Louis Paul Boon war ein flämischer Schriftsteller, Dichter und Maler. Sein Werk zeichnet sich durch seinen einzigartigen Stil aus und befasst sich oft mit komplexen menschlichen Beziehungen und gesellschaftlichen Themen. Boon erforschte in seinen Schöpfungen die Grenzen von Sprache und Kunst und schuf so ein kraftvolles und bleibendes literarisches Erbe.
Einsamkeit, Isolation und Kälte: Ein Mann, seine Frau und ihr pubertierendes Dienstmädchen erzählen nacheinander von sich und ihren Beziehungen zueinander, die von gegenseitigem Beobachten und Belauern geprägt sind und in denen Nähe, Liebe Vertrauen unmöglich scheinen. Der Mann geht einer monotonen Arbeit in einem Eiskeller nach. Seine Frau ist ihm entfremdet. Ihr Dasein ist geprägt von Angst und Einsamkeit. Das Dienstmädchen beobachtet beide distanziert und liebt die Provokation.
This, the author writes, is "the novel of the individual in a world of barbarians." It is the story of Ondine and Oscarke, a young married couple adrift in a Belgian landscape that is darkening under the spread of industry and World War I. Ondine, who "came to serve god and live," finds that she must "serve the gentlemen" instead. Oscarke, an aspiring sculptor, finds himself unsuccessfully scouring Brussels for work and, when he is finally hired, too tired to make his own art. They grow old and their four children grow up as "technology and mechanization, unemployment, fascism, and war" take over around them. War destroys their attempts to establish a better life, which they seek continually and against all odds. And the chapters about these characters, some of whom first appeared in Chapel Road, alternate with chapters about Boon himself, who describes the impossibility of modern life and the destruction of war. As this wide-ranging novel progresses, the author's struggles--both with writing and with his own life--come more and more to resemble those of his characters.
Set in Belgium shortly after the Allies drove out the Nazis, this novel contains little plot to speak of; rather, it consists of a series of vignettes profiling a few dozen quasi-anonymous characters (many referred to as simply whats-his-name), everyday people whose lives have been made absurd and uncomfortable, if not outright miserable, by the war.
