The Deadbeats

by Ward Ruyslinck, R.B. Powell (Translator)

This is the story of a married couple who have lived in semi-isolation in a tumbledown shack on the outskirts of a town. Theirs has become almost an animal existence. Silvester, the husband, does not believe in love, beauty, God, or even in himself. His wife Margriet lives in constant fear of war. Whatever passion they once felt for each other has long withered into resentment, nagging, and inertia; sleep is the drug which enables them to shake off life's dreary monotony and escape the menacing world outside.

Ruyslinck describes, often humorously, how they can never quite free themselves of society, and how, when spring comes, they momentarily regain some of their former vitality. But this revival is short-lived: suddenly the daydream is shattered. And yet the catastrophe, the violent twist that completes the cycle, gives the events leading up to it a fresh, unexpected aspect that is at once haunting and prophetic.

Genres: Fiction, Belgium, Belgian, 20th Century, Literature, Roman

104 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1957

About the author

Ward Ruyslinck, pseudoniem van Raymond Charles Marie De Belser, is een Vlaamse schrijver.

Ward Ruyslinck in de Nederlandstalige Wikipedia

Ward Ruyslinck in de Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren

Ward Ruyslinck bij "Schrijversgewijs"


Ward Ruyslinck, pseudonym of Raymond Charles Marie De Belser, is a Flemish writer.

Ward Ruyslinck in the English Wikipedia

Reviews

[Glenn Russell]

The Deadbeats - Belgian author Ward Ruyslinck's 100-page novel of sombre precision, literary counterpart to Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings or the above Emil Nolde watercolor. We travel back to the windswept Flemish countryside during the 1950s where Silvester and Margriet, both forty-three, subsist on the outskirts of town in their isolated, rundown, drafty shack of a house with its broken tile roof and creaking walls. As a way of sharing the mood and flavor of this arresting work, below are direct quotes from the text along with my comments:

"He shut his eyes and scarcely listened to what she was saying. The war. Everything reminded her of the war."

Back in the years of the war, Margriet witnessed explosions, the cracking of rifles, soldiers conducting a raid on her town. Traumatized by the war, Margriet now lives in constant fear of war. A strong wind, a gentle breeze, thunder, a car backfiring, pink clouds, the scar on a man's face will trigger skittish Margriet to flashback to the war and look in all directions for soldiers on the attack.

"He pulled his blanket over his head and lay dozing in the stuffy warmth with his knees drawn up. The thin, worn blanket let some light through and it was as if he were lying in a shady green grotto under the sea."

An alternate translation of the book's title, De ontaarde slapers, could be The Degenerate Sleepers. Silvester would like nothing more than spend his remaining days in bed, preferably sleeping, the next best thing would be to simply rest and occasionally daydream. Silvester expects nothing and desires nothing. Why can't the world go away and leave him to his pillow and wool blanket?

"Then the wind, which had not been heard for some time, came rattling under the door and howling under the tiles with a sad noise like a dog dying."

The wind howls like a wild animal, a professor has a mole's face and owl-like spectacles, tombstones remind Silvester of the black dripping backs of seals, a clerk is a grasshopper of a fellow - as if to emphasize the connection with base animal nature, creatures who crawl, fly, swim or scamper are Ward Ruyslinck's prevailing metaphors.

"He knew that the good went unrewarded and that the bad escaped punishment, and this knowledge had made him adverse to social order and organizations, the work of human hands."

Hang easy, dangle loose. Silvester is Belgium's answer to 1950s American beatnik culture. It isn't as if our Flemish slugabed has any desires or expectations - he does not; rather, since there's little justice in the prevailing order, he wants nothing to do with work world or the social tug-of-war - unions, strikes, riots and the like. He sees himself as "the sheep that had left the fold because it could not bear the thought of being sheared and branded; or perhaps just because it wanted to die in solitude."

"What did you do before you were unemployed?"
"I was unemployed then too," Silvester explained.
A little skinny woman near Silvester giggled at this reply, but the official looked at him darkly from his pale face and his lower jaw was trembling."

Silvester goes to the Labor Exchange window to receive a government handout. However, he must stand on queue with others waiting for their turn. Perhaps predictably, the officious clerk will exercise his power by attempting to put people like Silvester in their place.

