and the Golden Book Owl Audience Award for War and Turpentine, a novel based on his grandfather's notebooks recollecting his time before, during and after the First World War.

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Stefan Hertmans is een Belgisch schrijver, dichter en essayist.

Hij is auteur van een literair en essayistisch oeuvre (poëzie, roman, essay, theatertekst, kortverhaal) dat hem in binnen- en buitenland bekend maakt. Zijn gedichten en verhalen verschenen in het Frans, Spaans, Italiaans, Roemeens, Kroatisch, Duits, Bulgaars. Hertmans doceerde aan het Stedelijk Secundair Kunstinstituut Gent en de Koninklijke Academie voor Schone kunsten (KASK, Hogeschool Gent) en leidde er het Studium Generale tot oktober 2010. Hij gaf lezingen aan de Sorbonne, de universiteiten van Wenen, Berlijn en Mexico City, Library of Congress (Washington), University College London. Zijn werk verscheen onder meer in The literary Review (Madison) The Review of contemporary fiction (Illinois) en Grand Street (New York). Hertmans werkte mee aan tijdschriften zoals Raster, De Revisor, Het Moment, NWT, Yang, Dietsche Warande & Belfort, Poëziekrant en Parmentier. Van 1993 tot 1996 was hij redacteur van het Nederlandse tijdschrift De Gids, hij recenseerde voor De Morgen en schreef de boekenbijlage van De Standaard. In Nederland publiceerde hij in Trouw.

In 2017 werd hij Commandeur in de Kroonorde.
Stefan Hertmans is een Vlaams schrijver, dichter en essayist.

Stefan Hertmans in de Nederlandstalige Wikipedia

Stefan Hertmans in de Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren

Stefan Hertmans bij "Schrijversgewijs"


Stefan Hertmans is a Flemish writer, poet and essayist.

Stefan Hertmans in the English Wikipedia

Reviews

[Perry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Une Beauté Douloureux en Flandres
NY TIMES 10 BEST BOOKS OF 2016

The more time passes from reading this book, the more I appreciate its dolorous beauty as a reflection on art and war, and memory and love. While I saw this as a decent 4 four years ago, I now see five stars in an iridescent visual collage of captivating and haunting splendour.

In 1981, the Belgian author Stefan Hertmans' 90-year-old Flemish maternal grandfather, Urbain Martien, gave him two large notebooks he had written in the prior several years of his memories of his Dickensian childhood growing up in Ghent, a port city of Belgium, and of his military service in World War I. Hertmans did not pull out the notebooks and begin work on the novel until after 2010 with the approach of the 100-year anniversary of WW I.


In the summer of 1914, after Germany's invasion of Belgium, Martien was conscripted. During the war he was seriously injured three times, going back into service after the first two. He describes his first return to a "mob of emaciated ghouls." He describes an early German offensive as "a moving wall of metal, smoke and gunfire" that "seemed to herald the last judgment." Viewing the Zeppellin for the first time, he said it was like a "dream-fish drifting silently over our heads." In all the degradation of war, he can still see the nuance of nature: "The earth warms up; after the chilly morning hours, vapour rises from the miry fields, which shine in the strange light. A blanket of lapwings ripples over the horizon." Yet, as The Guardian put it, "these 90 pages are some of the most distilled expression of unremitting horror."

In the final part, we see Martien's love and loss and pain (a discussion of which would be a sort of spoiler). In probably the most poignant parts of this darkly gorgeous novel, we get a portrait of the aging painter who had little respect for more modern painters:

"They muddle along with no respect for the laws of anatomy, don't even know how to glaze, never mix their own paint, use turpentine like water and are ignorant of the secrets of grinding your own pigments, of fine linseed oil and the blowing of siccatives."

He loved Rembrandt

Rembrandt's "The Slaughtered Ox," shown among pictures in the novel


and the Flemish masters:


Peter Paul Rubens, "Adam and Eve"

Jan Van Eyck, "Ghent Altarpiece"

And, as a war survivor:

His grand passions were treetops, clouds and folds in fabric. In these formless forms he could let go, lose himself in a dream world of light and dark, in clouds congealed in oil paint, chiaroscuro, a world where nobody else could intrude, because something--it was hard to say what--had broken inside him.

I always leave with visual impressions after viewing masterpiece paintings on a trip to a large gallery or museum. Some strike me, take my breath away once I've had time to contemplate them, visualize them, delight in their glory. While I wouldn't go so far as to say this novel is breathtaking, I will say its beauty has entranced me over the past month, in which time I've become enamored with it as a masterful novel of war and art and love.

[William2 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Non-chronological story set for the most part in Ghent, Belgium, and jumping to selected periods between the birth of the narrator's grandfather in the late 1890s up to the recent past. The unnamed narrator loves his grandfather, whose impoverished childhood and time in the trenches of World War 1 have marked his 90 years on earth irrevocably. A painter, he took his grandson, with whom he was close, everywhere.

The novel reminds me in the early going of Thomas Bernhard's phenomenal Gathering Evidence. Bernhard's grandfather was also a big influence on his world view. Like it, War and Turpentine is beautifully written, though the tone is gentler and more broadly observant of the fleeting world, whereas Bernhart's memoir is a collection of grievances against all the fools he's suffered. The two points of view couldn't be more dissimilar, yet both have at their core this adoration of a beloved grandfather.

As a child the narrator's grandfather had the good fortune to watch his own father—the great-grandfather—at work in his profession as a painter of Church murals. Naturally, the colors he used were highly toxic. This was a time before safety regulations in the same Belgium that created a living hell in Congo. Naturally, the painter-father's health suffers. Later, as a very young man, hardly out of his teens, the grandfather works in horrendous industrial conditions himself. In an iron foundry without winches, he pours molten iron from a crucible he holds in his hands. Hideous accidents are commonplace.

Hertman's writing runs along a pleasant median between summary and passages of extraordinarily vivid detail. He uses photos of things he mentions in the text in a fashion reminiscent of W.G. Sebald. (See The Rings of Saturn, The Emigrants, Austerlitz, etc.) But somehow the practice seems less essential here. Perhaps it is just a matter of tone. I have to think more about the matter.

Then we arrive in August 1914. The Germans have invaded Belgium. Urbain, the beloved grandfather, along with his fellow soldiers, are fantastically outgunned. The pounding of the gargantuan German howitzer Big Bertha feels like an earthquake underfoot. Everywhere they go, they march, and their destinations are invariably littered with the dead and the dying for there are no medical corpsmen. Logistical supply, too, is almost nonexistent. Urbain and his soldiers— he's in charge of a squad by this time—are starving. They're dropping like flies. Some men are so thirsty that they drink from a canal which has dead bodies in it: they end up with dysentery. Within a week the Brussels army is reduced to half its former size.

