Allerzielen

by Cees Nooteboom

Arthur Daane is, zoals veel hoofdpersonen in het werk van Cees Nooteboom, een reiziger. Hij heeft bij een vliegtuigongeluk zijn vrouw en zoon verloren en trekt nu met zijn filmcamera over de wereld, geobsedeerd door afscheid en verdwijnen, op zoek naar de anonimiteit. In Berlijn, bij uitstek een stad die door de historie bepaald is, voelt hij zich door nieuwe vrienden opgenomen. Met de filosoof Arno Tieck, de beeldhouwer Victor Leven en de fysicus Zenobia Stejn discussieert Daane behalve over de concrete voorvallen in de Duitse geschiedenis ook over de metafysische dimensies van het bestaan, gesprekken die vaak een vrolijke, absurde wending nemen. Als Arthur Daane in de winterse stad een jonge geschiedenisstudente Elik Oranje ontmoet, krijgen alle abstracte gesprekken plotseling zeer concrete contouren. Zij wordt zijn sirene, een geheimzinnige vrouw die hij wel móet volgen.

Genres: Fiction, Literature, Dutch Literature, Germany, Roman, Contemporary, Philosophy

398 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Cees Nooteboom (born Cornelis Johannes Jacobus Maria Nooteboom, 31 July 1933, in the Hague) is a Dutch author. He has won the Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren, the P.C. Hooft Award, the Pegasus Prize, the Ferdinand Bordewijk Prijs for Rituelen, the Austrian State Prize for European Literature and the Constantijn Huygens Prize, and has frequently been mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in literature.

His works include Rituelen (Rituals, 1980); Een lied van schijn en wezen (A Song of Truth and Semblance, 1981); Berlijnse notities (Berlin Notes, 1990); Het volgende verhaal (The Following Story, 1991); Allerzielen (All Souls' Day, 1998) and Paradijs verloren (Paradise Lost, 2004). (Het volgende verhaal won him the Aristeion Prize in 1993.) In 2005 he published "De slapende goden | Sueños y otras mentiras", with lithographs by Jürgen Partenheimer.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Arthur is a citizen of the globe, he has some close friends but he is lonely. And he is obsessed with history.

What he found so fascinating about the idea of history was that it was based on a chemical compound of fate, chance, and design. The combination of these three elements produced a chain of events that produced another chain of events, which were said to be inevitable, or random, or to happen according to a secret plan that was not yet known to us, though by now things were getting pretty esoteric.

Like Ulysses he travels all over the world and everywhere he goes he takes his camera along and films the present to make it available to the others when it will become the past…

Odysseus had been cunning, but not free. Or about as free as he himself was. Our crafty hero had needed to be rescued countless times by Athena, who had come to him in a variety of guises. There she was again – the goddess. But could she still work her magic?
…He looked up at the statue of Athena, but her eyes looked right past him. Gods never saw you unless they wanted to. Odysseus had been lucky – someone had pointed him in the right direction. She could have come up with a simpler solution, but it wouldn’t have made as good a story. He filmed a scene he’d filmed before, a long sweep beginning with Potsdamer Platz, moving slowly over to the Brandenburg Gate and ending by the Reichstag.

One day he encounters a woman, she is a historian, a medievalist – both of them have deep psychological wounds, they are scorched by their past, they attempt to love each other but they live in the present…

Where she was headed he didn’t know, but he could feel that they were almost there. A door, a man with a shaved head whose face he didn’t trust, a mechanical beat coming from downstairs, light from the underworld, unsavory characters leaning against a bar – Gegenmenschen, he called them, a new subspecies of humanity. Their voices didn’t sound like those of his friends. They spoke in evil drawls, the language of caves.
She seemed to know them, to assume a different voice, a kind of shout to be heard above the music, heavy metal, the sound of a factory producing nothing but noise, pounding figures on a dance floor, slave laborers working on an absent product, contorted bodies moving in time to a merciless beat, writhing with every lash of the whip, screaming along with what they seemed to recognize as words, a German chorus from Hell, raw voices scraped over jagged iron, poisonous metal.
Gegenmenschen – people who hated silence. XTC users, speed freaks, cokeheads, vanitas faces with thin bodies in chic rags.

There are two worlds: the world of love and the world of hate. Majority of human beings endeavour to live in the world of love but those who live in the world of hate reign over them…

[Alexander Carmele · Rating 5 out of 5]

Schwebend aus eigener Schwere heraus.

Inhalt: 5/5 Sterne (zartes Widerstehen)
Form: 4/5 Sterne (fließende Sprache, aber nicht innovativ)
Komposition: 4/5 Sterne (episodenhaft atmosphärisch)
Leseerlebnis: 5/5 Sterne (melancholische Katharsis)

Allgemein gilt eher „Rituale“ als Cees Nootebooms Hauptwerk. „Allerseelen“ wird häufig als etwas geschwätzig, zu schwadronierend und in die Länge gezogen beschrieben, auch gefällt der episodenhafte Erzählstil nicht vielen, von der, vermeintlich, eher dünnen Story abgesehen. Mann liebt nämlich Frau, die sich nicht lieben lassen will:

Die Bäume, zwischen denen sie geht, sind verwaist, der Abstand zwischen ihnen und ihre spezifische Ungleichheit spiegeln das Fiasko dieses so hoffnungsvollen Tages wider, und weil er jetzt nicht da ist, um es ihr zu erläutern, zu erzählen, gehört folglich auch dieser Tag zu der formlosen, unsichtbaren Geschichte, zu dem, was wir immer sehen, weil wir nie etwas vergessen können. Absolute Summe, vollkommene Objektivität, das, was ihr nie erreichen könnt, Gott sei Dank. Wir aber müssen es, wir beobachten das Labyrinth aus Egos, Schicksal, Absicht, Zufall, Gesetzmäßigkeit, Naturerscheinungen und Todestrieb, das ihr Geschichte nennt.

