A Schierse fan of Renate Rubinstein has been cleaning up. There are no fewer than three titles in the solid bookcase on Schiermonnikoog. My better selfabout Rubinstein’s relationship with Simon Carmiggelt, the collection Rather in love and Alexander, the portrait she wrote in 1985 for the eighteenth birthday of the then crown prince. The booklet has suffered water damage in forty years of island life, but still opens beautifully (which is what you could also say about the king and monarchy).
For Alexander Rubinstein (1929-1990) went to Wales for a week, where the Crown Prince was at school. To bridge the generation gap, she brought her cousin Maurits (1964), who is portrayed by his aunt as the boy who understands much more about Willem-Alexander than she does. That worked. There is a quote from the king about his departure for Wales that I took to be an exponent of the mildness that middle-aged men like to cloak themselves in: “Look, I didn’t consider myself a nuisance. My parents didn’t consider themselves difficult either. But we found each other difficult.” It turns out to be a statement by seventeen-year-old Alexander, made “with a look at Maurits”.
The book is a real Rubinstein, written to the rhythm of personal anarchism – except for a passage at the end, in which she passionately defends the monarchy.
It is pleasant to look for character traits of the ‘boy’ (as Rubinstein likes to say) that point forward to the man. For example, the prince says: “I don’t like idealism, I like realism.” The headmaster has criticism that points in the same direction: “The difficulty with Alexander is that he is only interested in things and people that are directly related to himself.” Rubinstein thinks that is very normal, but you involuntarily think of generous errors of judgment such as an autumn holiday in Greece during the corona pandemic.
The prince made little effort to disguise the fact that he felt little about his job at birth. If he could choose? “Then I would immediately say: brother, take over.” When it comes to a possible choice between a partner and the throne, he says: “Then I was immediately relieved of the responsibility!” You read it – and you immediately give it to that boy. Nice sentence from Rubinstein, a little later, about “that Alexander jealously guards his freedom or what he takes for it.”
There he also hints that he would like to study in Amsterdam (“with us” says Rubinstein, who makes no effort to disguise her mokumcentrism).
After all, it became Leiden, according to royal custom. Then Rubinstein casually summarizes: “He may be rebellious in principle, but in practice his rebelliousness has no leg to stand on […] Out of self-esteem he protests, but out of reason he accepts.” With which Rubinstein briefly exposes the tragedy of the royal existence.
Would you like the copy of Alexander to have? Send an email to [email protected]; the book will be raffled among entrants and the winner will be notified.