Terug tot Ina Damman

Last updated

Terug tot Ina Damman ("Return to Ina Damman", 1934) is a novel by Dutch author Simon Vestdijk. First published in 1934, it is one of Vestdijk's most popular novels. It is the third installment in the Anton Wachter cycle, a series of eight novels whose protagonist is Anton Wachter, the author's alter ego. [1] His entire existence as an artist, Vestdijk later wrote Theun de Vries, originates in his "Ina Damman experience". [2]

Simon Vestdijk Dutch author

Simon Vestdijk was a Dutch writer.

Anton Wachter cycle fictional character

Anton Wachter is the protagonist of eight novels by Dutch author Simon Vestdijk.

Theun de Vries Dutch writer and poet

Theunis Uilke (Theun) de Vries, was a Dutch writer and poet.

Contents

Content

Terug tot Ina Damman describes Wachter's first three years at the Hogere Burgerschool and his infatuation with a girl, Ina Damman. The boy, whose father has just died, lives in the town of Lahringen, based on Vestdijk's hometown Harlingen. [1] The novel originates from Alleen tussen vier vrouwen ("Alone between four women"), Vestdijk's voluminous debut novel which was rejected by publishers; it covered the early part of Wachter's life including the Ina Damman episode. [3] The titular character is based on a girl called Lies Koning, Vestdijk's schoolmate at the HBS in Harlingen and his unrequited love. [4] The "four women" of his debut are considered representative of four erotic objects: the mother, the idealized dream woman, the flesh-and-blood lover, and the object of lust. Lies Koning, who rejected Vestdijk when he was fourteen, represents the second type. [5]

Hogere Burgerschool

The Hogere Burgerschool or HBS was a secondary school type in the Netherlands and the Dutch Empire existing between 1863 and 1974. The school, with a five or sometimes six-year program, was continued in 1968 as VWO. The last HBS diplomas were given out in 1974.

The novel consists of three parts: "Het woord" ("The word"), "Ina Damman", and "De overwinning" ("The victory"). The "word" of the first part is "vent" ("man", colloquially), Wachter's father's nickname for his son; the schoolchildren, prompted by the school bully, start calling Wachter "vent", singling him out and alienating him. He only learns to ignore them in the second year when he imagines himself in love with Ina Damman, whose real name is Antonia, and thus is a projection of the protagonist: "she embodies the ideal image he has of himself, the suspicion of his possibilities". [1] One schoolyear long he walks her to the train station, carries her bag, exchanges a few words with her, until she dumps him. Wachter shifts his erotic desire to a domestic servant called Janke (a type of Else Böhler, who figures in a later Vestdijk novel [1] ). "The victory" delves into Wachter's idealization of one of the teachers, Greve; a fight with a schoolboy which he wins; and the ensuing success with formerly unattainable girls. This victory leads him back to himself—back to Ina Damman—which in turn allows him to remain grounded while accepting his sensitivity and his budding artistry. [1]

Legacy

The "classic novel" [6] ranks #40 in the Canon of Dutch Literature (Vestdijk occupying #15 among authors). [7] Maarten 't Hart's bestselling novel Een vlucht regenwulpen is considered a "modernized version" of Terug tot Ina Damman. [4] [8] In a lengthy review of Vestdijk's Else Böhler, Duitsch Dienstmeisje (1935), Menno ter Braak argued that the later novel is a sort of polar opposite of the earlier: "Anton Wachter, the schoolboy in his boy's world, in which the reality of the imagination can still conquer touch with life itself, has grown up in the new novel and is called Mr. Johan Roodenhuis; Ina Damman, the far-removed, platonic one has come frighteningly close and is called Else Böhler, German servant girl". [9]

Maarten t Hart Dutch writer

Maarten 't Hart is a Dutch writer. Trained as a biologist in zoology and ethology at the University of Leiden, he taught that subject before becoming a full-time writer in the 1980s, having made his debut as a novelist in 1971 under the name Martin Hart with Stenen voor een ransuil.

Menno ter Braak Dutch writer

Menno ter Braak was a Dutch modernist author.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Terug tot Ina Damman was one of the Vestdijk novels found on the reading list of every high school student in the Netherlands. [10] Since then Vestdijk's popularity, and that of Ina Damman, has plummeted. [2]

Related Research Articles

J. Slauerhoff Dutch poet, writer and doctor

Jan Jacob Slauerhoff, who published as J. Slauerhoff, was a Dutch poet and novelist. He is considered one of the most important Dutch language writers.

Hendrik Marsman Dutch writer

Hendrik Marsman was a Dutch poet and writer. He died while escaping to Great Britain, when the ship he was sailing on, the S.S. Berenice, either suffered a fatal engine-room explosion, or was torpedoed by a German submarine which mistook Berenice for another vessel.

Remco Campert Dutch writer and poet

Remco Campert is a Dutch author, poet and columnist.

Paul Schnabel Dutch sociologist

Paul Schnabel is a Dutch sociologist and as of 2006 the director of an agency of the Dutch government called Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau, usually abbreviated as SCP. He is also professor at Utrecht University. Since 9 June 2015, he has been a member of the Senate on behalf of Democrats 66 (D66).

E. du Perron Dutch writer

Charles Edgar du Perron, more commonly known as E. du Perron, was a famous and influential Dutch poet and author of Indo-European descent. Best known for his literary acclaimed masterpiece Land van herkomst of 1935. Together with Menno ter Braak and Maurice Roelants he founded the short-lived, but influential literary magazine Forum in 1932.