Intellektuell verbrämt, kulturbeflissen-bemüht lässt Nooteboom seine Hauptfiguren durch das verschneite Berlin geistern? Vielleicht. Aber hinter all dem stecken die Lücken, die Andeutungen, das Dunkle des Schmerzes eines individuellen Problemkreises, auf den sich nicht leicht die Finger legen lassen. Arthur, der Mann, hat seine Familie bei einem Flugzeugunglück verloren; Elik, die Frau, verstoßen von ihrem Vater und ihrer alkoholsüchtigen Mutter, wächst einsam bei ihrer Großmutter auf und trägt Spuren, nämlich offensichtliche Narben von der frühkindlichen Misshandlung. Die Liebe steht unter keinem guten Stern, und so flieht mal der eine, mal die andere quer durch Europa.

Sie hob ihren Mantel mit einem Finger hoch und war schon verschwunden. Weltmeisterin im Abschiednehmen. Er hörte ihre Schritte auf der Treppe, dann die Haustür. Jetzt war sie ein Teil der Stadt, eine Passantin. Er war nicht verrückt, sah aber, daß das Zimmer sich wunderte. Er war also nicht der einzige. Die Stühle, die Gardinen, das Foto, das Bett, sogar sein alter Freund, der Kastanienbaum, wunderten sich. Er mußte machen, daß er hier fortkam.

Nootebooms „Allerseelen“ verhandelt nicht die Wiedervereinigung Deutschland, das Ende des Kalten Krieges, wie das jubelnde Feuilleton vermeint, auch analysiert es nicht den deutschen Charakter, den janusköpfigen Zwitter einer sich selbst desavouierenden Kultur. „Allerseelen“ beleuchtet vor allem die Möglichkeit von Glück in einem utopielos gewordenen Geschichtsabschnitt. Er sucht die Lücken, das Dunkle, die Nischen, und findet sie, im Gegensatz zu „Rituale“ und „Die folgende Geschichte“ nicht im Tod, in der Sühne, oder in der Schuld. Nooteboom beschreitet in „Allerseelen“ einen neuen Weg der melancholisch-gesättigten, sentimental-dynamisierten Weltbegegnung.

Arthur spürte, wie er wieder gegen die Tränen kämpfen mußte, doch was dann geschah, war noch viel schwerer zu ertragen. Victor, der sich etwas abseits von den anderen gehalten hatte, ging in eine Ecke des Zimmers, wo Arthur ihn gut sehen konnte, ordnete seinen Seidenschal mit den Polkatupfen, zog sich das Jackett zurecht, verbeugte sich, schien zu zählen und begann dann zu steppen, wobei er Arthur unverwandt ansah.

Keinen Schmerz ausweichend, aber auch keinen Schmerz absolut setzend, jeden Moment dynamisierend in den Zusammenhang eines kosmischen Ganzen lesend, lässt Nooteboom „Allerseelen“ zu einem bemerkenswert leisen, strahlenden Buch werden. Es glänzt nicht dort, wo es zitiert und Hegel und Walter Benjamin, Schestow paraphrasiert. Es glänzt dort, wo die Zeit zwischen zwei Menschen einzigartig wird und stillsteht – und im Verlauf der rastlosen Geschichte eine Lücke für so etwas Absonderliches wie ein wachsendes Verständnis und freies Miteinander lässt.

[Elena · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are many books that I read in the course of the year and enjoy, some that I enjoy immensely. These books I close with a sigh and indulge in a bit of reflection. Their contents pop up in my thoughts frequently over the next few days - after that, less frequently, but still occasionally stopping by.

All Souls Day is not one of those books. All Souls Day is a book which for me finished rather undramatically. There was no moment of reflection. There was an awareness, rather, that the journey it had taken me on had been a journey of moments, becoming clear in intent only towards the end.

I also knew that I had no need to reflect briefly, because the words, the story, the characters, the images and the ideas had become embedded in me. No need to have a gentle goodbye. This is a book that will continue on with me. A book that will be one of that rather tiny collection which I will read repeatedly because although they are embedded in me, there is often a need for a reminder, a need to take the journey again.

All Souls Day is a book that travels like life itself. As I read along, I felt no desire or need for plot - something of a plot emerged gradually, but the captivating part was the flow of the book itself. I could not stop reading it just as I cannot stop walking through my own life. And yet at times I read it gradually, as if afraid to go too fast, afraid to bring it to a close. Beautiful and full, All Souls Day captures the magic of the everyday - its accomplishment is the same thing that its main character strives to do in his bits of film, the ones he rarely shows any one but keeps for itself.

