Occupation and collaboration

Reference 1 is a novel about unpleasant goings on in the Netherlands during the Second World War, originally written, in Dutch, in 1958, subsequently translated into English and now reissued by the Pushkin Press. Advertised to me by the article in the NYRB at reference 2. Obtainable directly from the Pushkin Press if one wants to avoid using Amazon.

A story which depends our rather dubious hero (Osewoudt) chancing across and then interacting with, through and beyond the war years, someone who is his near double (Dorbeck). Which facilitates all kinds of complicated confusions. Osewoudt was a tobacconist in Voorschoten, which place can be found on the right hand panel above, and where important parts of the story are set. Plus various other odd, but conveniently facilitating events.

A story which starts shortly before the start of the war and which ends shortly after its end, but with a long gap in the middle between 1940 and 1944. A story with a hole in the middle, a hole which we suppose to be occupied by the dreary, humdrum life of a small shopkeeper during the Occupation. A chap who is handicapped by short stature, a rather high voice and complete absence of facial hair, of beard. But he compensates by getting good at judo, which last comes in handy from time to time.

For the most part, we have the story according to the patriot Osewoudt. But in the custody part, the second part, we get other points of view, how all this might look to others. And everything gets very muddled. Who are the real patriots and who are the real collaborators? Can we make a very satisfactory distinction between them?

I found all the foreign names, particularly names of places, difficult to get round. Rather like all the names in a Russian novel. The map above helps, but I did not go so far as to look up every street name. While for Maigret I have a Paris street map (Michelin, like an AZ of London) which I make a fair amount of use of.

So I wonder how much is getting lost in translation. Do the areas and streets which seem to have been so carefully enumerated in the original Dutch have a resonance which is lost on the foreigner? Lost in the 1940’s and 1950’s, which are now a long time ago? While I like to think that I have been reading Maigret for long enough for this to be less of a problem with Paris. Plus Simenon gives more clues about life in the various parts of Paris into which he takes us. Or, at least, life as he sees it.

My answer was to read the book twice, writing out the timeline the second time around, highlighting what I then knew to be important events, in particular the various killings in which Osewoudt was involved: half a dozen collaborators, a couple of German soldiers and, lastly, his unfaithful wife, shacked up with a collaborator during his absence.

For most of the second half of the book, Osewoudt is in custody: with the Germans during the war, the Dutch after the war and with the Americans and British in between. All of whom try to sort out what exactly Osewoudt has been up to. Patriot or collaborator? While, despite the great mound of files, the one killing than none of them seem to pin on him is the murder of his wife.

At the end, I am left with the impression that the Occupation of the Netherlands involved a lot of muddle, of lot of it unpleasant and some of it fatal. That the Resistance, such as it was, involved a lot of muddle too. A fair amount of summary justice – probably involving a proportion of innocents and near-innocents. And that by the end, plenty of Germans were trying to get into the good books of the winning side.

Various references along the way to muddle in England and to the shoddy workmanship of various documents forged there for use in occupied countries. 

An interesting book which I am glad to have read.

References

Reference 1: The Darkroom of Damocles – Willem Frederik Hermans – 1958. 

Reference 2: A Gift for Overkill: The Dutch novelist Willem Frederik Hermans loathed pious illusions and post-war complacencies – Tim Parks, NYRB – 2022. 

Reference 3: https://kentbylines.co.uk/dutch-writer-accuses-john-le-carre-of-plagiarism/. A bit of stray coverage turned up by Bing.