The novel until now has been deliciously rich, spilling over with vivid imagery, descriptions of architecture, town markets, neighborhoods, strange people, mother's cooking, poverty, the harsh labor of primitive industry, the work of the great-grandfather's mural painting. Then in Part 2 we are in the middle of a rather commonplace war story. The fact that it's action packed and harrowing in my view does not make up for the cliches of the genre which begin to appear. All the novelty of this part lies in its setting—Brussels—which closely follows the course of the actual war there. But the bright freshness of Part 1 is conspicuous in its absence. The narrator is now entirely Urbain, who we've only heard speak previously through letters or other writings. The grandson has stepped aside. The artifice of the fiction, to my mind, becomes more apparent. The playful non-chronological approach is abandoned for linear storytelling. This is Hertman's little structural risk. Most readers will no doubt follow him enthusiastically.

Late in Part 2 and spilling over into Part 3 is the tale of Urbain, just back from the war, and his newfound love for a neighborhood beauty. This relationship compasses the final tragedy of his life, which truly is a vale of tears most stoically borne. Quite moving and warmly recommend.

[Roger Brunyate · Rating 3 out of 5]

 
A War Fresco in a Fractured Frame

War and Turpentine is the author's ostensible* attempt to write a life of his grandfather, a Belgian soldier in the First World War and an amateur painter all his life, "tossed back and forth between the soldier he had to be and the artist he'd wished to become" [emphasis mine]. But Stefan Hertmans never succeeds in defining that "and" connecting the two. In round numbers, we have Turpentine (150 pages), then War (100), then Turpentine again (50). Though intermittently interesting, and even approaching excellence in its wartime section, the result never quite coheres as a single book.

The War section is certainly the best thing in it. It is presented as the first-person account of Urbain Martien, a Flemish ironworker (and part-time painter), who was called up in 1914 and served to the bitter end. Having been to military school, he enters as a corporal; his abilities will earn him many medals and promotion to Sergeant Major. His account is unusual for three reasons: it deals with the early days when operations were confusingly fluid and the armies had not yet dug into their trenches; even in the middle years of the war, it focuses on the less well known Yser Front, between Belgium and the sea; and it details the pervasive racism in the Belgian army, where French-speaking officers discriminate against those they see as mere Flemish peasants. Martien, for instance, is continually protesting against his name being pronounced in the French way, as "Marshen," rather than the Dutch "Mar-teen." I can think of only one other novel that shows the war from this perspective: Erwin Mortier's While the Gods Were Sleeping, no stronger than this in its war scenes, but a more successful novel overall.

For here is the question I have about the War section: whose writing is it? Unlike the two framing sections, it is told in a single voice, that of Urbain Martien himself. But, at least in the smooth translation by David McKay, it reads as something far more polished than you would expect from the working-class soldier as Hertmans presents him. Had he been creating a fictional character, fine—but everything else he tells us about his grandfather seems real, even down to the grainy photographs in the framing sections. If this is a novel, then where is the fiction? I assume that this central part is his grandfather's memoir, presumably edited by the author but it is impossible to know how much. Light polishing only, or wholesale rewriting?

What I think has happened is that Hertmans came upon some materials left by his grandfather but struggled to know how best to frame them. [I have had a similar problem with my own father, also a WW1 veteran, and have repeatedly failed to find the best way to examine his story and the mysteries he left behind.] Hertmans' solution was to lead into it with a long account of his grandfather's childhood, including the life of his great-grandfather as well, a professional church painter. Then after the war memoir, he tells of his grandfather's later life, his great love, his marriage, and declining mental health, illustrated by several of the subjects he painted or copied. Contemporary interludes show Hertmans himself hunting around attics or visiting old sites now lost or built over. I thought of W. G. Sebald especially in the use of photographs, or Geoff Dyer's visits to WW1 battlefields in The Missing of the Somme. But I wondered at times whom he is really trying to understand: his grandfather or himself?

Certainly, there are the elements of a story here. But Hertmans fails, I think, to connect the painter to the soldier in any meaningful way. And the constant ambiguity of genre between family history, enhanced memoir, and outright fiction bothered me throughout.

======

*I say "ostensible," for there is always the possibility that the author has made a lot of this up, even to the extent of inventing a fictitious family tree. Which would give the book interesting metafictional qualities, if so. But it still needs greater internal unity to justify that conceit.

[Marc · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm always sceptic when I start reading a much acclaimed book, because the high expectations usually turn out to be counterproductive. In this case I have to say that it is not too bad, although the book is certainly not the masterpiece that one makes of it.

"War and turpentine" is limping on different legs, and that is where my problem lies. In the first place it's a portrait of the author's grandfather, Urbain Martien, and a family chronicle. Hertmans reconstructs the life of his grandfather on the basis of personal memories, stories told in his family, but mainly on the basis of 2 handwritten cahiers that his grandfather gave him at the age of 90 (that is what Hertmans claims). We get a beautiful, colourful description of Urbain's childhood around the turn of the century (1900), in the city of Ghent and the surrounding area. Especially the mother bond of Urbain is highlighted, his pious queasiness and his (silent) admiration for the fierce creativity of his father, who is a restorer of paintings and sculptures in churches and monasteries.

The transition to the second part is quite abrupt: this part is the version of the war experience of Urbain, edited by Hertmans, as laid out in the 'cahiers' of his grandfather. We are presented with raw war scenes, but with a strong emphasis on the heroic deeds done by himself. And that courage and entrepreneurial spirit contrasts with the coarse image that we got in the first chapter of Urbain. The war description certainly is a strong piece of literature, really captivating. Of course, one has to ask to what extent the description is truthful (because the memories were written down 50 years after the war) and to what extent grandson Stefan Hertmans has contributed to the editing of it.

The third part covers the 70 years of Urbain's life after the war, and here again we see a queasy grandfather, who marries a woman whom he may barely touch, and who quietly undergoes his fate. From a literary-technical point of view this is the most interesting part, because here we see the author Hertmans at work to unravel the mystery of his grandfather, determining how the past is situated in a foreign country, and then constructs a story with small clues and own interpretations. This is the postmodern part of this book. In that way, I think the key to reading this book is already offered on page 27: "grandparents reveal more about your own identity than your parents (who you fight)". In other words: is this book more about Stefan Hertmans than about Urbain Martien?

In short: this is a fascinating and poignant novel, in several ways, but not convincing enough so that I could join the jubileering choirs. To me, The Convert (Hertmans' next novel) was a much more succesful book!

