Dollev

It has been been a while since i visited the bookstore, which explains why i bought five books yesterday. Before i am going to read them, i’m going to make an attempt to bore you all to death by telling you about the books i bought. Ready?

Nick Hornby – Fever Pitch

This is the only book i bought yesterday that isn’t 100% non-fiction. I’m getting bored with prose, especially when it is Literature with a capital L. I’m sure that there are loads of people who find deeper meaning in book about a waitress – actually, she is a poet, who can’t sell a poem if her life depended on it-, who falls in love with her psychiatrist -who is a Argentinean who fled the junta regime in the 70′s after writing a political pamphlet- who she met on a Goethe excursion Rome and during discussions about The Sorrows of Young Werther, they discover they share the same curse. I need to read about more important things. And there is hardly anything more important than football.

Fever Pitch takes you to an era when English football was still English football and there was no team more English than Arsenal. Hence their nickname: Boring Arsenal. That all changed when Arséne Wenger became their manager and with the help of Dennis Bergkamp, Arsenal evolved to the top European squad they are right now. Yes, leave it to a bunch of foreigners to ruin something perfect. You can’t find real English football in the English Premiere League anymore. Anyone who watched last week the FA game between Torquay and Yeovil, will agree with me that that is a bit of a shame.

I think that it was watching that match, that made me decide i really wanted to read this book. In Fever Pitch, Hornby describes his life as a fan of “Boring Arsenal”. I wonder if he can make any prose out out of the current “Artsy Arsenal”.

A book that is described as a “7-0 away win” can’t be bad. And who knows, maybe this book will be the perfect gift to anyone who can’t understand what that fuss with football is all about.

In Between the Lines

“My” newspaper De Volkskrant, recently published their 25.000th edition. A good occasion to look at the newspaper itself and the impact it had on the Netherlands in 21st century. 9/11, Pim Fortuyn, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Theo van Gogh, Moroccan hoodlums; a lot of the articles are about the struggling Dutch multi-cultural society. But there is also a good piece about our current prime-minister, Jan Peter Balkenende and in the last chapter there is a brave attempt to determine what the role of journalism will be in this century. A nice idea of the De Volkskrant. I hope that one of the bigger English/American newspapers will follow their example.

American Mafia

I have always had a fascination for the Mafia since seeing the magnificent Godfather movies. The Mafia is not only a story about crime, it is also a story of immigration and (lack of) integration. So i do hope that this book will turn out to be more than just a series of biographies about Lucky Lucianio, Al Capone, etc. I think the Mafia is apart from a criminal-, also a sociological phenomena, that we in modern multicultural Europe, might learn something from.

Do is der Bahnhof

In the current multicultural struggles of the current Netherlands, defining our Dutch identity has become an important issue and therefore a market. I found about a dozen books about this subject. But if you want to define the identity (if there is one) of a people, it is always best if that job is done by a foreigner. In the case of the Netherlands, the best foreigner for defining the Dutch are of course the Germans.

Do is der Bahnhof is a well chosen title since it symbolizes the special relationship between the Dutch an the Germans.The German tourist wants to know where the railstation (bahnhof) is and wrongly assumes that every Dutchmen speak German. The Dutch point out their hand; Do ist der bahnhof! What the German does not know that there is a good chance that the “bahnhof” is in the opposite direction. Actually, the closer you get to the Dutch beaches, the bigger the chance that the Dutch will sent a German the wrong way.

Annette Birschel is German and she has been in the Netherlands for eleven years as a freelance journalist. Her insights about the Dutch isn’t groundbreaking. The Dutch are blunt and patronizing, but ignore their own faults. The Dutch are sensible unless the Dutch football is playing. The Dutch love to hold meetings and breaking taboo’s is a Dutch specialty.

Yaddayaddayadda.

The book is well written and i will certainly enjoy it, but i don’t think it will give me any new insights. What did surprise me was the fact that Do is der Bahnhof is not a Dutch translation of a German book. Birschel wrote this in Dutch for the Dutch.

Why? Because there is a market for it over here. Now there is a fact that should not stay unnoticed by our historians.

One final note. The picture of the cover above says “do ist der bahnhof”. On the cover of my book it says “do is der bahnhof”. Can anyone tell me which version is correct? Or is “do is(t) der bahnhof” just another example of terrible abuse of the German language by the Dutch?

Geert Mak – In Europe

Geert Mak is currently the most succesful historian we have in the Netherlands. The main reason for that is because is Mak is wonderful storyteller and an excellent writer. In Europe is about the history of the continent in the 20th century. Mak travels through Europe interviews people and tells stories. Wonderful stories. I’m not sure how good the English translation is, but the language of the original version is awesome. And since i already heard and loved the In Europe podcasts i am sure that i’m going to enjoy this book.

Category: Dutch fuss, History, lifelog | Tags: American Mafia, Do ist der Bahnhof, Fever Pitch, Tussen de Regels

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