It was not the canonization of Saint Joost, but the atmosphere in the Amsterdam Old Lutheran Church was consecrated. No wonder, the shadow of self-chosen death and its “dark sides” hung over the presentation of Zwaag, Maria Vlaar’s impressive biography of Joost Zwagerman (1963-2015).
Some acquaintances and readers have criticized the biography, as it would highlight those dark sides too much: sex, drugs and (less) rock ‘n’ roll. Wasn’t a beloved writer reduced here to the grittiest pages of his life?
In his Contre Sainte-Beuve Proust warned against this: explaining art from life. Rightly so, but that’s not what happens in it Zwaag. It shows the man unapproachably in his many contradictions – charming and maddening, timid and manic, self-centered and compassionate – but without reading his work as a diagnosis of this.
Moreover, magnificent biographies have also been published about Proust, albeit a size larger, that do not ‘explain’ the work but do give relief to its creation. By the way, with mention of erotic details, where those of the metropolitan Alkmaarder stand out as student excesses.
The angry reaction from acquaintances is now very Proustian. Proust could describe better than anyone the horror that strikes when you suddenly see someone, an acquaintance, friend or loved one, with different eyes. But also the familiar, always enthusiastic one sales guy – of language, art and oneself – is not missing in the book. Recognizable for the last generation of upwardly mobile middle-class children who grew up in an offline world: the literary urge to assert themselves, le plaisir de se voir imprimé, an almost existential urge to see yourself in print.
That lust also drove Zwagerman into polemics, a genre for which he had no real talent due to his touchy nature: revenge was rarely served cold, but rather so hot that it burned his own hands. The low point, his mud fight with Anil Ramdas in 2011, is finally getting the right treatment at Vlaar. Not as a settlement with a fallen star (Ramdas) by a sparkling Dutch celebrity, but as a sad collision of two shooting stars. In which I (as a friend of Ramdas and loyal Zwagerman-watcher) note that Joost cultivated his drive somewhat less than Anil.
That other infamous feud, the brouhaha between aspiring folk writer Zwagerman and aspiring culture pope Michaël Zeeman van de Volkskrantis more like a comedy or slapstick in comparison. Two men sitting behind their keyboards in the middle of the night, maltreating each other’s Wikipedia entry. Laurel and Hardy on the monkey rock.
It was no coincidence that this was another confrontation between two social climbers on the battlefield middle brow and high brow. The gunpowder fumes still linger in Vlaar and in the recent Zeeman biography by Willem Otterspeer. Ironically, Zeeman, to whom “everything was big”, received a short book of friends (334 pages), Zwagerman, to whom he thought everything was small, a near-epic (768 pages) that, speaking in pop terms, would rather suit Bob Dylan than Donovan.
Three quarters of the way through Zwaag Vlaar asks himself desperately and nervously: what was it with these men? So much need for assertiveness, so much noise, and so often early death. Was it an idea of masculinity, the tough standard set by the Three Greats of Dutch letters (names known to the editors)? Women were allowed to sit on the amplifiers and admire them, but preferred not to pick up the guitar themselves.
Perhaps, but also with the feeling of being ‘upwardly mobile’ in a depillarized, freer society. See one of the childhood photos Zwaag: the 10-year-old in 1973, smiling broadly in one of those uncomfortable stretchy sweaters, writing at his desk. The gluttony of a middle class that could suddenly draw comics, write poetry, make pop music and, the highest achievement: become a writer. Zwagerman is considered ‘postmodern’ – also at Vlaar – but his creative drive ultimately had nothing of ironic playfulness, it was all Romanticism.
Sjoerd de Jong is editor of NRC.
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