There is so much more that is in this book and I know that each further reading will be just as rich as the first, perhaps even more so. There are explorations of city, of culture and character, and of history and its impact on all of these. The connections among all the different themes becoming clearer as the book progresses, but there is never a lecture or a final conclusion imposed on the reader. The final thought offered is gentle and allows the readers to do with it what they please.

[Hakan · Rating 4 out of 5]

bir uçak kazasında eşini ve çocuğunu kaybetmiş kahramanımız şehirden şehire ülkeden ülkeye varıp belgesel filmler çeker ve zamanı, geçmiş zamanı düşünür sık sık. az sayıdaki arkadaşıyla tarihten, sanattan konuşur, çoğunlukla da tartışır. hayatı bu düşüncelerden, tartışmalardan ibaret gibidir hatta. biz de, okur olarak, daha ilk sayfalarda bu düşünce yoğunluğuyla karşılaşırız. bir düşünce romanı ve aynı zamanda düşünce üzerine bir romandır okuduğumuz.

kahramanımız geçmişin tükenip bitmediğine inanır. insanların geçmiş yokmuş gibi, hiçbir şey yaşanmamış gibi yaşaması ona dayanılmaz gelir. böyle yaşamak şimdi yaşananların da çok yakında iz bırakmadan kaybolacağı ve bugün yaşayanların yok olacağ, hiç yaşamamış-olmamış olacağı anlamına gelmektedir. kahramanımıza okur anlayışını hatta sevgisini-şefkatini göstermeye hazırızdır biz baştan. roman ilerleyecek, kahramanımızın hikayesi çözülecekir. kahramanımızın tüm karmaşık düşüncelerinin eşi ve çocuğunun ölümüyle gelen büyük, derin yalnızlığının yansıması olduğunu anlayarak romanı bitireceğimizi düşünürüz. bu romandan karımız kendimizi biraz zeki, biraz da hüzünlü hissetmek olacaktır. ama böyle olmaz. böyle bitmez roman.

duygularından neredeyse hiç bahsetmez kahramanımız, yitirdiklerinin acısını anlatmaz, yalnızlığından şikayet etmez. bize yakın dönem almanya tarihinden bahseder, hollandalı olmaktan, avrupa kültürünün yanılgılarından-çelişkilerinden, biraz mitolojiden. sonra resimden, heykelden, edebiyattan, müzikten...üstelik düşünceleri baştan sona tartışmacıdır, kışkırtıcıdır. hikayesinde bir dönüm noktası gelir elbette, kendini sorgulamaya girişir hatta belki değiştiği, dönüştüğü söylenebilir. ama ne olursa olsun düşünce temelini kaybetmez. okur olarak bizden sevgi, şefkat beklemez, düşüncesine karşı düşüncelerimizi ister, tartışmalarında ona rakip olmamızı ister. ancak bu sebeple sevebiliyorsak severiz kahramanımızı ve romanı elbette böyle çetin ceviz romanları seviyorsak sevebiliriz.

[Anna Carina · Rating 4 out of 5]

„Wie viel Vergangenheit kann man eigentlich in sich verkraften?“

Ein schwermütig, melancholischer Pilger auf Wanderschaft. Wer weist Arthur den Weg?

Ironie, Komik Fehlanzeige.

Freunde. Gemeinschaftliche Szenen. Sie halten ihn, sorgen dafür, dass er sich nicht auflöst, als Pilger wandern kann und bieten ihm ein zu Hause an.

Arthur bekommt von Nooteboom seine Nische, in die er sich jederzeit zurückziehen darf, nachdenken, verschwinden, sich langsam öffnen, zurück ins Leben tasten.

Die Szenerie ist fragil. Die Stimmung ist fragil. Arthur ist fragil.
Nooteboom bespielt die Abwesenheit, den Abschied, die Schatten und unsichtbaren Signaturen.

Und dann ist da noch Elik:

Er wußte, daß, was immer geschehen würde, es nicht straflos sein würde, daß diese Frau einen Entschluß gefaßt hatte, daß sie ihn nicht mied, nicht mehr vor ihm auswich, daß sie ihm nicht widerfuhr, daß dies eine Gefahrenzone war, in der er sich bewegen mußte, als sei er kaum da, in der er wissen mußte, daß er hier Zutritt erhalten hatte, daß er anwesend war, damit sie abwesend sein konnte, daß hier nach einer so absoluten Form des Vergessens gesucht wurde, daß er sich erst dann von ihr mitreißen lassen durfte, wenn diese Abwesenheit erreicht war, wenn die Körper in diesem Zimmer ihre Personen vergessen hatten, bis ein Mann viel später den Kopf von der Schulter einer Frau heben und diesen anderen Kopf unter sich betrachten und Tränen in einem abgewandten Gesicht sehen würde, wenig Tränen, eine Narbe, die glänzt, einen Körper, der sich zusammenrollt, als wolle er jetzt für allezeit schlafen, und der nicht mehr dasein wird, wenn er aufwacht, wenn das graue Berliner Licht durch die vorhanglosen Fenster hereinschleicht, er die Stille, die Bücher, den fahlen, kerkerartigen Raum wahrnimmt.

Eine Frau mit ebenfalls zu viel Vergangenheit.
Keine Erfüllung. Öffnung. Arthur kann sich einlassen.
Hoffnung für ihn,der den Schmerz der Abweisung überlebt. Scheintot ins Leben.