[Laurence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vreemd genoeg vond ik het tweede hoofdstuk, de kern van dit boek over de Eerste Wereldoorlog, het minst interessante van de drie: misschien heb ik daarvoor al wat te veel gelezen over (de) oorlog. Gelukkig maken de meer persoonlijke eerste en derde hoofdstukken dat ruimschoots goed. Aangezien ik zelf uit het Gentse afkomstig ben, moet ik toegeven dat ik wel wat een zwak voor de beschrijving van het Gent van toen heb.
Prachtig geschreven boek, en vooral een zeer aangrijpend eerbetoon van de schrijver aan zijn grootvader.

[Marjorie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author, Stefan Hertmans, is a well-known Flemish poet. Apparently there is some debate over how much of his book, “War and Turpentine”, is fictional and how much is true. Indeed, the main character in the book, Urbain Martien, is the author’s grandson and he did bequeath his memoirs to him, which took Hertmans 30 years before reading. When questioned, the author has said that he only lightly edited his grandfather’s memoir. And yet it isn’t advertised as a memoir.

The book starts out with Turpentine (his grandfather’s young days as a poor European). Part of the section is told by Hertmans as recollections of his grandfather and part is told by his grandfather and includes his recollections of his own father. I enjoyed this section the most as it dealt with the art produced by Urbain and his father. It beautifully portrays the life of the poor a century ago. I especially enjoyed the photos of the artwork referenced and the personal photos contained throughout the book. There are also essays and mediations contained in this section.

Then there is a long section, the war section, told by Urbain. This is probably the best written part of the book and I tend to think this may have been the bulk of the grandfather’s writings, though it’s written with the heart of a poet, which Hertmans is. It’s a horrific accounting of Urbain’s experiences in the war. What struck me most about this section were the parts when Urbain would recount what he was seeing in front of him and compare it to his beautiful memories of the country, lighting up the stark difference. There were parts that were difficult to read due to their nature.

The book then goes back to Turpentine and tells of Urbain’s life after the war and his marriage to Gabrielle. This section has a sad story to tell.

As well as this book is written and the beautiful poetical prose throughout, I just never really seemed to connect with the characters. In the Turpentine sections, the author jumps around quite a bit between the author, his grandfather and his great-grandfather and would sometimes lose me. There were many relatives that I couldn’t keep straight. I think if I had read it as a memoir, it would have given me a different perspective than reading it as fictional based on fact. I found it a bit disconcerting not knowing what was true and what wasn’t.

This book was given to me by the publisher through First to Read in return for an honest review.

[Nada Elshabrawy · Rating 5 out of 5]

مروعة والله فعلًا، من الروع ومن الروعة.

[Mohamed Samy · Rating 2 out of 5]

البداية مع ما يُكتب على أغلفة معظم الروايات الحديثة، مثل ساحقة، عاتية ،ماحقة ،مدهشة مذهلة ،مربكة، معضلة. هذه الكلمات التى تحمل دلالات مخالفة بشكل كبير لقيمة العمل الأدبى الذى تحكى عن جماليته.

روائى يعثر على مذكرات لجده، والذى خاض غمار معارك الحرب العالمية الاولى فى صفوف الجيش البلجيكى، الرواية تمضى احداثها فى خطين أولهما الحديث عن ذكريات الجد عندما كان طفلاً ، والتنقل فى حكاية هذه الذكريات بصوت الروائى الحفيد مرة وصوت الجد أحيانا اخرى، لكن لا يظهر ،لى، التمكن أبداً ، يظهر خلل ما فى طريقة السرد والتنقل . الخط الثانى هو ما كتبه الجد فى مذكراته بنفسه عن الحرب ومشاركته البطولية فيها، وهذا هو الجزء الأضعف، تقريبا لم يتدخل الروائى ستيفان هيرتمانس لاضفاء ناحية ادبية جمالية على مذكرات جده، وحتى عندما كان هو الكاتب الحقيقى لسرده الشخصى للذكريات والاحداث كانت لغته الادبية لغة عادية جدا، لغة باردة؛ كلمات كأنها قد أخرجت للتو من ثلاجة وقد تم ترتيب الكلمات لتكون جملاً توصل المعنى ولا توصل الشعور والاحساس .

كان الوصف أحيانا كثيرة باهتا وشاحبا، من الواضح انه ليست هناك صنعة أدبية روائية احترافية، لكن مجرد مشاعر اراد الكاتب ضخها على شكل كلمات لم يفلح فى صقلها.

النجمتان للجزء الاول وهو ذكريات الطفولة للجد وتفاصيل حياته مع اسرته، وللحديث عن الرسم واللوحات حديثا شيقا، ويا للعجب فالجزء الاول افضل بكثير من الجزء الثانى الخاص بالحرب بشكل ملاحظ جدا.

قد تروق الرواية للبعض، فأدب الحروب وادب الانعزالية والوحدة والسجون، انواع من فنون الرواية سيلاقى اقلها صنعة، رواجاً وتأثيرا ولكن هناك أدباء عمالقة سيجعلونك مشاركا فى الحرب بعقلك وقلبك.
ليس الأدب بالسهل خوض غماره، وصنع رواية " قوية ومروعة" بالتأكيد يحتاج موهبة فذة وجهد جهيد للروائى.

الرواية هنا ذكريات بها شجن ومسحات من حزن ونضال وحرب، لكن ليست بالتأثير المطلوب -على الأقل -لشخصى.

[Joy D · Rating 4 out of 5]

This work of historical fiction is based on the life of the author’s grandfather, Belgian artist Urbain Martien (1891 – 1981). Martien, the son of an artist, grew up in Ghent in a poor family, fought at the battlefront in the Great War, suffered the loss of loved ones, and turned to art for healing. He meticulously copied the masters and wrote in his journals. He exhibited the values and traditions of the nineteenth century while dealing with tumultuous changes of the twentieth. He struggled with traumatic memories, family tragedies, and unfulfilled artistic ambitions.

Hertmans has a knack for portraying the atmosphere of the era, and the reader can sense the harshness of life before modern medicine and conveniences. The horrors of trench warfare are described in vivid detail. Martien was wounded, and returned to the front, only to be wounded again (and again). His grandfather adhered to a code of honor, sense of duty, and self-discipline. The accounts of Martien’s experiences on the battlefront are strikingly offset by the beauty of art.

It contains three parts – the first and third are written in third person by the grandson, who inserts his own recollections into the narrative. The second, containing memories of war, is written in first person from Martien’s perspective. The writing is elegant. Hertmans is a poet and it shows. (I read the English translation from the Dutch by David McKay.) The flow is a little choppy in places, with occasional gaps in the narrative.

I felt drawn in and transported back in time. This book is a wonderful tribute to the author’s grandfather. Hertmans has taken a fascinating life and fashioned it into a moving and memorable story.

