Cees Nooteboom

I have finished reading one of this author's books - In The Dutch Mountains 1987. It is a slim book, a fairy tale running parallel with the narrator's reflections. I liked his style, enjoyed his imagination and his poetic prose. I would be interested in exploring his other work to see how it compares.

Some background on Nooteboom:

- born in The Hague in 1933, as Cornelis Johannes Jacobus Maria Nooteboom
- written poetry, fiction and travel books
- an extensive traveller (including sailor and hitchhiker)

Works include:

Rituals 1983 which won the Pegasus Prize.
A Berlin Notebook 1990
The Following Story 1994
Phillip and the Others 1988
A Song of Truth and Semblance 1984
The Knight has Died 1990
Mokusei
All Souls Day 2001
Roads to Santiago 1997

Jonathan Raban compares him to modern fictive masters such as Kundera and Calvino.

Has anyone read him more extensively. Any suggestions for my next choice.

I did read Rituals - and I believe I liked it; enjoyed his style... this many years back. I do recall, I think, that it made reference to the Japanese tea ceremony, which lateralled me on to Yasunari Kawabata and Kakuzo Okakura.

Karen, I read 'The Following Story' years ago, and remember enjoying it, funnily enough just moved it to a re-read pile recently, as I am reading a volume of his travel essays Nomad's Hotel which I am enjoying, and I bought his latest Lost Paradise (wrong touchstone coming up)recently, and it's in the pile. Will report in due course.

Some years ago I read All Souls' Day or 'Allerzielen', which I found good, but not superb. Stylistically and in the portrayal of the main characters I found it convincing. This is a love story of two scarred people, one of whom is a documentary maker who lost his wife and child in an accident. He falls for a fierce young woman, who, to both him and the reader, remains elusive. Most of the book is set in Berlin after the German reunion, among a group of intellectuals and artists. The least convincing element of the book, I felt, was the plot.

Roads to Santiago is a fascinating travel book about Spain. I also enjoyed In the Dutch Mountains and The Following Story. Fiction and non alike very well written.

Mokusei !
Finished reading: 2 January 2011



Generally speaking, I prefer reading books in their original language, which for this book would have been Dutch, but as this book was a special offer, and I cannot buy books in Dutch in China, I took this French edition.

I have not come round to reading all of Nooteboom's work. Much of his work consists of travelogues, especially in Spain and the Far East. His novels are often set in the Netherlands, and are experimental or involving Magical Realism. Nooteboom has spent a lot of time in Germany, especially Berlin, and written several books about that city, which are neatly stacked on my shelves / TBR pile. For a long time, Nooteboom was one of my favourite authors, but recently, I have come to realize that especially his writing about Spain is superb, notably De omweg naar Santiago -- deeply felt and very knowledgeable, while much of his other writing remains superficial.

And so it seems with this very thin novella, Mokusei!. There is a hefty volume of essays on travel in the Far East, Nooteboom's visits to Japan and other countries in the region (on my TBR pile). This novella was written after his visit to Japan. The story did not interest me, and the book lacked the poetic feel of Japanese or other Japanese inspired literature.



Other books I have read by Cees Nooteboom:
Rituelen
De ridder is gestorven
De verliefde gevangene. Tropische verhalen
De koning van Suriname
De omweg naar Santiago
Allerzielen
In de bergen van Nederland