[John Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having just read this, I want to read it again, lest I’ve missed anything. The writing is exquisite and therefore Susan Massotty’s translation must be first rate.

It is a weirdly beautiful book, set largely in Berlin in the years after the wall fell. It is a book of atmospheres and ghosts, the role of the past in our present and future.

Arthur Daane, principal character of the book, is a photographer/photographic journalist, with his lens focused on all the everyday things we take for granted and/or ignore. He is drifting along since the deaths of his wife and young child in a plane crash. He has some very good friends who we observe alongside Arthur and through the magical zoom lens which is Cees Nooteboom’s writing.
The friends are an assortment of German, Dutch and Russian. They have experienced much in their lives and through them the reader sees and feels a Europe past and present.

Arthur, the “youngster” of the group, meets a youngish post grad student, Elik, who is Dutch like himself. Like Arthur, she too has been damaged, literally, and their relationship is a fairly unique one in my reading experience. Don’t expect moonlight and roses, unless you want to be sorely disappointed. Elik is as enigmatic as the subject of her doctorate, the 12th century Queen Urraca of Castille. The first Spanish queen to reign in her own right, her story penned by Elik, would-be patron saint of feminism.

That’s about it as far as the story-line goes but this writer is so wonderfully quotable, almost on every page there’s a gem:

‘..it was rare to find a person who could explain things in such a way that you immediately understood, a person who never talked down to you but always made you feel, at least while the conversation lasted, that you could follow every detail. Later, when you replayed it in your head, you discovered how little you really knew, but bits of it always stuck.. “When did you read all that?” he remembered asking him once.

“When you were off travelling. But what you have to realize is that travel is also a form of reading. The world is a book.” ’

and again:

‘ “Actually, the present and the past are at odds with each other. We can’t avoid the past. We have to carry it around with us wherever we go. We can’t put it down even for a moment, because we ourselves are the past. But it’s an exercise in futility, since you can’t live with your head turned backward”.

“Unless you’re an historian”, said Arno.


“You can’t live with your head turned backward.” The words stung Arthur like an angry hornet. Is that what he’d been doing for the last ten years? But wasn’t it inevitable when you were surrounded by the dead?’

and finally:

‘ “It’s All Souls’ Day.”

“Oh. Is that some Catholic holiday? I’ve heard the term before, but what’s it about?”

“That’s when the souls of the dead are commemorated. On November second. The dead wait all year for that day.”

“Sure. And at night, when all the people have gone home, they come out and dance.” ’

[Marco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aanvankelijk is het even doorbijten. Cees Nooteboom is een zeer belezen man en in het begin kreeg ik het gevoel niet alle verwijzingen en symboliek te kunnen volgen. Geschiedenis is het hoofdthema, kan je het pakken en vasthouden? De protagonist doet op eigen wijze zijn poging. Maar zo het boek zich niet onvoorwaardelijk naar de lezer opent en het niet meteen liefde op het eerste gezicht is, zodra de protagonist zijn Sirene ontmoet ontvouwt het verhaal zich in alle schoonheid.

Dit boek speelt zich grotendeels af in Berlijn, die ooit gespleten stad en in Spanje, dat in de historie verscheurde land en is een ode aan de liefde. Zal de dans om het onvoorwaardelijk geluk voor beide geliefden goed uitpakken, gezien hun eigen beider gespleten verledens? Vinden zij hun weg?

Ter begeleiding zijn, zoals in iedere goede tragedie, intermezzo's met commentaar door het alwetende koor der zielen.

[Steffi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wunderbar melancholische Beschreibungen Berlins Mitte der 90er Jahren, die immer wieder an Wenders Film „Der Himmel über Berlin" erinnern, auch wenn der im Jahrzehnt zuvor spielt: Die graue Tristesse des Berliner Winters, Begegnungen mit Menschen, Melancholie, die Stimmen von Engeln, Seelen? Auch gibt es wie im Film Szenen in der Berliner Staatsbibliothek. Dazwischen wunderbare Dialoge zwischen Freunden über Geschichte, Philosophie, Kunst.

[Bert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Allerzielen. Een boek dat me al jaren door andere lezers aangeraden wordt. De Nooteboom die je moet gelezen hebben. Een boek dat je zeker zal aanspreken. Wie weet dat één van die lezers die zichzelf misschien ook mij in het verhaal en de personages herkende.
Allerzielen. Een boek dat ook al een aantal jaar op een prominente plek in m'n boekenkast staat. Een vorig boek zinderde nog iets te veel na. Maar ik had behoefte aan wat Nederlandse tekst. En deze Nooteboom bleek de perfecte keuze. Niet enkel om het taalgebruik, meer nog om het ritme van de dialogen. Hun diepgang. De herkenning.
Allerzielen. Een boek dat ik wellicht nog eens moet herlezen op een ander moment. Om de eigenlijke bedoeling van de tekst te vatten en te begrijpen waar het verhaal uiteindelijk heen gaat. Ik heb het begrepen maar er iets te veel in herkend.

https://woordjes.wordpress.com/2018/0...

[Lyn Elliott · Rating 3 out of 5]

I came to this novel by Nooteboom after having recently read his journal observations from over the period 1989-2008Roads to Berlin, and immediately recognised that Berlin in this novel of a bereaved photographer/film-maker, Arthur; his friends and a woman so elusive she is almost a phantom.

