How great the temptation of an emotional trip to Bravo for the comets or the future of At the end of the centuries I also choose ‘Plato’s Urban Mini Bieb’ on the outskirts of Utrecht The flame in the panthe 1942 novel by Anton Roothaert. The writer became known as the author of the three -part veterinary drama Dr. Vlimmen, Karel van het Reve’s favorite book.
The flame in the pan is a book with a spot. Not only on the back, but also in a transferable sense. It appeared in 1942, after Roothaert had assured the occupier in a letter that it would be written from the values of the New Order. Moreover, a ‘front edition’ was made of it, especially for Dutch soldiers on the Eastern Front. Whether this copy is one of those 15 thousand is unclear; There is not a year in it.
The book describes the unfortunate fortunes of a group of Dutch soldiers in the May days of 1940 and came from Roothaert’s frustration about the bar of bad equipment with which he himself had to do it as a reservist. The armed forces has been neglected for twenty years, finds one of the main characters – in a passage that feels pretty up -to -date in a certain way. It is a mess, which blinded by peace, has lost sight of the main issue. “And so brilliant reformers have had fun in the last twenty years with changing changes, because there was no serious work to do. Reserve officers had to ask for repeat exercises on their rise, or the command” still gives eight “.” No, it would be better arranged for the opponent.
Indeed, the author is talking about the quality of the German army, but that is not what strikes most when reading The flame in the pan. That is the flexible narrative style of Roothaert, who introduces one of his heroes with great attention to his well -groomed appearance, blonde pipe curls and a light -hearted sentence: “Only his pants could only be seen that he was not meant as a girl.”
That the Brabant writer could also be toxic, it appears immediately afterwards in a school scene: “A large, colored portrait of the pope, a poor, old man, that looked like it, if he knew more about it, was hung in the class. Indeed – that the pope was then compared to “the old Jewje Polak of the market” we ignore – was Roothaert a papen eater of the purest water.
This is especially apparent in the description of the feud between the gymnasium and the HBS in the birthplace of the main characters. The gymnasium painted the civilian people as liberal wicked. A highlight presents itself if the pre -liberal and liberal student Leo Bunneke makes the crossing to the ‘gym’. He is brought in “as a trophee,” but drives the teacher’s guild to despair, for example by asking if the father of a friend goes to hell: “I saw him go to the station this morning with the new Rotterdammer in his pocket.” The author continues undercooled: “There were great difficulties about Noah’s Ark, about the whales of Jonas, about the miracles of Lourdes.” Later, Leo asks his teachers how it is possible that fallible cardinals (the infallible) pope can choose. You understand why Karel van het Reve was so fond of Roothaert.