Matthijs van Boxsel: ‘It is liberating that you can simultaneously do very different things in one book’ | Indebted to Krol (part 6)

Gerrit Krol has received quite a few prizes for his literary work, including an honorary doctorate and a royal decoration. To top it all off: the PC Hooftprijs 2001. There are writers who have to settle for less.

Recently I discovered that Krol received another nice prize for his writing: he was made an honorary member of the Dutch Academy for ‘Pataphysics’ (indeed, with quotation mark and capital letter). On September 13, 2009, Matthijs van Boxsel, leader of the pataphysicists in our country, pinned the decorations belonging to the Order of the Flywheel in his house on the Korreweg in Groningen. That’s why I went to visit this writer who participates at unscheduled times The Encyclopedia of Stupidity publishes.

Whiskey at breakfast

Matthijs van Boxsel and I are sitting at a few tables pushed together in his library on a fourth floor in Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw neighbourhood. Almost immediately he starts telling how he met Krol. ,,Before I met him with critic Tom van Deel, whom I knew from university, I had already read a few things by him in high school. His novel The last winter (1970) was the first book. What struck me in that: the melancholy, the description of landscapes, the English tone. I also had to laugh a lot at the bluff that came out of it, how one of the main characters talks about how he drinks whiskey for breakfast, for example. After The last winter I read Krol’s book of poems About taking off your pants (1970). The quasi-sober, technical treatment of erotic matters, as Krol does in that collection… wonderful! That’s “Pataphysics!”

imaginary solutions

Van Boxsel came to this conclusion with retroactive effect, because he had only discovered ‘Pataphysics’ in 1975. What is ‘Pataphysics? ‘Pataphysics is a science that searches for the law of the exception. Cool and unsentimental. It goes back to the 19th century French writer Alfred Jarry who wrote the first ‘neo-scientific’ novel: Acts and Opinions of Doctor Faustroll . ‘Pataphysics is the science of imaginary solutions. The pataphysicist calculates the crosswind sensitivity of a sum, after all, the plus sign can blow away, you never know. Van Boxsel: ,,Pataphysics is also extremely interested in the surface of God. Some people say: God does not exist, so God is zero. Others say: God is infinite. How do you reconcile these views? The final pataphysical solution then is that God is the tangent point between zero and infinity, but that requires ten pages of mathematical calculations.”

Such formulas and mathematical reasoning can also be found in Krol’s literary work, for example in his novel The milled head . ,,That book is pure ‘Pataphysics”, says Van Boxsel. “The title already indicates what it is about: alpha, beta and me. Ultimately, it is about an I that, one way or another, tries to get a grip on existence. He does this through diagrams and imagination. Another thing I learned from Krol: the use of images in books. I took over from him.”

Scientific description of an orange

Van Boxsel thinks of all Krol’s books The milled head ‘undoubtedly’ the most pataphysical. “In it he unashamedly juxtaposes the most different worlds, the mathematical world next to that of a young man who wants to become a writer. I found it liberating that you can do very different things in a book at the same time. I was particularly impressed by the quasi-sobriety with which he tried to capture elusive things in his poems and novels. I can still remember well”, says Van Boxsel, still in a teaching tone, ,,when we first met Krol, I spoke to Tom about the scientific description of an orange. You can say all kinds of things about oranges, but expressing the taste in a formula… you can’t do that.”

Steam pumping station in Lemmer

Van Boxsel only met Krol a few times in person, the last time was after he had founded the Dutch Academy for ‘Pataphysics’ with a few companions. “He was already suffering from Parkinson’s at the time. Yes we could come. When we arrived at his house, he was given a pill. He woke up, so to speak. That would take an hour. We presented him with a certificate and a pin, all on behalf of our chairman: the steam pumping station in Lemmer. We are one of the few societies with a machine as chairman, which is not surprising at all, because the French College de ‘Pataphysique has a crocodile as chairman. Krol thought that was fantastic, a machine as chairman. In fact, all our members are appointed in different orders and they are named after parts of that machine. In short, we are part of our chairman. Then you never have a hassle about the hierarchy, right? Everyone is more or less equal within the organization.”

As a thank you for his appointment as an honorary member of the Dutch Academy for ‘Pataphysics’, to be precise, ‘Millimeter in the Order of the Flywheel’, Krol wanted to dedicate a poem to the society. That became Lost . Or Van Boxsel wanted to recite it. He did. Kroll nodded in agreement. It would prove to be his last poem.