Arthur's current film project is to collate images of scenes almost obscured (as in fading light or mist); half hidden; at the edge of vision; by nature insubstantial and on the point of disappearance (beach lines covered by incoming tide; car tyres splashing on a wet road). It's the elusiveness of the images that fascinate him.

The central characters are also elusive, witholding information about themselves, and appearing to slide away from self-awareness. Concealment and impermanence typify the relationship of its central characters.

In contrast, Arthur's friends (Polish, German, Russian and Dutch) are more visible, more definite. their conversations range from politics, philosophy, art and the nature of history to the experience of eating blood sausages, cooked and raw.

Nooteboom questions the nature of personal and national identities, using the discussions of this friendship group as a means of exploring differences.

There were times when reading All Souls' Day felt like immersion in a surreal world and times when it felt like being inside a Piranesi drawing. Only near the end did it take on what I thought of as a more 'normal' narrative style.

I got much more from Roads to Berlin.

[Haaike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moeilijk om er in te komen in het begin, waardoor ik het eerst opzij legde en later weer opnam. Kan mij inbeelden dat het voor sommigen iets te "literair" zal zijn bij momenten, maar zelf lees ik dat wel graag. En hoewel het verhaal mij de hele tijd wel greep, ging mijn beoordeling pas op het einde over van 4 naar 5 sterren. Omdat een boek dat mij naar adem doet happen, dat mij doet stoppen om even tegen de muur te leunen en te bekomen, niet minder dan dat kan krijgen.

[TvdW · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Hoeveel verledens kon je eigenlijk in jezelf verzoenen?"
Nooteboom verkent de rol van de geschiedschrijving en de herinnering aan de hand van opvallend erudiete personages (het feit dat het laatste personage dat geïntroduceerd wordt 'De Filosoof' wordt genoemd, moet haast een grap zijn), eindeloze verwijzingen (Och, de Odyssee, ja? De Schreeuw van Munch, zeg je? Dante? Nietzsche? Voltaire? Cervantes? Hegel? Enz.), enkele bevreemdende hoofdstukken in de wij-vorm en de geslaagde verhaallijn over Arthur Daane die de dood van zijn vrouw en kind verwerkt in een stad met een litteken - Berlijn, mooi - waar hij een soort van verliefd wordt op een vrouw met een litteken. Op zinsniveau vaak ontzettend treffend en mooi (bijv. "Het boek dat jullie schrijven, is de vervalsing van het boek dat wij steeds maar moeten lezen."), maar de personages voelen weinig uniek aan en komen eigenlijk alleen bij de Stube van Herr Schultze tot leven.

[Jule · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have now officially given up on this one. Maybe one day when I'm old and wrinkly or a housewife I'll have time...

[Peter Ka · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just boring. I read 150 pages but I decided I won't spend any more time on it. I haven't done that in over 15 years probably.

[Özlem Güzelharcan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hollanda Edebiyatı ile yeni tanışanlara: Noteboom gibi sıkıcı anlatım ve gereksiz melankoli peşinde değil tüm Hollandalı yazarlar, pes etmeyin.

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely a book which would deserve a re-read in the future as Nooteboom adresses just too many topics in a too intellectual way to grasp it all during a first read - and a fast one, as despite of the philosophical musings this is a very readable book with endearing characters. Set between Amsterdam, Berlin and Spain, the story spans personal and national history and interweaves them in the creation of a world of its own without being doctrinal: The author knows that historiography is never fully possible without being mixed up with interpretation - the same is of course valid in the description of characters and their actions and Nooteboom shows this in the use of an omniscient chorus similar to greek tragedy which comments on the novel from outside.

Nooteboom knows Spain and he knows Berlin, and his account of the separated and recently re-united city and its still open wounds nobody cares to see any longer is cleverly complemented with the personal biography of the main characters, impeccable Dutch film-maker Daane who's lost his first wife and son in a plane accident and the woman he falls in love with, Elik Oranje, half-Dutch, half-Spanish, with a very visible scar in her face. While Elik's vulnerability is aggressively shown, nobody can easily look behind Daane's facade which is hidden behind his camera. This camera not only captures the great tragedies of war and catastrophes all over the world, but also the small things our life is full of: just like the discussions Daane and his circle of friends have (ranging from sausages to the exploration of the space back to Nietzsche and Hegel) and the book itself.


Death, love, the passing of time, history and its effects on daily life, friendship and philosophy - great topics discussed in this great book by an author who handles them with ease.

[Marc Lamot · Rating 2 out of 5]

The main character Daane is typical of Nooteboom: he has strong sartrean traits, is an outsider with a strong melancholic look on life (burdened by the past). The city of Berlin has an important place in this novel, especially as an illustration of the dealing with the troublesome past. That fundamental theme is successfully illustrated by the interventions of the choir.
But the story line around protagonist Elik is not very credible (in fact the character itself is very volatile), especially the end with the resurrection is very weak. The moral of this book: "we need to distance ourselves from the past, in order to live!", sounds pretty cliché. Thus, to my taste, this was not quite successful, unless as philosophical reflection on the burden of the past.

