Jonge liefde en oud zeer 1

by Helga Ruebsamen

Het succes dat de schrijfster (1934) gehad heeft met 'Het lied en de waarheid' (Bordewijkprijs) en 'Beer is terug' (nominatie Libris Literatuurprijs), was er waarschijnlijk de aanleiding toe verhalen uit een aantal bundels te verzamelen. In deze bundeling een ruime keuze uit 'De Kameleon' (1964), 'De ondergang van Makarov' (1971), 'Op Scheveningen' (1988) en 'De dansende kater' (1992). De verschillende verschijningsvormen van de liefde en de daarmee gepaard gaande emoties staan centraal in deze verhalen. Vaak bewegen de hoofdpersonen zich aan de zelfkant van de maatschappij. Toch zijn de verhalen niet eentonig. Door een gevarieerde opbouw, wisselende vertelperspectieven en een verrassende ontknoping bieden de verhalen onderling genoeg afwisseling. Tussen het oudste en het jongste verhaal zit een periode van ruim 20 jaar.

415 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

A writer's block is something that happens to most writers sooner or later. But not publishing for seventeen years, as Helga Ruebsamen did, is exceptional. "When I temporarily stopped publishing in 1971, I had only planned to write The Perfect Story. But that just did not happen". Fortunately, in 1988 she reluctantly started to write again. She wrote several gems like ‘The song and the truth’.

The first five years of her life Helga Margot Erika - daughter of a Dutch mother and the Jewish, German physician Rübsamen, spent in paradise: tropical Batavia-Weltevreden, capital of the former Dutch East Indies. From 4 September 1934 to early 1940, she grew up in the emerald belt, but when World War II seemed about to start, the Ruebsamens returned to the Netherlands. The family quickly went into hiding when the persecution of Jewish people began. Helga Ruebsamen later in an interview with Arjan Peters said: From the tropical climate, we met the Dutch winter. I still vividly recall the drabness. Of Indonesia, I remember the colors and smells". Her mother - a sturdy Dutch woman - and her father had met in the Indonesian archipelago. Rübsamen was a Jewish doctor in Berlin after the First World War and had worked there in the twenties and had become acquainted with artists like George Grosz and Kurt Tucholsky. Ruebsamen: "My German background is still visible in my name, I have tried to make it less so by getting rid of the German Umlaut on the "u" and adding an 'e' to it."

The place where the Ruebsamens in such dismal conditions came back to, was Benoordenhout, a bourgeois area between Wassenaar and Scheveningen. "A kind of incubator for blazers and pleated skirts, Ruebsamen will later characterize the district. After high school Ruebsamen takes a job as a journalist at the The Hague newspaper Het Vaderland. Through this newspaper she learnes not only the journalistic metier, but also the nightlife in The Hague and the somewhat run beau monde. It will be the inspiration for many of her stories, she originally wrote for her own pleasure. Her husband sends one of the stories in 1963 to the jury of the Reina Prinsen Geerligs Prize, which she promptly wins. "I wrote these stories not to publish them, but partly as a spell, partly as an exercise for the perfect story."

Ruebsamens debut is in 1964 with the short stories bundled in The Chameleon. The stories are distinguished by their location in the run bourgeois environment of The Hague, the confident style and the characters that all to some extent achieve their own demise. Love almost always comes with a black lining. Sometimes her stories are patently absurd and remind of the fantastic stories by F. Bordewijk or Belcampo. Her work shows a lot of similarities with the 'Gothic novel'. Like the student Vincent in the story "The fair bride" who falls in love with a fairground cashier, who was in the 8 Wonders of the World because she has 'a head as big as her whole body seems to be’. Also in The Witch Friend - her first novel - the story seems almost a grim fairy tale. Central to the loosely knotted stories is a Cupid statue, which was left behind in a forest by a noble gentleman. The statue is used by the villagers as the center of many superstitions and folktales.

Furthermore in Ruebsamens stories and novels often boundaries are exceeded – concerning liquor, lust, fantasy or fate. The characters in the stories often spin out of control and then the storyline gets momentum. Partly because of this there is also a lot of criticism on Ruebsamens work, because of the moral content.
In 1971 the short story The Fall of Makarov is published, and then it remains silent. She is at work, writes, deletes and scratches, but she doesn’t want to publish, largely caused by her self-imposed literary requirements and because of the question ‘Why do I write?’. In 1988 she decides to publish several of her previous stories together. The story ‘At Scheveningen’ is well received. In these stories