<i>Bougainville</i> (novel) novel by F. Springer

Bougainville: Een gedenkschrift is a novel by Dutch author F. Springer. Published in 1981, it won the Ferdinand Bordewijk Prijs in 1982. The novel is one of the author's most popular and was Springer's first big literary success. It is set in the nineteenth-century Dutch colonial past and contemporaneous Bangladesh, and is based on the experiences of the author, who grew up in the Dutch East Indies and was stationed in Bangladesh as a diplomat.

Rudy Kousbroek Dutch writer

Herman Rudolf "Rudy" Kousbroek was a Dutch poet, translator, writer and first of all essayist. He was a prominent figure in Dutch cultural life between 1950 and 2010 and one of the most outspoken atheists in the Netherlands. In 1975 he was awarded the P.C. Hooft Prize for his essays.

Adriaan Roland Holst Dutch writer

Adriaan Roland Holst was a Dutch writer, nicknamed the "Prince of Dutch Poets". He was the second winner, in 1948, of the Constantijn Huygens Prize. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

<i>The Evenings</i> Debut novel by Gerard Reve

The Evenings is a debut novel by Dutch author Gerard Reve released in November 1947 under the pseudonym "Simon van het Reve". The full title of the book was De avonden: Een winterverhaal.

"Spijt" ("Regret") is a poem by Flemish poet Willem Elsschot. First published in 1934, the poem was reprinted in his 1957 collected works without the final verse paragraph, which contains a possibly controversial term for "woman". The poem, which expresses the guilt and desperate love felt too late by a son for the now-dead mother, is one of Elsschot's best-known works. The last line of the sometimes-omitted paragraph, "Dient het wijf dat moeder heet", has become an oft-cited phrase in Dutch to suggest the difficulty of serving and even portraying motherhood.

Elisabeth Couperus-Baud Dutch writer

Elisabeth Wilhelmina Johanna (Betty) Couperus-Baud, was a Dutch translator. She was the wife of the Dutch writer Louis Couperus (1863–1923).

<i>Oeroeg</i> book

Oeroeg is the first novel by Hella Haasse. First published anonymously in 1948, it has become one of the best-known Dutch novels and a staple of literary education for many Dutch school children. The novel, a Bildungsroman, is set in the Dutch East Indies, and tells the story of an anonymous narrator growing up on a plantation in the Dutch colony West Java. His childhood friend is a boy of the same age, but of native descent. As the narrator grows up he finds himself becoming estranged from his friend, as a result of the political and racial circumstances of colonial life. After having served in the army during World War II, he returns to his native land, only to be told that this is not where he belongs, and that he must leave.

Ina Boudier-Bakker Dutch writer

Klaziena (Ina) Boudier-Bakker was a Dutch writer of novels. Her most famous work is De klop op de deur, written in 1930.

Jacques Vriens Dutch writer

Jacques Vriens is a Dutch children's author and playwright. He is known for his 1999 book Achtste-groepers huilen niet, which was adapted twice into film. Vriens formerly worked as a schoolteacher and has written for the show Tien torens diep. In 2001 he was appointed to the Order of the Netherlands Lion by former Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands.

Astrid Roemer Surinamese author

Astrid Heligonda Roemer is a writer and teacher from Suriname living in the Netherlands. The Dutch-language author has published novels, drama and poetry, and in December 2015 was announced as the winner of the P. C. Hooft Award, considered the most important literary prize in the Netherlands and Belgium, which was presented in May 2016.

Max Nord Dutch journalist, writer, and translator

Jacob Julius Max Nord was a Dutch journalist, writer, and translator. He was one of the main editors of Het Parool, an illegal Dutch newspaper founded during World War II.

Maxim Februari Dutch columnist, philosopher and writer

Maxim Februari, pseudonym of Maximiliaan (Max) Drenth, is a Dutch writer, philosopher and columnist.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Etty, Elsbeth (21 October 2005). "Zij is niet meer dan een idee: Terug tot Ina Damman gaat over erotiek noch liefde". NRC Handelsblad (in Dutch). Retrieved 27 May 2015.
  2. 1 2 Truijens, Aleid (1 July 1998). "Simon Vestdijk: Schepper van een kolossale motregen". de Volkskrant (in Dutch). Retrieved 28 May 2015.
  3. ↑ Haasse, Hella S. (2011). "Variaties op een grondpatroon: Over Simon Vestdijk". Inkijk (in Dutch). Singel. pp. 67–108. ISBN   9789021438115.
  4. 1 2 Peters, Arjan (1 November 2014). "Maartens muze". de Volkskrant (in Dutch). Retrieved 27 May 2015.
  5. ↑ Goedegebuure, Jaap (12 November 2005). "Een vroeg wijs en angstig kind". Trouw (in Dutch). Retrieved 28 May 2015.
  6. ↑ Goedegebuure, Jaap (2010). "Death, Loss, Betrayal: Doeschka Meijsing, 1947". In Jacqueline Bel. Women's Writing from the Low Countries 1880–2010: An Anthology. Thomas Vaessens. Amsterdam UP. pp. 191–94. ISBN   9789089641939 . Retrieved 28 May 2015.
  7. ↑ van Stipriaan, René (June 2002). "De Nederlandse klassieken anno 2002" (in Dutch). Digital Library for Dutch Literature . Retrieved 28 May 2015.
  8. ↑ Nieuwenhuis, Roderick (19 February 2015). "Leesfragment uit 'De Dikke Steinz' van Jet & Pieter Steinz". NRC Handelsblad (in Dutch). Retrieved 27 May 2015.
  9. ↑ ter Braak, Menno (17 November 1935). "Tusschen twee landen: Het Duitsche dienstmeisje als Andromeda—Het phaenomeen der haat-liefde". Het Vaderland (in Dutch). p. 1. Retrieved 28 May 2015.
  10. ↑ Kleijn, Koen (17 December 2012). "Tien gebergten – De Avonden" (in Dutch). Retrieved 28 May 2015.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.