As if the zeitgeist itself had kicked the book from behind, Marten Toonders fell Money is not an issue suddenly from my bookcase. Ah yes, Lord Bommel, one of my favorite characters, although strictly speaking he is not a person but a bear. A bear without pants; that checkered coat is enough for him, with which he is already a lot more dressed than the stark naked Tom Poes. They both don’t have dicks, by the way, so there’s nothing to hide either. Marquis de Canteclaer does wear pants, by the way. Then he must also have a cock, you would think, only: he is a cock, and cocks don’t have a cock.
Why do we find Heer Bommel so sympathetic? Actually, he’s not nice at all. He always lets Tom Poes carry heavy things and solve all problems, because he himself has so-called ‘a delicate constitution’. (Bears don’t have a ‘delicate constitution’. Bears are bears.) He’s quite the patjepeejer. That ‘ancestral castle’ of his, for example, he had built himself and his so-called ‘simple yet nutritious meals’ always contain all kinds of fine wines, lavish pies and roast capons and the like.
Yet everyone loves him; probably because he is always completely ‘himself’, an enviable trait most people can only dream of. As Updike’s ‘Rabbit’ Angstrom, in all his stupid self-centeredness also a sort of Heer Bommel, but from the American middle class, said: ‘If you have the guts to be yourself, other people’ll pay your price.’
He has just left his heavily pregnant wife and on an occasion has moved in as a prostitute, whom he successively also makes pregnant and then bursts. In fact, Heer Bommel would never do such a thing. He doesn’t have a libido anyway, although he is always madly in love with his neighbor, Miss Doddel (who looks amazingly like Tom Poes, if you think about that cap of her head. Hmm…).
I reread Money is not an issue† It is a fine collection, with ‘De Bovenbazen’ as the highlight. The word ‘top bosses’ was also coined by Toonder, I realized, just like ‘minduck’, ‘great grutter’ and the expression ‘doom and gloom’.
The story is from 1963 but surprisingly current, with themes such as the climate, overconsumption and the rich getting richer at the expense of the poor. When Heer Bommel refuses to fill up with a new brand of petrol with a ‘high octane content and fierce combustion’, the passing ‘top bosses’ find it suspicious. ‘Unsocial. It must be worn out and burned. Digested and thrown away. Otherwise there is no money, you understand?’
Those ‘top bosses’, the nine richest entrepreneurs in Rommeldam, live isolated from the outside world and heavily secured in ‘the golden mountains’. They strictly follow their own rules (“Never give money away. Encourage wear and tear, because that promotes production. Exterminate nature, because nature is our worst enemy. It renews itself, do you feel?”) and they dispel boredom by exchanging their possessions among themselves again and again.
‘So one can find here two of the group in made-up gaiety; Amos W. Steinhacker (who owns the oil and five-ninths of the zippers) and Nahum Grind of the engines. “I know what,” said the latter. “If you give me a quarter of the kerosene now, you’ll get all the bicycles.” However, the other shrugged. ‘Why?’ he asked wearily. I don’t like it (…) the nine of us already have everything here, and no matter how we exchange, nothing more is added.’
But then suddenly a tenth boss threatens to join. And that’s Lord Bommel. I will not reveal anything further. Did I mention ‘The top bosses’ surprisingly topical? Well, don’t hesitate to say visionary.