Anyone read Flemish author Herman Brusselmans? What should I

>>9007542
>>9007542
Yeah, but i didn't find him all that impressing, allthough i did like his dark humor and often rude language, i felt like it was often lacking 'more'. Anyway, i read it in Dutch so i don't have clue about translations.

None of them are particularly long or hard (that i know of) so you can pretty much start anywhere.
The man who found a job (de man die werk vond) is one of his first ones and remained popular. Other than that i'd recommend Ex-drummer (was made into a pretty good movie, that has value of it's own allthough you'd miss out an the flemish accents, which really give it character) and the beautifull puking girl (Het mooie kostende meisje, idk if it's translated yet.)

I'm curious tho, why are you intersted in him and how did you find out about him if you're not Flemish? While i'm at it, i think Dimitri Verhulst has a similiar style but delivers better (just my unprofessional opinion tho). I know his 'Helaasheid der dingen' got translated as 'The Misfortunates'.

>>9007542
I've read two books of him but didn't find Brusselmans to be all that special to be fair. His writing style is decent as are his books.

I do agree with anon>>9008955
who says that the Flemish accents play a large role in his prose. It's a shame that so many Flemish writers (except for Miquel Bulnes, marvelous writer btw) feel the necessity to write in obscure accents according to the examples set by Claus and Boon.

Anyway, one of the special things about Brusselmans is his vulgarity. It's one of the things he thrives on in the media as well. Although many writers take on a 'posture litteraire' for stuff like that, his gritty vulgarities might actually be real.

Apart from that, he stands out for is his mixture between reality and fiction. He really likes to toy with the notion that fiction is not reality and vice versa.

How did you come across Brusselmans? Most of the people here (in the Netherlands, that is) probably only know him for his dirty hair and remarks about his love for pussy eating in TV shows.

>>9007542
I've seen his guest appearances on 'de slimste mens' and that was about enough for me

>>9009011
First responding anon here, about Brusselmans 'posture'. He admitted on several occasions that he has created this image of himself as a cynical, vulgar tired man but that this is mainly an image he has created for his appearances in talk-shows, quizzes, comedy shows etc. He seems to do a lot of things 'for the money' in a cynical way, but seems to have exagerated his persona for this. He lives in the university city of Ghent where you can often spot him and he always looks terribly bored and annoyed at the attention he gets. I've actually seen him here (i study in Ghent) twice in a supermarket, once as he drove past and once in a bar.

>>9009041
>watching De Slimste Mens

Fucking pleb spotted.

>>9009053
Was about to reply 'jk I don't watch that show'

>>9009070
Since you seem to be Flemish tho: it's Canvas or gtfo. And i sure hope you're not a StuBru normie.

>>9009045
Ah, thanks for the information. I personally study history but I did a minor on literary theory etc. and one of the things that came across was Bourdieu inspired (but not entirely) research into the way authors behave, market themselves, how they cultivate their personality etc. Much more interesting than age old debates about the relation between the author and his work.

So it seems Brusselmans really did forge his image - well, it worked. He defintely filled a niche in the Dutch speaking literary world, although Giphart's early work was pretty damn vulgar as well as his columns, his public appearances weren't.

>>9007542
Thrid anon here, I just googled whether there were any translations of Brusselmans. This is from his personal website - I'm afraid you'll have to learn either Dutch or German. or, if you really want to do something challenging, Hungarian.

Vertaald
Een Duitse vertaling van een verhaal van Herman Brusselmans in 'Zeitkristalle: Erzählungen aus dem Niederländischen', door Herbert Van Uffelen (1991)
Das schöne kotzende Mädchen und andere Erzählungen, nämlich Schmetterlinge, Adler, Mädchen sowie das Tagebuch Eine Woche aus dem Leben von H.B. von ihm-selbst erzählt (Duitse vertaling van 'Het mooie kotsende meisje', 'Vlinders, adelaars en meisjes', 'Een week uit het leven van H.B., door hemzelve verteld (en dagboek)' door Carsten Brandes en Birgit Erdmann) (1996)
A férfi, aki munkát talált (Hongaarse vertaling van 'De man die werk vond' door Wekerle Szabolcs) (1997)
Generation Nix oder Zigarettenasche im Gefrierfach (Nederlandse vertaling van 'Vrouwen met een IQ' door Markus Jung) (1999)

>>9009096
Sounds interesting, was it based on Dutch/Flemish authors or was it global? If so: did you happen to see anything about Knausgaard, it strikes me how much the guy markets himself.

By the way, while we're at it: i always found it funny that there's such a large difference in public image between Brusselmans and Verhulst allthough their style is so similiar. Brusselmans goes around telling everyone he only loves cigarettes and eating pussy, Verhulst is now presenting a documentary on 'the european spirit' as it presents itself in (and maybe only in) art, talking about the likes of Joyce and Dahli.

>>9009125
Afaik it's more or less a Western European thing. The idea of researching the author himself, and not in a biographic way or in relation to himself, is relatively new and stems from the 1990s, from French socio-anthropoogists like Nathalie Heinich and Jerome Meizoz. They look at the posture litteraire of the author, at the athor as a persona, both narratologically as publically, as a media personality, as a public intellectual, pretty much anyway an author can manifest itself in discourse or narratives or in public space. It fits the idea of literary studies, which takes every aspect of literary culture into account - from fans to author postures and literature styles.

Most scholarship in a similar vein in the Anglophone, German or Dutch scientific worlds only started to take of the last couple of years or so. I could list some titles if you're interested, but there's nothing on Knausgaard afaik.

>>9009197
I'd be intersted actually, thanks anon

>>9009197

Then I'll write down some titles I wrote down myself in the break of the seminar:

Erica van Boven en Pieter Verstraeten (red.), Schrijverstypen. De moderne auteur tussen individu en collectief (Hilversum, 2016)

Gillis J. Dorleijn e.a. (red.) Authorship Revisited. Conceptions of Authorship around 1900 and 2000 (Leuven, 2010)

Laurens Ham, Door Promethues geboeid. De autonomie en autoriteit van de moderne Nederlandse auteur (Hilversum, 2015)

Odile Heynders, Writers as public intellectuals. Literature, celebrity, democracy (Londen, 2016)

Liesbeth Korthals Altes, Ethos and narrative interpretation. The negotation of values in fiction (Londen, 2014)

Erwin Praat, Verrek, het is geen kunstenaar. Gerard Reve en het schrijverschapp (Amsterdam, 2014)

Daan Rutten, De ernst van het spel. Willem Frederik Hermans en de ethiek van de persoonlijke mythologie (Hilversum 2016)

Nederlandse Letterkunde, 20:3 2015, themanummer het dichterschap in scene gezet

SPiegel der Letteren 56:3 2014 themanummer LIteraire fancultuur in NEderland

Jerome Meizoz, Postures littéraires. Mises en scene modernes de l'auteur (2007)

Meizoz, La fabrique des singularités. Postures litteraires II (2011)

Nathalie Heinich, La gloire de Van Gogh. Essai d'antropologie de l'admiration (1991)

Heinich, Etre ecrivain. Creation et identite (2000)

Heinich, L'Elite artiste. Excellence et singularite en regime democratique (2005).

That's all I've got.