Anyone else read this? Has to be one of my favourites

No, but I did read Beyond Sleep in high school (dutchfag), it was pretty good.

>>9687732
Dutchfag too, it's a shame his lit is so overlooked outside of the Netherlands. Au Pairs is quite good as well.

Beyond Sleep by him is really very very good. I only read TDoDamocles as a highschooler so I don't know if it's actually good or not. Onder professoren by him is unremarkeble.

Let's make this a dutchlit thread
>The Evenings by Reve
Intentionally grating, quite funny. It's about twenty-something guy going nowhere with his life, making edgy jokes to his friends who are all moving up in the world and getting children. I really identified with the work.

>Back to Oestgeest by Wolkers
Colourful ,funny and interesting just like Turks Fruit, great light read. It's really just Wolkers writing down the story of his youth with his brothers death as the centerpiece. Would recommend.

>Max Havelaar by Multatuli
Not that good, shouldn't be a classic

>The Disovery of Heaven by Mulisch
A dutch 'epic', really enjoyable read, great idea but ultimately I don't feel like he had anything significant to say.

>The Metsiers by Claus
Not that great, apparently it's his first work, which shows. Feels like he is heavily borrowing from Faulkner. I'm still intending on reading Het Verdriet van België

Anyone got any dutchlit recs? I've got Bordewijk, LP Boon and Claus on my to do list already

What other books use this 'this other guy is also me'-trope. I can only think of The Double by Dosto but there have to be more.

>>9687950
the doppelganger/double trope is all over the place, man
google "doppelgangers in literature" or "doubles in literature" or something

Hermans is one cynical fuck. All his books are about people being horrible, incompetent and failing. It's what I like most about the Dark room of D, Hermans making fun of all the self proclaimed 'war heroes'. He must've caught a lot of shit for that back then.

>>9687907

>Max Havelaar
>Not that good

pleb detected

>>9688188
>muh plight of the indonesian
>muh colonialism

The prose is dry as fuck

>>9687998

Hermans translated Wittgensteins Tractatus in to Dutch. I believe it was the first Dutch translation. Academic philosophers at the time gave him shit for it, but at the University of Amsterdam philosophy students read his translation.

Wittgensteins Tractatus was an influence in many of his books. He was a scientist (a geologist) but very suspicious of what can be said about the world. He hated fashionable ideologies at the time like communism as vain and flawed projects; dangerous overestimations of what human language could say about the world.
But at the same time his metaphysics is hopelessly uninhabitable. Like David Markson showed in Wittgensteins Mistress, the world of the Tractatus is ultimately solipsistic and nihilist.

In the end all that Hermans has to offer the sadistic pleasure of seeing the protagonist fail in the most painful way possible , written in beautiful, measured prose

>>9688276
Great response!

>>9687907
Hermans is ultimately the /dutchlit/ GOAT, I'd like to recommend Ik heb altijd gelijk by him as well. I'd try to read as much by him as possible. I've also developed a taste for A.F.T.h. van der Heijden. His lit is way easier to read, maybe even easy, but I love his work. Also Hella Haasse.

>>9688226
Try Heren van de thee (The Tea Lords non-dutchfags). Great colonialism read

>>9687907
Het verdriet van België is absolutely fantastic. Verhulst's De helaasheid der dingen is great too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr4mjU9UAJo
Hermans going head to head with Adriaan van Dis

>>9688404
The movie of de helaasheid der dingen is great fun btw

>9688504
Adriaan van Dis is really nastily trying to push him into the racism corner, Hermans keeps up quite well though.

>>9687907
I still intend to read some more Simon Vestdijk, the language is a bit dated I suppose but what I've read of him (De Zwarte Ruiter, Else Bohler) was great.

Anyone read Hubert Lampo? I have a stolen-from-library edition of Innerlijke Domeinen but never got very far.

>>9688553
Adriaan van Dis is an annoying shithead.

>>9688584
Read De Koperen Tuin by Vestdijk, he himself thought it his best novel

>>9688627
I read fragments of that in high school, same with Ivoren Wachters which is also supposed to be pretty good.