"It was a strange sight, the sombre hearse with the rain-soaked wreaths, the two rocking carriages in which the mourners were sitting, and last of all, like an outcast from the family, the lonely figure who had joined this sad cortège."

The author injects an element of humor when, in order to avoid the wind and rain, Silvester seeks cover behind the last buggy in a funeral procession. The townspeople spectators smile and nudge one another when they recognize scruffy Silvester with his red beard and torn leather jacket. Incidentally, I suspect the image of Silvester walking at the tail end of this funeral procession has remained with readers of De ontaarde slapers ever since its first publication.

"All at once he began to enjoy this invention so much that for a moment he could see endless possibilities for his imagination."

After a time, the coachman invites Silvester to sit in the carriage. Thus the novel's antihero is given an opportunity to talk of his association with the deceased and spin other fabrications, not unlike the fanciful tales he creates while lying in bed. No doubt about it: Ward Ruyslinck gives Silvester a fertile imagination. If circumstances were a bit different, perhaps Silvester might even be a poet or artist.

"He saw now, and experienced as a positive new truth and astounding revelation, making for a moment the dark void within him light and airy, that even pylons and refuse-dumps were not simply ugly."

Silvester has a fresh vision of beauty and joy while up on his roof fixing a tile.

"He shook his head, looked up at the cloudless sky and thought how strange it was that he was standing here below, bound to the earth by gravity, and that he could never get away, never, never, never . . . . "

An ironic foreshadow of unexpected catastrophe.

If you can manage to put your hands on a copy of this long out-of-print Belgian dark jewel, I can assure you it will make for one unforgettable read.


Raymond De Belser, pseudonym Ward Ruyslinck, Belgian novelist, 1929-2014

[Lars Jerlach · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ward Ryuslinck’s novel ‘The Deadbeats’ mostly takes place inside a ramshackle house in the outskirts of a smaller town in rural Belgium a couple of decades after WWII and feature an unemployed childless couple in their mid forties living in semi-isolation in a rundown shack siting on the edge of a forest in the outskirts of a small rural town.

Silvester and Margriet have been married 22 years and now live in a loveless relationship, in which the love they must have once felt for each other has turned into resentment that eternally fuels the ongoing nagging and bickering between them. They occupy the majority of their days lying in bed either arguing about household chores or waiting for the arrival of the bread delivery man, who’s the only constant visitor to the house.

Sleep seem to be the only possible escape from their depressingly dreary circumstance and when they occasionally get out of bed, they either continue their trivial arguments or watch passively as the world, with which they have only sporadic interaction, goes by like a play outside their windows.

Margriet lives in constant terror of the return of war and although Silvester on the surface seems to be mostly content with things as they are, he nevertheless harbors a general contempt for the class system and for authority in general, and in a manner resulting from an exaggerated sense of his own importance proudly dismisses the possibility of employment when the opportunity arises.

Since they hardly ever leave the house, Silvester only to collect his dole money and get his card stamped, they have no real sense of the world beyond their walls and in many ways live in contextual isolation. They don't seem to own a clock, a radio, nor a calendar. Neither of them read newspapers or show any interest in current affairs, and as far as we know they have never worked.
When Silvester is asked by a clerk in the dole office what he did before his unemployment, he dryly replies that he was unemployed, thus informing us of his self induced detachment from the system, and more broadly his detachment from the world.

Ryuslink’s recurrently utilizes the allegories of animals in the novel, as if to emphasize the connection with primal animal nature to that of the main characters, who in many ways spend their days much like their companion forest dwellers, intellectually uninterested in the goings on in the world around them, but passively observing the surroundings just in case something were to happen.

Although there’s an unrevealed sense throughout the narrative that both Margriet and Silvester would prefer things to be different, they show no ambition or urge to change their circumstance. They constantly squabble about the loose roof tile, the dull knife, the broken pot and the un-sewn button. Margriet frets incessantly about the inevitability of the coming war and Silvester, continuing to live in his self enforced enigmatic universe constantly berates her stupidity, as they simultaneously and fruitlessly attempt to distance themselves from their hopeless situation.