It slowly dawns on him, as he stares into the roaring stoke hole in the iron foundry and the sparks dance around him like fireflies, that his shock of revulsion at the sight of that apocalyptic heap of rotting flesh filled with gaping dead eyes has awoken something that tugs at him, that hurts, that opens a new space inside him – that for the first time he feels a desire that seems greater than himself. It is the desire to draw and paint, and the instant he becomes aware of it. The sudden realization washes over him with overwhelming force, in which there is an element of guilt. The realization that he wants to do what his father does. It wells up inside him like a sob, like a painful, electric shock from deep within, where his unconscious has taken its time to ripen before coming to light. And he cries.

4.5

[Olha · Rating 4 out of 5]

«Війна і терпентина» Стефана Гертманса – це та непопулярна книжка, яку варто прочитати.

Помітила за собою, що тепер частіше беруся за тонші чи просто легші книжки, які обіцяють прочитатися на одному подиху. Стільки всього хочеться прочитати, тож треба швидше і більше! В жодному разі не кажу, що є щось у цьому погане. Але особисто я б пройшла повз «Війни і терпентини», якби не мала геть інші уявлення про книжку, беручись її читати. Та все ж я не залишилась розчарованою.

Бельгієць Стефан Гертманс успадкував від свого дідуся Урбана Мартіна мемуари. Книжка ділиться на три частини: І – дитинство Урбана, гарування на заводах, споглядання за роботою його батька-маляра у церквах, відвідування уроків малювання і, можливо не така важлива для хроніки життя, та все ж дуже яскраво описана подія: відвідування заводу, на якому виробляють желатин; ІІ – Перша світова війна, Урбан йде воювати, градієнтний перехід з героїчного настрою до усвідомлення безглуздості усіх цих смертей і самої війни; ІІІ – життя Урбана після війни, про його кохання і його дружину (тут навіть трохи детективна історія), а також про любов до мистецтва.

Книжка читається повільно. Всотувала усі ті описи, історії, ніби прозріла і зрозуміла, що мої батьки і тим більше дідусі та бабусі жили з геть іншими цінностями та, банально, з геть іншими побутовими предметами навколо. Місцями у житті Урбана бачила життя мого дідуся, який так само був побожним і воював у Другій світовій. Читаючи «Війну і терпентину» боліло, що не говорила більше зі своїм дідусем.

Стефан Гертманс їздив по тих містах і місцях, які були ключовими у мемуарах його дідуся. Розповідав, як виглядають ті вулиці чи будівлі зараз та якими вони були у роки Урбана. Важко уявити, що все могло змінитися (чи геть ні) за якусь сотню років.
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«Війна і терпентина» – історія про щиру і просту людину, зі своїми болями і своїми радощами. Та й сам стиль Гертманса дуже чіпляв: спокійний і приємно-тягучий, відривалася від історії, аби заглибитися у власні подібні спогади чи досвіди. Книжка після себе залишає ще багато емоцій, однозначно думками буду повертатися до неї ще не один раз. Дуже раджу не оминати цієї книжки.

[Bob Brinkmeyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fabulous book--complex, rich, wise, and beautifully written and translated. It's not a page turner in terms of plot and pacing; it's more like a single malt that one savors and later calls to mind in quiet, thoughtful moments. Put simply, War and Turpentine is the real deal, a masterpiece.

[Ratko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Сјајна књига! Аутор нам предочава дневнике/мемоаре свога деде, човека уметничког сензибилитета, али огрубелог и суздржаног, обликованог сиромаштвом и оскудицом у детињству и, потом, ратним страхотама Првог светског рата у младићком добу. Највећи део чине управо описи бесмисленим ратовањем исцрпљене војске и ужасима који се око њих и у њима дешавају. Можда то и није најоригиналнија тема, али ионако је сваки рат исти - најдубљи кал, морални суноврат и смрт.
Уосталом, следећа реченица из романа то потврђује:
"Моја прича постаје монотона, као што и рат постаје монотон, као што и смрт постаје монотона, као што наша мржња према Немцима постаје монотона, као што сам живот постаје монотон и на крају нам се згади."
Све препоруке.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know many of us have family members who went to war and lost parts of themselves there, leaving us only with letters or journals to try to piece those years together.
While sections of the book are disjointed and didn't flow well, overall it was an interesting & touching tribute to the author' grandfather and his great grandparents.
The WW1 section written in the first person was vivid and powerful. Urbain's relationships with his parents and the role of art & music in their lives was also beautifully written. I think this is a book I will remember.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 2 out of 5]

In my most distant memory of my grandfather, he is on the beach at Ostend
[...]
What he sees is something like a James Ensor painting set in motion, although he despises true work of that Ostend blasphemer with the English name. Ensor is a 'dauber', and along with 'toss-pot' and 'riff-raff', 'dauber' is the worst accusation he can make. They're all daubers today painters; they've completely lost touch with the classical tradition, the subtle, novel craft of the old masters. They muddle along with no respect for the laws of anatomy, don't even know how to glaze, never mix their own paint, use turpentine like water, and are ignorant of the secrets of grinding your own pigments, of fine linseed oil and the blowing of siccatives - no wonder there are no more great painters.

An Ensor painting of Ostend beach:


Book 9 from 13 on the 2017 Man Booker International, and (while certainly not the worst book) the biggest disappointment so far, at least versus my high expectations of it based on reviews I had read and also its status as the only book also on the 2017 Best Translated Book Award shortlist.

War and Turpentine is based on the real-life story of Hertmans grandfather, Urbain Martien, a retired veteran from World War 1. Indeed it is arguable whether this is a fictional novel at all, since it is is more reconstructed biography.

Martien was born in 1891 into relative poverty, as his father Franciscus worked as a poorly remunerated painter and restorer of church murals. Urbain completed 4 years of military training before WW1 and served in the Belgian army with distinction during the war, surviving three serious injuries. Franciscus had no desire to pass his vocation on to his son, but he did inherit his father's love of and skills in painting.

Urbain wrote his life story, at least up till the end of the war, in three notebooks that he bequeathed to his grandson Stefan, who was at a loss what to do with them, until the approach of 2014 made him realise:

the hundredth anniversary of the cataclysm would release a flood of books – a new barrage alongside the almost unscaleable mountain of existing historical material, books as innumerable as the sandbags on the Yser front, thoroughly documented, historically accurate, made-up novels and stories - while I held the privilege of his memoirs but was too scared to open them, didn't dare to open the first page, in the knowledge that this story would be a farewell to a piece of my childhood; this story, which, if I didn't hurry, would be published just when readers turned away with a yawn from yet another book on the First World War.