[Pip · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book because when the protagonist is walking the streets of Berlin and reflecting about its past, he was asking himself the exact same questions that I have asked, particularly when contemplating the Berlin Wall. So I was entranced from the start. I am interested that others think the history of Berlin boring or irrelevant. Perhaps because I have lived through the Cold War, visited Berlin just months after the wall was breached, and have spent much time discussing West Germany's attitude to the East and vice versa, it was all fascinating to me. When Arthur contemplates how atrocities are easily forgotten, and cites Trappist monks, the sinking of a ferry or the murder of hostages, I am reminded of those very events. His reflections on how history informs the present is so relevant as we hopelessly look on as another genocide is happening right now. Throw in some art history, philosophy and cultural studies and I am hopelessly in awe of this novelist.

[Peter · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Conversations consist for the most part of things one does not say."

Arthur Daane is a Dutch documentary-maker and free-lance cameraman who recently lost his wife and son in a plane crash. Unable to face living in Holland he lives in Berlin where, when he's not off on assignments, he spends his free time filming the mundane elements of everyday day life. A project that no one will ever see.

His best friends in Berlin are a philosopher, a sculptor and a physicist whom he meets regularly for meals where they discuss music, art and semantics of language. Now whilst his friends fairly burst with philosophical energy Arthur is only a peripheral figure to these conversations. So when Arthur meets Elik, a history student, he is immediately drawn to her because she is so different from his friends. She pops over for sex whenever the mood takes her and leaves again in silence immediately afterwards and refuses to reveal anything about herself. Arthur seems to see his own salvation in this mysterious woman and, in search for her, follows her to Spain.

Now it's obvious that Nooteboom is fairly knowledgeable about art and semantics and has an interest in the effects of German reunification had on its populace but if he trying to portray one man's difficult journey from under the dark clouds of grief into the bright light of restoration- then he failed. Too often it felt like I was being lectured to. At no time did I feel any particular empathy towards Arthur, in fact the tragic loss that he suffered seemed almost trivial. Likewise, whilst Elik obviously had her own personal demons I felt that she came across little better than a stroppy, self-absorbed teenager. Despair and sorrow, art and intellectual snobbery seem to be rather strange bed fellows.

Coincidentally I recently finished reading Paul Auster's ' The Book of Illusions' in which, as with this novel, the central character had recently lost in his family in an aeroplane crash. Now although I didn't feel that Auster's book is a particularly great one I do feel that he manages to demonstrate the daily sufferings following untimely loss far better than Nooteboom does.

This book was not originally written in English so I am willing to admit that it is possible that something was lost in translation. Therefore, if I happen to stumble across another of the author's works I will be willing to give it a go.

[Ron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Het was even wennen in het begin. Je word meegesleept in een stroom van gedachtes en ideeën, associaties van een man die door de sneeuw in Berlijn loopt. Er gebeurt niet zoveel. En dat blijft eigenlijk maar zo doorgaan, maar ik herken dat van mezelf. Hoe je van het een op het ander komt.
En het mooie vond ik dan die kring van vrienden. Bijna te mooi om waar te kunnen zijn.
Ik bleef maar lezen ook al waren niet al die gedachtes en ideeën aan mij besteed, dan toch is er een schoonheid in zo'n ongebreidelde intellectualiteit.

[Dan]

There’s David Niven — Alfred Ehrhardt — Arvid Gutchow — Stieglitz — Tiepolo — Ruisdael — Turner — Mandelstam — Gottfried Benn — Shostakovich — Schubert — Schumann — Hildegaard von Bingen — Jakob Bohme — Novalis — Heidegger — Galinsky — E. T. A. Hoffmann — Franz Fuhmann

And then there’s Frederick the Great — Voltaire — Diderot — Derrida — Dyson — Galileo — Thomas Aquinas — Ken Volans — Bruce Chatwin — Franz Furhmann

And there’s also Schiller — Vermeer — Leon — Asturias — Urraca — Varese —Carthusians — with their un pan, medio pan, no pan — Cranach — Laforgue — Empress Augusta — Bernard F. Reilly — Diego Gelmirez — Alfonso el Batallador — Marc Bloch — Proust — Junger — Ibnal-Ahmar — Isaac Ibn Mayer — Joan of Poitiers — Plutarch — Herodotus — Lucian — Mommsen — Michelet — Macaulay — Luther — Derrida — Baudrillard — Krzysztof Pomian — Marc Bloch — Pope Gelasius — Charles V — Peter Rassow — Ortega y Gasset — and — and — and. . .

Cees Nooteboom’s All Souls’ Day is like an earwig, circling around in this reader’s head, always buzzing with activity. All Souls’ Day is simultaneously challenging, intriguing, and disturbing. The sheer number and variety of mentioned names might seem pretentious from other authors, but fascinate in All Souls’ Day. Yet the novel is too interesting to let oneself be distracted by following up on every single name. Pope Gelasius, anyone? How about Krzysztof Pomian? Well known to some no doubt, but hardly to the general reader. From Nooteboom’s pen, they all seem full of promise for fascinating digressions.

All Souls’ Day could be thought of as a simple, if melancholy, romance. Arthur Daane, a widower who lost his wife and young son in an airplane accident, meets Elik Oranje, an arresting, mysterious doctoral student consumed with anger and her arcane studies. Widower falls for her. Widower hangs with his equally intellectual friends. Widower takes off on various cinematography assignments. And on and on. But Nooteboom is so much more than this stripped down plot, because he invests even the most casual hang-outs between Arthur and his friends with wonderfully stimulating, believable conversations. At times, Nooteboom reminds me of Henry Green, but a Henry Green with urbane, well-educated, and interesting characters. One of the particular smaller pleasures of All Souls’ Day is that Nooteboom portrays an adult friendship between a man and a woman, a friendship with mutual support and not a hint of sex. Another pleasure, and a not-so-small pleasure, is how Nooteboom invests Berlin with life and detail.

