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“A timeless novel about love, loss and village life” from the award-winning Dutch author of The Misfortunates and Problemski Hotel (Aesthetica). Years ago, Madame Verona and her husband built a home for themselves on a hill in a forest above a small village. There they lived in isolation, practicing their music, and chopping wood to see them through the cold winters. When Mr. Verona died, the locals might have expected that the legendary beauty would return to the village, but Madame Verona had enough wood to keep her warm during the years it would take to make a cello—the instrument her husband loved—and in the meantime she had her dogs for company. And then one cold February morning, when the last log has burned, Madame Verona sets off down the village path, with her cello and her memories, knowing that she will have no strength to climb the hill again. Poignant, precise and perfectly structured, this is a story of one woman’s tender and enduring love—as a wife, and as a widow. “An intimate, unsentimental portrayal of European rural life . . . In Verhulst’s landscape, nature is ruthless, amoral and never benign, and human memory a cruel mirage . . . His best sentences are gorgeously resonant.”—The Herald “Aging, bereavement and death are somber themes, yet this novel’s treatment of them is agreeably entertaining . . . this tale of enduring love is often preposterous, sometimes poignant and, above all, consistently charming.”—The Independent
It is announced that Jesus Christ is to visit Belgium in a few weeks time, on its national day, the 21st of July. Coincidentally, our narrator's mother dies and his marriage ends. Feeling very low, and fluctuating between resentment, irony and cynicism, he reports on the events and on the behaviour of his compatriots. The authorities squabble about how to receive Christ. They find an eleven-year-old girl in the asylum seekers' centre to act as Christ's Aramaic interpreter (Arabic, Aramaic, it's practically the same, right?). Neighbours resolve ancient feuds and communities gather together to confess and forgive en masse, no matter the depravity of the crime. As the date draws near, the whole city brightens up - there's never been a nicer time to have a Second Coming. This new novel by Dimitri Verhulst resembles a quirky pamphlet and a moral fable. The narrator considers himself part of the 'lost generation', which has no illusions about the state of the world - both in absurd Belgium and in the distressingly imperfect world beyond. He puts a finger on the symptomatic fever blisters of contemporary society, of the so-called 'malcontent mass'. With his bizarre imaginings, harsh criticisms and stylistic verve, he exposes an embarrassing reality, which often makes you laugh conspiratorially, and then cry.
This open access book illustrates how interdisciplinary research develops over the lifetime of a scholar: not in a single project, but as an attitude that trickles down, or spirals up, into research. This book presents how interdisciplinary work has inspired shifts in how the contributors read, value concepts, critically combine methods, cope with knowledge hierarchies, write in style, and collaborate. Drawing on extensive examples from the humanities and social sciences, the editors and chapter authors show how they started, tried to open up, dealt with inconsistencies, had to adapt, and ultimately learned and grew as researchers. The book offers valuable insights into the conditions and complexities present for interdisciplinary research to be successful in an academic setting. This is an open access book.
Frank, tender, and brutally funny, Dimitri Verhulst's semi-autobiographical story details the vibrantly entertaining journey of a boy growing up in a family of alcoholics in Belgium Sobriety and moderation are alien concepts to the men in Dimmy's family. Useless in all other respects, his three uncles have a rare talent for drinking, a flair for violence, and an unwavering commitment to the pub. And his father Pierre is no slouch either. Within hours of his son's birth, Pierre plucks him from the maternity ward, props him on his bike, and takes him on an introductory tour of the village bars. His mother soon leaves them to it and as Dimmy grows up amid the stench of stale beer, he seems destined to follow the path of his forebears and make a low-life career in inebriation, until he begins to piece together his own plan for the future. Bringing to life the shambolic upbringing that The Guardian describes as, "the odd, ugly, excremental poetry of their grubby lives," The Misfortunates "can be unexpectedly tender as well as uncomfortably funny . . . this novel continually surprises and intrigues."
Argues that novelists graft aging onto narrative duration and reveals the politics of senescence in nineteenth and early-twentieth century plots.
Contains the work "Two gentlemen of Verona" by William Shakespeare along with notes and commentary by Shakespearean authorities.
It's Jesus. He's coming back. To Brussels. Get ready...
Dsir Cordier - mild-mannered former librarian, put-upon husband, lover of boules - is losing his mind. Or is he? Happily tucked away in the Winterlight Home for the Elderly, Dsir is looking forward to a quiet retirement with the other forgetful residents, safe in the knowledge that no one knows he's faking his memory loss. And as if there weren't reasons enough to opt out of the modern world, it would be worth it just to see Rosa Rozendaal again - the love of Dsir's youth, the one who got away. But dementia isn't all fun and games. There's a former war criminal hiding out in the home; once-beautiful Rosa might be too far gone to return Dsir's ardour; and our hero soon begins to suspect he might not be the only one in Winterlight who's acting a part... A tender love story of demented minds and honourable hearts, and a razor-sharp satire of the indignities of old age and the callousness of caregiving, The Latecomer excoriates our society and asks: might we all be better off forgetting?
A story like a punch to the midriff.