Hertmans also discovered some further family secrets in his grandfather's papers, during this time, the clues to which were buried in some of his grandfather's paintings, such as a reproduction of Velazquez's Rokeby Venus, but with a different face on the reclining nude, as well as some of his grandfather's anecdotes where memories of the War seemed to bleed into his tales of famous geniuses of the Romantic period:

The things he wished to forget kept coming back, in shards of stories or absurd details, and whether heaven or hell was the subject, shards and details like these were the puzzle pieces I had to fit together before I could begin to understand what had gone on inside him all his life: the battle between the transcendent, which he yearned for, and the memory of death and destruction, which held him in its clutches.

Hertmans explains his approach in this radio interview:
http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcas...

The result was this book, in three sections. The first explaining Hertman's quest and providing an imaginative reconstruction of his grandfather's family history and pre-life war based on the notebooks; the second an account of Urbain's first world war written in the first person (presumably lifted mostly direct from the notebooks, with authorial editing) and a third section that wraps up the story, with the first and third sections illustrated with family photos, scenes from the places described and paintings both famous and, increasingly, Urbain's own.

This is a very creative and literary approach to the subject matter. So why my disappointment?

Ultimately Hertmans been hoist by his own epigraphs. If you are going to write a novel whose first section is ostensibly fiction, but with elements of fact, history and travelogue, all illustrated with occasional black and white photos, then if you quote W.G. Sebald you are setting yourself a high standard, and it is one of which Hertmans falls well short.

Dušan Šarotar's Panorama, which was also eligible for the 2017 MBI did the whole Sebald tribute thing, including more evocative descriptions of Belgium, so much better.

And if your second section is a detailed personal account of the 1st world war, and you reference Erich Maria Remarque, you have the same issue. The here was relatively mundane (albeit the terrible events described need no embellishment). And while the story is obviously true, it did still seem a tad Hollywood, with Urbain surviving miraculously unscathed despite heroically flinging himself into dangerous situations, with all about him falling dead. There is also an interesting undercurrent of Walloon-Flemish tension is this part, with the French-speaking officers disdaining the Flemish NCOs, but this waried a little with repetition, particularly Urbain's repeated insistence that his name is pronounced the Flemish way (closer to Maarten, not Marshen) - which even forms the last line of the book as an admonition to St Peter at Heaven's gates.

It's a cheap shot I know but when Urbain's account acknowledged my story is growing monotonous, just as the war grew monotonous, death grew monotonous, our hatred of the Huns monotonous, just as life itself grew monotonous and finally began to turn our stomachs, I couldn't help but agree.

To be fair, the 3rd section, which pieces together some of the clues and provides some interesting revelations, explaining details of my own world that never offered up their historical secrets until I read his memoirs from the 1st section. But even here, there was too much sentimentality for my taste: ultimately family biography tends to be of disproportionate interest to those in the family.

Ultimately, I realise I have been far too harsh on this book. I would actually be surprised if the judges don't put it through to the MBI and BTBA shortlists. But it wasn't for me.

[Kelly Eeckhaut · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stefan Hertmans deelt in dit boek het complete levensverhaal, een portret in woorden van zijn grootvader. Zijn grootvader, zijn echte grootvader, die de eerste wereldoorlog meegemaakt heeft en die die vier verschrikkelijke jaren van zijn leven had neergeschreven voor hij stierf. Oorlog en terpentijn bevat dat (bewerkte) verhaal, voorafgegaan door een inleiding over het hoe en waarom van zijn boek en de armoedige jeugd van zijn grootvader, gevolgd door wat er na 1918 gebeurde met zijn grootvader. Er volgt ook nog een deel waarin Stefan reist naar de Westhoek, naar de plaatsen waar de loopgraven waren waar zijn grootvader zo veel uren doorbracht.

Ik blijf met ongeveer hetzelfde gevoel achter als bij Sprakeloos van Tom Lanoye en Tonio van A.F.Th. van der Heijden. Enerzijds vond ik de inleiding overbodig en absoluut veel te langdradig. Stefan Hertmans schrijft waarom hij de schrijfsels van zijn grootvader wilde delen, waarom hij eraan getwijfeld heeft, hoe en waarom hij er zich toch uiteindelijk toe bewogen heeft om het te doen. Die hele, wat ik noem, inleiding omvat vijftig procent van het boek, waarbij ik vaak dacht "komaan zeg, begin er nu eindelijk eens aan!".

Anderzijds vind ik het, net omdat het geen fictie is, heel moeilijk om dit boek te beoordelen. Ik bedoel, die man heeft echt bestaan, dit boek werd geschreven door zijn kleinzoon (toen ook al vijftigplusser) om het verhaal van zijn grootvader te delen, wie ben ik om dit stukje familiegeschiedenis te beoordelen? Het voelt een beetje alsof ik die grootvader, die zo al een miserabel leven heeft gehad, oneer aandoe als ik zeg dat ik dit portret niet zo’n meesterwerk vond.

Maar ik zeg het toch: ik vond dit geen meesterwerk. Ik hield van de schrijfstijl, maar ik heb er even aan moeten wennen. Stefan Hertmans leek me door zijn taalgebruik en schrijfstijl het soort persoon waarmee ik nooit overeen zou komen: snobistisch, afkomstig uit de Gentse bourgeoisie, een beetje uit de hoogte … Maar na een tijd kon ik dat beeld dat ik gecreëerd had terug op de achtergrond schuiven en zonder negatief beeld van de auteur genieten van (de meeste van) zijn zinnen.

Het is een en al drama, dit boek. Het leven van Hertmans grootvader is alles behalve benijdenswaardig. En toch werd ik nooit meegesleept, ontroerd of aangegrepen. Ik vond het soms zelfs wat stuntelig overkomen. De uitgebreide stukken over zijn schilderkunst wilde ik het liefste overslaan omdat de inhoud mij niet interesseerde, maar ik las ze wel omdat ze mooi geschreven waren. Van sommige stukken begreep ik de toegevoegde waarde dan weer niet.

Kort: ik begrijp maar half waarom het zo veel lof ontving (de taal, over het algemeen) en ben dan ook ietwat teleurgesteld. Ik heb al veel betere boeken gelezen en ik zal het boek wellicht ook niet te snel aanraden aan anderen.

[Michał Michalski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pierwsza połowa jako osobie zainteresowanej malarstwem dość nieprzesadnie, troche mi się nużyła. Ale w drugiej jak jebło to już zostało do końca. Wspaniała powieść.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The "battle between the transcendent" and the "memory of death and destruction" is eloquently shared through the life of Urbain Martien, the author's grandfather, in War and Turpentine, a book called a "future classic" by the Guardian.