I’m betting that All Souls’ Day will be buzzing around in my consciousness for a long time.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

A slow moving novel about 45 year old Arthur Daane, a photographer / cameraman, who reflects on issues including photography, history, art, and philosophers, (Nietzsche). There are many conversations with other emigres and friends about these issues. He meets the young, mysterious, enigmatic, odd, history student, Elif Olanje. Their relationship is unique. Arthur initially doesn’t know her name, her phone number or where she lives, even after having sex with her a number of times.

Arthur Dane is Dutch. After the deaths of his wife and son in a plane crash some years ago, he moves to Berlin in the early 1990s, after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

It is a thought provoking read with many interesting lines:

‘…travel is also a form of reading. The world is a book.’

‘You can’t live with your head turned backward.’

A very worthwhile read, but be warned, it is a book that focuses on the meaning of life, art and history, rather than plot and character development.

This book was first published in 1998.

[Lukasz Pruski · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The point was that the past could be accessed and therefore still existed. And it would continue to exist until the act of describing the world ceased to exist, together with the world itself."

I am writing this just ten days after Brexit, and it is a difficult time for me because the event has dealt a severe blow to one of the most wonderful ideas in world's political history - the unification of Europe in the form of the EU. That the countries such as Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy and many others - despite a thousand years' worth of wars, hate, and killing - have been able to overcome their national prejudices in the interest of people rather than just "our people" was an event on a scale never experienced in human history. Well, now it seems clear that we have just been deluded and that Europe will merrily go back to the old ways of nationalism and division.

What does it all have to do with Cees Nooteboom's All Souls' Day (1998)? I am sure that Mr. Nooteboom is very sad today too. He is not just a Dutch writer as his nationality and native language indicate, but a quintessential European writer, and this novel is one of the most European of serious books that I have ever read. Among the major themes in All Souls Day are the European history, culture, art, philosophy, ways of thinking, even food. Most of the novel is presented as a stream of thoughts of a highly educated intellectual and as conversations with other intellectuals. Arthur, the narrator, is a free-lance TV documentary director and cameraman, and among his closest friends are a sculptor, a philosopher/writer, and a physicist. We read about the art of Vermeer, Heidegger's Sein zum Tode, Hegel's philosophy of history, Penderecki's Stabat Mater, the gender markings in European languages, the kingdom of León-Castilla under queen Urraca in the early 12th century, the cathedral in Madrid, the tunnel underneath Alcalá, Krzysztof Pomian's essay Histoire et Fiction, and also about Saumagen, Apfelstrudel, and various types of sausages. Arthur's stream of thoughts transcends national identities and languages: his thoughts are not Dutch or German or French, they are thoughts of an European.

In All Souls' Day Mr. Nooteboom returns to the main themes of his most famous novels: the time and space dimensions of human life, human impermanence, the ways in which the past exists, and how we, the living, relate to people who had been close to us and who died. One of the most moving passages describes Arthur's conversation with an old woman living in a block of apartments in Berlin. She is looking at a tree that has always been growing in front of her window. The tree had been small when the woman and her husband had lived there before World War II. The husband was killed on the Eastern front, but the woman, some fifty years later, still talks to him and tells him about the tree:

"I tell him how the tree is doing, how big it's grown. He can't understand the rest, how everything has turned out. I don't dare tell him."

Whenever I read this fragment I choke and my eyes get wet. Indeed, the dead would not understand all the rest. But we do have the obligation to the people who had departed: we need to think about the times we had together. Talking to our dead makes them exist again, just a little.

There is so much more in the novel. Arthur's narration is interrupted a few times by a voice that resembles the chorus from a classic Greek drama. Sometimes this collective disembodied voice (all souls' voice?) comments on the events, but mainly it provides a wider perspective on the themes and motifs in the text. For instance - in keeping with the meditative mood of the novel - the voice muses on the power of human intellect that "can ponder eternity" and "allows you to lay claim to vast amounts of time and space," on the random intersections of human trajectories in space and time, and on the non-existence of the future. One will also find a most unusual description - in its understatement - of a person's death.

Readers should be aware that All Souls' Day may only barely be counted as a novel. The plot is thin: Arthur, who lost his wife and son ten years ago in a plane accident, spends time in Berlin, waiting for his next assignment, wandering all over the city, sitting with his friends in cafés and Weinstubes and discussing art and philosophy. He meets a young woman, Elik Oranje, a graduate history student and a complicated yet instant attraction arises between them. The story continues about the time they spend together in Berlin and then about Arthur's search for Elik in Spain, where she goes to look for source materials to her dissertation.

Despite many utterly beautiful passages and themes All Souls' Day feels a little bit overlong. unfocused and occasionally rambling; it does not reach the greatness of, for example, The Following Story or The Foxes Come at Night , which are meditations of unsurpassed depth on the existence of past and our impermanence. But it still is a wonderful book and it makes it crystal clear that the writings of no other author I have ever read resonate stronger with my worldview and sensibilities.

