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March 09, 2005 06:21PM
In the Netherlands it's a tradition that if you buy a novel in this period of the year, you get a free novel by a more or less famous Dutch writer. It's specially written for this occasion and it's called the 'boekenweekgeschenk' (impossible to translate, but literary 'bookweekgift').
This year the 'bookweekgift' is written by one of the most famous Dutch writers: Jan Wolkers. Some of you might even know his work by the film version of 'Turks Fruit' (directed by another famous Dutchman Paul Verhoeven!).
Jan Wolkers is 79 years old now and it has been more than 20 years ago since he wrote his latest novel. The 'bookweekgift' is called 'Zomer hitte' ('Summer heat').
Because I have the privilege to interview him tomorrow I got the 'bookweekgift' yesterday and I've just finished it.
'Summer heat' has got almost all the ingredients of a typical Jan Wolkers-novel. Sex, nature, death, cruelty to animals and art. Only theme missing here is religion.
His novels from the sixties and seventies were always very provoking, but since this is the 21th Century I'm afraid 'Summer heat' is far out of date. Furthermore I think the story is implausible and at the end I got the impression it was written by a secondary school pupil...
The only positive thing I can mention is that it reads very easy, but at some point I also wondered: "Is this supposed to be literature?" The answer must be: not really...
Nevertheless, it's nice to do an interview with Jan Wolkers. The writer is always good for some nice quotes.
By the way, the lady on the cover is his wife. And yes, she's much younger... (I can hear you think: dirty old man!)
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