The Scotsman on a Dutch Novelist: Michael Pye reads W. F. Hermans

The astute and thoughtful Michael Pye takes a look at two Willem Frederik Hermans' novels recently translated into English by Ina Rilke: Beyond Sleep, which the Overlook Press has just released in the United States and The Darkroom of Damocles, which we will release next year.

"Something went wrong between the world and WF Hermans and, to be honest, it was mostly Hermans's fault. He was a prickly, impossible, fussing kind of man, never happy with translations of his books, forever suspecting publishers of hoarding copies out of spite; a proper author, in other words. He couldn't stand the thought of failing outside his native Holland, some people say, because it would make all his Dutch enemies so happy.

But now that he's dead his books are finally appearing in English and here's the surprise: the world really needs WF Hermans. Milan Kundera understands the way he's literal and fantastic all at once, how he gets to the extraordinary by way of flatlands and dry prose, not self-indulgence. John le Carré was an early fan of his brilliance, as bright when writing farce as writing a thriller."

Judge for yourself what kind of guy W. F. Hermans was: here's some youtube footage of him being interviewed a few different places. I don't speak Dutch, but he seems to be able to bring the funny as well as the melancholy. He seems animated and argumentative, in the words of Pye, like all great authors. (Image by Dejan Petrovic)