Thirty years after inheriting his grandfather's papers Stefan Hertmans finally read the memoirs. Urbain's early life in poverty drove him into the Ghent steel mills as a teenager. Then came the sudden epiphany that he, like his father who restored church murals, must be an artist. Urbain joins the Flemish Military Academy and is called up to service and into the horror of The Great War.

"How far I have strayed from what I once hoped to become."

Germany wanted a quick route to Paris, and neutral Belgium was in the way. When Belgium resisted, the German army invaded, murdering whole villages. The Rape of Belgium left 6,000 civilians dead, 1.5 million refugees, and 120,000 civilians used as forced labor. The military lost 100,000 or more dead.

Hertmans' retelling of his grandfather's story is in three sections: the author's personal memories and his grandfather's early life; the brutal war years; the post-war years as Urbain cobbles together a life. The war section, for me, was most powerful with its vivid descriptions of death and suffering, the piles of human waste in the trenches, Urbain's honorable bravery and multiple injuries, the absurd carnage of human lives.

"We're all cannon fodder together."

And yet there are moments when Urbain sees nature's beauty, the artist's eye still seeking out the inspiration of color and form and association.

After the war Urbain cobbles together a life: love, loss, and loneliness; the frailty of the body; and the accomplishment of one great original painting.

"What mattered most to him was something he could not share with other. So he painted trees, clouds, peacocks, the Ostend beach, a poultry yard, still lifes on half-cleared tables--an immense, silent, devoted labour of grief, to put the world's weeping to rest in the most everyday things. he never painted a single war scene."

The novel is an international best seller.

I received a free ebook through Penguin First to Read in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

[Shawn Mooney (Shawn The Book Maniac) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bailed a fifth of the way in. This is not really a novel at all – it's a rather dry memoir with sections that go on and on that are more like essayistic musings on Belgian history and culture with little about the main characters at all. What little there was of an actual story was moderately interesting, about a grandfather who'd been a painter of sorts. What I couldn't endure was the feeling of watching paint dry while reading this.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

War and Turpentine is simply one of the finest books to come out this decade, and I want to be an evangelist for this beautifully translated memoir/novel hybrid. It's the story of the author's grandfather, who was born in 1890, was a soldier in World War I (which provides the centerpiece for the novel), and lived into his 90s. The book is both a tribute to a now fully-expired generation that many of us remember and a meditation on exactly how we know what we know about the people who have left us. Stefan Hertmans has been compared to Paul Austerlitz - whom I have not read - but I'm most reminded of Valdimir Nabokov's Speak, Memory.

This is a must-read for lovers of finely-crafted literary fiction and meditative memoirs - as long as you can handle some pretty harrowing descriptions of trench warfare.

[Frank · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wat een schitterende roman! Zeker in de eerste helft van het boek had ik een sterk 'Verdriet van België'-gevoel: niet omdat deze roman daarop lijkt, maar omdat dit net zo'n groots meesterwerk lijkt te zijn. Ik kende Hertmans van zijn slimme en vermakelijke vroege roman Naar Merelbeke , ik wist dus al dat hij kon schrijven maar was hem wat uit het oog verloren. Ik zie in mijn boekenkast dat ik ook Als op de eerste dag heb gelezen, maar kan me daar niets van herinneren, misschien dat het me een beetje tegenviel.
Maar misschien moet ik dat coh maar eens herlezen, want dit boek bewijst wel dat Hertmans niet gewoon dat hij 'kan schrijven', maar dat hij magistraal mooi kan schrijven.

Het valt in drie duidelijk onderscheiden delen uiteen. Hertmans wil de oorlogsherinneringen vertellen van zijn grootvader, die zijn ervaringen in de Eerste Wereldoorlog zelf heeft opgeschreven in een schrift dat Hertmans na zijn dood nog tientallen jaren ongeopend heeft gelaten. Nu het herdenkingsjaar 2014 nadert, heeft hij zich toch aan de taak gezet – en hoe.

Het eerste deel gaat over Hertmans' herinneringen aan zijn grootvader en over diens leven tot de Eerste Wereldoorlog. Dit vind ik het indrukwekkendste deel van het boek. In prachtig proza schildert Hertmans de jeugd van zijn opa. Ik heb de indruk dat zijn proza is beïnvloed door het ongetwijfeld wat gedragen en archaïsche Nederlands van zijn grootvaders tekst: het gaat niet alleen óver iemand die geboren was en opgroeiden in de negentiende-eeuw, ook Hertmans eigen stijl heeft hier een negentiende-eeuwse elegantie en gedragenheid. Daarbij is het ook prachtig gecomponeerd, Hertmans creëert een hecht weefsel van kruisverwijzingen en terugkerende metaforen die prachtig organisch voortkomen uit de beschreven taferelen zelf: zijn grootvaders gefnuikte artistieke ambities, zijn werk in een ijzersmelterij, zijn bezoek aan een fabriek waar gelei wordt gekookt uit rottende paardenkoppen – een prachtig lyrisch beschreven tafereel van vergankelijkheid en verval dat onnadrukkelijk maar onmiskenbaar vooruitwijst naar de verschrikkingen van de oorlog.

Die verschrikkingen worden beschreven in deel II van het boek. Dat deel is nog even magistraal, maar minder opvallend indrukwekkend omdat het vertelt wat al zo vaak is verteld: alle verhalen over soldaten in de loopgraven van die oorlog lijken op elkaar, en zijn allemaal even verschrikkelijk. Alle geijkte episodes passeren de revue: het eerste gruwelijke geweld, dat niet erger lijkt te kunnen en het toch steeds weer wordt; moed en lafheid van de krijgsgenoten; verwonding, verpleging en terugkeer naar het front; arrogantie en stupiditeit van de officieren; uiteindelijke ontgoocheling van de aanvankelijk nog zo moedige soldaat, enz. enz.

Deel III vertelt over het leven van Hertmans grootvader na de oorlog, vermengd met weer wat herinneringen en bespiegelingen van Hertmans zelf. Alle draadjes worden vakkundig aan elkaar geknoopt en er ontstaat zo een ontroerend, generaties omspannend portret – niet alleen van het geknakte artistieke en liefdesleven van de grootvader (een amateur-schilder die niets moest hebben van moderne kunst, een diep romantische ziel die nooit echte liefde lijkt te hebben gekend), maar van een hele familie en vooruit: heel voorzichtig misschien ook van een hele samenleving.

Een schitterend boek, dat me voorbestemd lijkt om een klassieker te worden.

Noot achteraf: extra interessant was het om, geheel bij toeval, kort hierna Marnix Gijsens Klaaglied om Agnes te lezen. Gijsens was ongeveer tien jaar jonger dan Hertmans grootvader, en het verslag van zijn jeugdliefde overlapt dus een beetje met Hertmans verslag van zijn grootvaders oorlog en liefde. De boeken hebben een paar opvallende gelijkenissen, vooral in de (door monsterlijke katholieke preutsheid geïndoctrineerde) mentaliteit van de hoofdpersonen.

