In the series Indebted to Krol, biographer John Heymans pays attention to the influence that writer Gerrit Krol (1934–2013) from Groningen has had on Dutch literature. The 12th and final part: Marjoleine de Vos
Sometimes you read something that touches you deeply. That often happens to me when I read something by Gerrit Krol: a column, a poem, a novel… The ending of his novel The driver is bored (1973), for example, I still can’t read with dry eyes after all these years.
And now it’s happening to me again, now that I’m on the train, on the way to an appointment about Krol in Groningen. I reread the proof of Marjoleine de Vos’ new book: And everything is always there . Truly masterful, this series of musings ‘about missing and remembering’ following the death of a few loved ones close to her. Consider the poet-critic T. van Deel, her long-time companion, the poets CO Jellema and Erik Menkveld, and also Gerrit Krol.
Wandering through your mind
When I greet the writer at Huis De Beurs, I can immediately tell her what I think of her latest publication. “It is just like your walking booklet You looked too far (2020). It was talked about at the time Fidelity : ‘So beautiful to cry about’. Well, this new book is, as far as I’m concerned, even more beautiful.’ She: ‘Gosh! It is true that I have found a form with that walking book that suits me well: you walk, you wander through your mind and what ideas you get, you try to clarify through poems.”
In the eighty-page booklet And everything is always there De Vos thinks twice about Krol. The first time, when she wonders ‘once again’ what ‘missing’ is. Looking at an old photo, she hears ‘the voices, that is, the sound of them, of the group of the dead who are now talking to each other, somewhere further away. You don’t hear what they say, but every now and then you hear clearly: hey, that’s Erik, that’s Gerrit.’
Looking at an old photo
The second time, her thoughts are with Krol when she looks at another photo. All kinds of things come up. “Melancholy, of course, because it is over, or actually even more because of what Gerrit Krol once wrote: ‘Melancholy for all those summer-dressed people, for the thought that in those years people thought they were living in the present.’” De Vos: “I think that’s brilliant… such a good sentence. It is of course very funny, because yes, we also think we live in the present… and that’s what we do, by the way. But that was of course no different for those summer-dressed people. This means you immediately experience the distance when you look at an old photo. You think: that was then… And at the same time you think: that is not reality. You look from your own reality at something that has passed.”
“Krol once described that feeling beautifully: ‘Maybe you should imagine melancholy as threads that tie us to things. / Wires that become longer and / thinner and that at a certain / mood start to sing… / and cut.’ All this brings to mind that very short sentence about those summer-dressed people.”
In a large floral armchair
In her ‘funeral book’ And everything is always there De Vos writes that you reduce every loved one who is no longer there to ‘a collection of moments, plucked from an entire life, strung together into an image of what he was like.’ For example, she thinks of the following scene with Krol: “I see Gerrit sitting in such a large flowered armchair. He rubs his hands and his thighs. He radiates enormous pleasure. Something has been said that pleases him immensely. And at that same moment I hear him say that he enjoyed Vestdijks so much Figures opposite me (1961) which talks about ‘friendships that like to roll around in armchairs while shaking their bellies’ or something like that. He could completely agree with that. That bulky Gerrit and that Vestdijk quote… for me that sums up the feeling he radiated.”
De Vos cherishes many memories of Krol, but has she also learned something from him? “Yes, certainly, that you shouldn’t whine on for too long. When I’m writing, I often think: this should be shorter and then I think of a sentence from Krol’s novel Middleton’s disease (1969): ‘… where the nail penetrates, the wood fibers have to give way…’ I think that is a very good sentence. So that’s how it should be.”
She gives an example. “If he comes in The cropped head (1967) goes to the Harz by motorcycle with a friend, it simply says: ‘Description of the trip to the Harz.’ Later he does so even more emphatically. Then such a sentence stands alone, between blank lines. I find that fantastically witty. You hope to learn something from his courage, his state of mind.”
Always, because now
On the occasion of Krol’s 70th birthday, celebrated with a large gathering in the Gasunie building in Groningen, De Vos honored him with a poem: ‘Always, because now’. During the final publication in her collection It is windy (2008), the assignment was omitted. The fact that she made it especially for Krol is unmistakable from these lines: ‘And otherwise we will write a new model / that predicts our existence at time t / and dutifully adds +1 to it’.
According to De Vos, the idea behind this poem is very simple. “You always want to continue to exist and remain friends. When someone turns 70, and I was twenty years younger then than I am now, you know that that friendship will probably not last forever.”
Therefore, against my better judgement, these closing lines of that same poem: ‘So now stand / forever here, and not just on this paper.’
Biographer John Heymans
John Heymans (The Hague, 1954) studied mathematics and philosophy of science at the University of Twente. He is active as a literary essayist, published monographs on Armando, JJ Voskuil, Cherry Duyns and Simeon ten Holt, among others, and wrote the poetry collection Flag display (2003). He is currently working on a biography of Gerrit Krol and periodically gives a Krol Cahier out.