Four and a quarter stars.

[Wim van Turnhout · Rating 4 out of 5]

Het verhaal is heel uniek en 'Europees' door de manier waarop Cees allerlei elementen uit de bredere Europese cultuur weet te verwerken in dit boek. Werd op een gegeven moment wel gek van hoe intellectueel Nooteboom constant probeert te zijn, daarnaast vond ik beschrijvingen als 'de peer is zo zuur dat hij mij bijt in plaats van andersom' bijzonder irritant.

[Rik · Rating 4 out of 5]

25 jaar na eerste lezing, leek het me nu wat meer behapbaar. Wat ouder, en toch wat wijzer?

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I was reading All Souls Day I was reminded of those obscure European art house films I used to watch when I was in my early twenties. Slightly weird, interesting and yet lacks something in order to be truly loved.

Arthur Daane is a director of documentaries and treats is life as one whole film that is waiting to be captured on camera. Although he has travelled to some places around the Earth his favourite city is Berlin and while he walks he notices (and films) the details and soaks in the city’s rich history. He also meets his two eccentric friends Arno and Victor and they discuss life food, art and history.

The reason Arthur travels and notices details in the places he goes to is because his wife and son have died in a plane crash ten years earlier and he sees his obsessions as a from of escape.

All goes well until Arthur falls in love and he goes on another adventure which is completely life changing.

The main theme is history, especially Berlin’s. Nooteboom makes sure to squeeze in every aspect of pre wall era Berlin and I liked this aspect of the book. The romantic sub plot works as well and gives the novel an extra dimension. Even the inclusion of a narrator who breaks the fourth wall and tells us about the future of some of the characters is a great idea.

Yet I found it difficult to be absorbed in the story. I definitely did not get bored and neither is the translation off-putting. I just felt that it lacked one more thing and I’m still debating on what it is. True some of the characters aren’t that fully fleshed out but we sympathise with Arthur very easily. I don’t know what it is and it’s still bothering me a bit.

Another thing the paperback version is out of print but you can buy the hardback one at the Book Depository (although I opted for the paperback at abebooks.co.uk)

[Gijs Hollebosch · Rating 1 out of 5]

"ten slotte een beetje zielig, maar ook uitdagend"(237)

Wat een teleurstelling, dit boek! Heel hard wilde ik hier als titel blokletteren ALLERZIELIGST, maar dat is niet echt mijn stijl. Rond p.180 wilde ik stoppen met dit boek, te weinig verhaal, te associatief geschreven, te veel name dropping maar vooral te afstandelijk, kil en on-beklijvend. Doorzetten, zei ik tegen mezelf! Helaas is het echt niet de moeite gebleken.

De ontheemde Nederlandse documentairemaker Arthur Daane filmt de wereld rondom hem heel erg traag en reflecteert over geschiedenis en kunst, komt gelijkgestemden tegen. Het zijn allemaal bordkartonnen personages die flarden kennis en cultuur willen etaleren. Het boeit me allemaal weinig. Op p.180 komt hij Elik Oranje tegen, kortstondig lijkt dit eindelijk interessant, the love interest. Al gauw verzandt ook deze verhaallijn in een anoniem verdwijnen.

Het boek heb ik dan maar cursorisch verder uit gelezen, helemaal van Berlijn over Nederland tot in Spanje waar Victor tapdanst aan Arthurs ziekenhuisbed (hoezee!).

Spoel deze cinefiele art housefilm traag verder, of liefst toch wat sneller, je hebt wel door dat het tijdverspilling is, hoopt toch op een verrassing, en blijft gefrustreerd achter.

[Pedro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una novela cuidadosamente armada, en la que la historia del protagonista va acompañada de un corifeo de aparentes ánimas.

Arthur Daane, camarógrafo holandés radicado en Berlín, vive en un tiempo suspendido, luego de la muerte de su mujer e hijo.

Custodio de la fidelidad a los hechos históricos, fijador de las imágenes marginales a través de su cámara; un buscador del absoluto, tal vez para eludir el dolor de vivir.

La aparición elusiva de Elik rompe la imagen en el agua, y Arthur entra a la imprevisible vida, la del no retorno.

“Si el pasado no pudiera desgastarse, no se podría continuar. Y esto es aplicable a tu propia vida como a los países”

Una novela con la cual uno se enamora de Berlín; y en ese sentido, un homenaje.

[Tarah Luke · Rating 2 out of 5]

#1001books #701left

Yet another one that wasn't for me, and one I am fairly sure that, if I picked it up again in 10 or more years, still wouldn't be something "for me." It is probably the main character's obsession with a Berlin that no longer exists and that no one else seems to care about, or the crappy love affair that he embarks upon, or maybe just the overly long philosophical discussions. Whatever it was, it never clicked with me. This was dreary and depressing in so many ways I can't even begin to number.

[Darren · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Proper" literary stuff, with intelligent characters sitting around in cafes discussing history/food/art/philosophy/society etc. Protagonist also struggling with issues of memory/grief/belonging (wrt both people and place), has his carefully ordered/constrained life disrupted by meeting younger/mysterious/troubled woman. Not a huge amount of plot (but that's not really the point anyway), and written excellently enough as to be compelling to read, and also leave a lasting impression.