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nearing his death in 1981, Urbain Martien presented his grandson with two notebooks about his early life in Belgium. It took Stefan Hertmans 30 years before he could address the material contained therein, resulting in this magnificent book. The first third deals with growing up in Ghent in extreme poverty, son of a restorer of frescos, a beloved father afflicted with asthma, who dies young, leaving the legacy of a love of art. When still in his teens, Martien attends four years of military school, which provides incomplete preparation for the horrors of actual modern warfare. Hard as the first third is to read, the second is even more challenging.

World War I has taken on a burnished hue of nostalgia, having been somewhat eclipsed by the horrors of WWII. However, that war begat "...the lost ethos of the old-time soldier...in our world of terrorist attacks and virtual violence." The Rape of Belgium during the German occupation of 1914-15 in their advancement on France provides the backdrop for Martien's war memoir, providing an unfiltered account of the challenges of carrying out seemingly senseless orders, battling fatigue, vermin, boredom, mosquitos, and of course, ever present fear are brought stunningly to life through this first person eyewitness experience. However, included with the unimaginable filthy horrors of trench warfare are scenes of surreal beauty, such as a shared dreamlike vision of migrating eels in moonlight. Martien endures, is severely wounded several times, and returns to a war torn Ghent after hostilities have ended.

The final portion covers a grandson's finishing a portrait of his grandfather. Hertman's visits to the locations that forged his grandfather's character and experience, both enlightening and traumatizing him. It completes the picture. Throughout reading this book, I referred to images, thankful once more to the internet for making this possible. Very highly recommended.

[Leo Walsh · Rating 4 out of 5]

War and Turpentine by Stefan Hertmans is wonderful secondhand "memoir," with the grandson sharing his own grandfather's handwritten memoirs of his life in Belgium from the turn of the 20th century through WW I. Parts verge on "novelisation" of the source material, which engages readers. Like Michael Chabon in Moonglow, Hertmans often tries to live-through his great grandfather, grandfather and father.

I found the most remarkable parts of War and Turpentine were his laying bare the disruptive influence the oft-neglected First World War had on Europe. Before the war, royalty ran affairs of state. Real kings and queens an princes sat at the top, with the working poor peasants below.

But the bigger changes, at least to "boots on the ground" were social. Which Hertmans (via curated selections his grandfather's words) paints with chilling acuity. Before WW I, soldiers adhered to Romantic ideal of a heroic warrior: ignoring innocents, engaging in fair combat, etc. The Great War changed that. Instead of heroic encounters, generals lobbed mustard gas into trenches, killing people, willy-nilly, whether combatant or innocent villagers. War thus became cold, mechanized killing.

Equally telling was the grandfather's, a talented painter (of canvases, not homes), love of the Classical and Romantic masters, whose paintings he copied with a reverential awe. Even his own works were created in the classic style, since he reviled the Modernists. Like his Romantic notions of being a warrior, the grandfather's view on art had more in common with the painter David (or poet Byron) than Matisse (or Eliot).

All told, an interesting read. I can tell why it placed high on "best-books" lists. Four stars.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every so often, I find myself profoundly affected by a novel. This is one of those instances.
The imagery Stefan Hertmans conjures up in War and Turpentine left an indelible impression upon me.

When I read of the grandson dropping the gold watch, I cried aloud in dismay; when reading of the heartless, severe treatment, the grandfather received at the hands of French officers, I was at once reminded of Cobb’s Paths of Glory.
The tradition, respect and altruism of a bygone age struck a chord with me. The attempts at reconciling polar opposites of both the warrior and the artist were heart-wrenching, and I confess to having shed a tear more than once.

Expertly translated by David McKay, this captivating, poignant work is deserving of its many plaudits.

[Şafak Akyazıcı · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bu kitabı okumanızı çok isterim ama kitabın küçük sıkıntıları var. Bunu bilerek okumalısınız.
Kapakta “roman” yazdığı için biyografik bir kurmaca okuyacağımı düşünmüştüm ancak kitap bir anı kitabı. Yani Stefan Hertmans’ın bize söylediği bu. Tabii ki metnin ne kadarı kurgu ne kadarı gerçek asla bilemeyeceğiz.  
***
Stefan Hertmans’ın büyükbabası on üç yıl gibi bir zaman zarfında-günlük olarak değil- anılarını yazdığı iki defteri ona emanet ederek yayımlatmasını ister. Stefan Hermants büyükbabasının ölümünden yıllar sonra okumuş bırakılan o defterleri.
Savaş ve Terebentin, Urbain Martien’in yazdıklarının yanı sıra Hertmans’ın kendisinin de ait olduğu bir geçmişi içeriyor.
Üç bölümden oluşan kitapta ilk bölüm biraz karışık,ufak sıkıntılar da ilk bölümde yer alıyor. Şöyle ki; bu bölümdeki kronolojik atlamalar hikayenin bütünlüğünü aksatıyor. Büyük büyükbaba, büyükbaba ve Stefan Hertmans’ın anlatımları da bu bölümde iç içe geçmiş durumda. Bu da anlatıcının kim olduğuna dair belirsizlikleri doğuruyor, ilerleyen sayfalarda netleşiyor gibi. Yalnız ilk bölümün şöyle de bir güzelliği var ki, gezi rehberi tadında; Stefan Hertmans yıllar sonra dedesinin yaşadığı Gent şehrini ziyaret ediyor, şehri ve önemli yapılarını bizi de peşine takarak sokak sokak gezdiriyor.
Gelelim ikinci bölüme; büyükbaba Urbain’in defterlerinin sanırım yorumsuz aktarıldığı sayfalar. Urbain Martien’in Birinci Dünya Savaşı’na alınması, ordudaki görevleri, başarılarını okuyoruz. İlk bölümde resmedilen hassas ve sanat adamı büyükbaba Urbain gitmiş yerine cevval bir adam gelmiş. Yine bir tezat, hangisi gerçek Urbain Martien diye düşünürken, sayfa 207’de karşılaştığım şu satırlar: ”Ben eskiden küfretmezdim.” kaybettiği masumiyetini ve değişimini açıklamış oluyor. Kitabın en edebi, bana göre en keyifli, işte tam roman tadında diyebileceğim sayfaları ikinci bölümde. Büyükbaba Urbain, ressam olmasının yanında sağlam bir kaleme de sahipmiş. (Yaşam ve Yazgı tadı aldım burada yazılanlardan)
Üçüncü bölümde büyükbaba Urbani’in kaleme aldığı bazı pasajlar yer alsa da daha çok Stefan Hertmans’ın anlatımıyla; savaşa, politikaya, dine dair yorumları ve büyükbabasıyla yaşadığı anılarını içeriyor. Bu bölümde büyükbabanın ilk aşkını ve evliliği okuyoruz. Buralar çok hüzünlü çok.
***
Kitabın geneline hakim olan konu savaş, terebentin kısmı ise oldukça sönük. Stefan Hertmans’ın anlatımı, şair olması ile alakalı diye düşünüyorum, hafif, tüy gibi.  
***
Kitapta şöyle tanıdık bir bilgi var, 1919 yılında İspanyol gribi salgını olmuş ve insanlar evlerine kapanmış. Belirtileri de tıpkı covid gibi ve yine covid gibi dünya çapında milyonlarca can almış.
***
Ömür denilen şeye neler sığabiliyor okumak lazım. Çok sevdim.

