Just as an island can be a microcosm of the big world, the contents of this island cabinet – around the corner from the meadow where hundreds of geese are noisily preparing for the night – fan out in all directions. People have immersed themselves in the life of King Willem III and have enjoyed the changeability classic The layered organization or allowed themselves to be carried away by Auke Hulst’s irresistible Children of the rough land. By the way, that rugged country is on the other side, because we are here on Schier.
One of the books is not about what it is like to live on an island, but about coming from it: Getting used to the worldthe novel debut of the woman who appears in this Salamanderpocket from 1964 (five years after the first edition). Elisabeth de Jong-Keesing is called. There is no name on the front, but there is a date (22-5-66). Between pages 72 and 73 there is a flower, which may have been a daisy in the 1960s, but I am less favored botanically.
More importantly: Getting used to the world is a great book. At the beginning of the story, the main character, a teenager, finds himself on a deserted island, where his mother has died of a snakebite, just as a ship finally appeared on the horizon. The boy grew up on the island, and it is unclear whether he is one of the very young children that the woman had with her when she was stranded on ‘Alan’s Island’, or whether he is the fruit of the relationship she had there with the American Alan Freedom. Anyway, everyone is now dead and the boy is taken away into civilization.
Sharp observation skills
That takes some getting used to, indeed. His mother, a Wassenaar doctor and war heroine, has explained a lot to him, but he has difficulty connecting that knowledge with what he sees and hears. Keesing (1911-2003) gave the boy a very sharp sense of observation, see these thoughts about one of the sailors who took him off the island: “McQuire was a nice man, you knew exactly what to expect from him. He did the opposite of what he actually felt, when he was afraid he acted forcefully, when something confused him he applied the rules of good order.”
At the same time, there are things that greatly confuse Jack, such as advertising, which produces witty passages. His introduction to the phenomenon of ‘bullying’ is painful, when his mother’s rather monstrous ex-husband starts teasing him in clouds of cigar smoke: “His voice sounded like leftover fat from cooked meat; or like mashed berries, it was as if he were smearing something sticky on me and scratching me at the same time.” He flies at the man, a foreshadowing of what is to come.
In this way – dance also plays a role in the novel – Keesing dances along the sharp observations that belong to the no man’s land between knowledge and experience. She herself said that the story had a lot to do with what she experienced as a Jewish woman when she returned from Japanese captivity after the war. It has led to a beautiful and painfully topical displacement novel, which makes you wonder whether this world is actually worth getting used to.