[Pieter De vroe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sterk verhaal. Mooie beelden. Heldere vertelling. Graag gelezen.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

War and Turpentine is superlative. The final section with its discoveries and emotion is powerful and even stupendous. The middle forms the heart of the story, and the whole thing —minding a few awkward moments— is wonderfully written and imagined and imparted.

To write the book the author, a Flemish poet, relied on journals entrusted to him by his grandfather, an amateur painter whose life was upended by war and the illnesses that took his father and his betrothed. I was interested in War and Turpentine because of its approach — a fictional or reimagined first-person memoir of the grandfather, sandwiched by a recounting of his childhood relationships and later life. The first and last parts include the author’s own memories and recollections, and the sections inform and color each other.

There were two or three passages in which the author refers to himself or his own life in a way I found awkward and unfortunate. For example there’s a part where he writes of himself in the third person as if from the grandfather’s perspective. I don’t mean the author should have stood outside the book — he’s as essential as the story of the pocket watch.

Also on the downside, I found, was the nonexistent attempt to understand his grandmother. The book focuses completely on the grandfather. It’s his journals and life that constitute it, and that’s all well and good, but the grandmother comes across as a cardboard prude. Who knows, maybe she hadn’t wanted to marry at all. He’s not totally unkind to her, but then again, he isn’t kind either.
But my complaints are minor. It’s a completely worthwhile and beautiful book. I even adore the coloring of my hardcover copy.

[Sofia · Rating 4 out of 5]

O que começa por ser um livro sobre memórias (as do autor e as do avô do autor) "Assim, com as suas memórias a sacudirem o pó às minhas recordações, eu começava a perceber cada vez melhor os sinais e o que outras pistas revelavam" (p. 299), transforma-se rapidamente num relato da inutilidade da Guerra:

"São crianças, incontáveis rapazes com menos de 20 anos, desperdiçados jovens que deviam ter tido uma vida feliz mas que aqui se afundam no horror." (p.218)

Partindo de fotografias, objectos, conversas, entre outros, o autor vai desconstruindo o passado do avô, contextualizando-a à época e aos factos.

É um livro que foge um pouco ao tipo de narrativa a que estou habituada, mas que exerceu um grande fascínio sobre mim.

"Mais uma vez, passam-se meses em que, alternadamente, nos aborrecemos e dormimos metade do dia, e de repente vivemos duas horas de puro horror, um ataque repentino, ordens berradas, pânico, confusão, gritos de feridos, depois a recolha dos mortos, pedaços de corpos mutilados na trincheira onde pouco antes um jovem estava sentado a fumar e a conversar amenamente.
O meu relato torna-se monótono, tal como a guerra se tornou monótona, tal como a morte se tornou banal e monótona, tal como o nosso ódio aos alemães se tornou monótono, tal como a própria vida se tornou monótona e acabou por nos repugnar." (p.244)

[Benny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hertmans is een woordenminnaar die zeldzame woordjes koestert. Oorlog en Terpentijn is zijn grote roman. Een zelfbewuste 'tour de force' die van klein naar groot gaat, en terug. Van het intieme naar de wereldgeschiedenis, en weer terug. Van grootvader naar de grote oorlog, en uiteindelijk weer terug kleinkind.

Als Lanoye in Sprakeloos lijkt Hertmans eerst rond de pot te draaien, afstand te willen bewaren, tot het niet meer kan. En het onderwerp zich opdringt. Dit is schrijven omdat het moet. Soms lijkt het zelfs een karwei waar de schrijver tegenop ziet. Hertmans balanceert hierbij tussen oprecht en geposeerd. Enerzijds is dit een verhaal dat verteld moet worden, anderzijds beseft hij zelf ook dat het nu verteld moet worden, liefst voor het herdenkingsjaar van 2014, wanneer er ongetwijfeld wel heel veel boeken over de Grote Oorlog gepromoot gaan worden. Hoe ver ga je mee in de hype zonder jezelf te verloochenen? Het is een moeilijke balans.

Bij de wandeling door zijn persoonlijke geschiedenis (soms ook een GPS-gestuurde autorit) doet Oorlog en Terpentijn me erg denken aan het werk van WG Sebald. Het finale luik van het boek begint trouwens met een citaat van de (momenteel behoorlijk hippe) auteur. Terecht.

Toch maar drie sterren. Waarom? Wel, het schrijven is met soms te zelfbewust, te expliciet. De levenslesjes en filosofietjes passeren allemaal wel erg letterlijk de revue ("De waarheid van het leven verbergt zich vaak op de plekken die men niet met authenticiteit verbindt." p.332), zelfs de titel van de roman wordt uitgelegd. Alsof dat nodig is.

Hertmans lijkt vaak te worstelen met het feit dat hij hier een grote roman aan het schrijven is, alsof hij liever dichter is of filosoof. Zo'n worsteling kan op zich ook een sterke roman opleveren, maar hier is dat niet altijd het geval. Soms wel, maar niet altijd.

Het puur verhalende middendeel - waar in deel één heel expliciet naartoe gewerkt wordt - liet me ook een beetje op m'n honger. Ook ik las dit boek bijna tegelijkertijd met Sophie De Schaepdryvers De Groote Oorlog en ik beken dat dat me historisch, politiek en uiteindelijk ook emotioneel meer pakte. Dat had ik niet verwacht.

Misschien ligt het daaraan? Lagen mijn verwachtingen na het gejubel in de pers te hoog?

Maar toch. Een klein meesterwerkje? Toch wel. Misschien moet ik het later eens herlezen. Die goede voornemens...

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nisam bila raspoložena...nemam pojma... jednostavno tako je ispalo.

[Kelsey]

“Zwijgend landschap, onverschillige natuur, lieflijkheid, vergetelheid van de aarde, vergetelheid in het vredige stromende water dat leven en dood heeft moeten scheiden.”