The unexpected twist that at the end perfectly completes the rhythmic narrative, gives this short, dismal but often humorous and well executed novel a both fitting and prophetic conclusion.
All in all a short impactful and thought provoking novel.

[S̶e̶a̶n̶ · Rating 3 out of 5]

The publisher’s description for this one offers an accurate summary. It’s the brief story of a middle-aged married couple eking out a shabby, skeletal existence in a rural area of Flanders, Belgium. They spend a lot of time just lying in their bed, eating bread and sniping at each other. The man, Silvester, is on the dole and not particularly inclined to work of any kind. The woman, Margriet, suffers from what appears to be PTSD as a result of living through WWII, which Silvester had served in, though the effect it seems to have had on him is quite different. Margriet lives in fear of another war—alternating between fretting over this and nagging Silvester to accomplish some petty little tasks around the house. They don’t have a clock or a calendar, so they’re constantly asking what time or what day the other thinks it is. In general, the response is gauged by external routine happenings around them, such as the appearance of 'the mycologist' on his way to study fungi in the woods. Their life together has been reduced to such a minimalist level that they notice the most subtle changes in the normal events of the village. Eventually, a series of very abnormal events occur, which may or may not serve as foreshadowing. The book is very much a mood piece, and not an uplifting one by any means. I liked it for its oddness.

[Natasja · Rating 3 out of 5]

De Ontaarde Slapers, alleen al voor de titel krijgt dit boek een extra ster. Een echt Vlaams verhaal ook, zeer herkenbaar, waarmee ik niet wil zeggen dat ik dat positief bedoel...
Silvester en Margriet vormen een koppel dat elkaar na 20 jaar huwelijk door en door kent, vooral elkaars kleine kantjes dan, welke ze met veel leedvermaak nog eens uitvergroten. En toch kunnen ze niet zonder elkaar, dit vreemde, disfunctionele paar. Tragisch en donker verhaal, met een gelijkaardig einde.

[lärm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Een mooie ode aan de lethargie. De luiheid en vadsigheid wordt weergegeven als ware het een verheven doel. Dit boek behoort tot het betere werk van Ruyslinck en is een absolute aanrader voor wie aan zijn uitgebreid oeuvre wil beginnen.

[WillemC · Rating 3 out of 5]

Twee arme "doppers" spenderen een groot deel van hun tijd in bed in een klein huisje ergens op het Vlaamse platteland, een jaar of tien na WOII. Silvester is werkweigeraar en gaat tegen z'n zin stempelen, terwijl z'n vrouw Margriet zenuwziek is door een onverwerkt oorlogstrauma. "De ontaarde slapers" is een rare mengvorm van naturalisme en existentialisme en werkt daardoor niet volledig, alsof Ruyslinck niet goed wist wat hij nu precies wou vertellen. 2.75/5

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tragisch einde, ellendig verhaal. Prima geschreven, zal nog vaak denken aan de zin: hij snorkte gelijk een varken.

[Kristel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short work, novella in length, set in, assumed to be rural Belgium sometime after WWII. The two main characters are Silvester and Margriet, childless couple, married 22 years, who spend their day and night lying in bed, eating dry bread and living off the government dole. Margriet lives in terror of another war. Silvester lives fairly happily in his head. He is mostly content with things as they are. They really are deadbeats, they don't have a clock or a calendar, no work and no ambition. The title really fits them. There are some good quotes that I will either find now or add later but the author also uses a lot of animals to paint pictures, such as;
"The wind had been blowing from the west for four days, rolling in a dark moaning flood over the flat expanse behind the town. It howled like a wild animal in the neighbouring plantation, above which the crows flapped restlessly with slow, heavy wingbeats, and on the football field it whipped under the corrugated-iron roofs of the stand with a thunderous noise."
"He saw her drooping shoulders and long scraggy neck, and it was as if it were not his wife he was looking at, but the wind in the shape of a dog--a big, rough-coated, tame mongrel, with its forepaws on the window-sill."
"He looked at the women's waving veils, at the few open umbrellas floating in front of him between the rows of tombstones; they reminded him of the black dripping backs of seals."

[Pip · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is another slight novel, set, perhaps, in Belgium, which is where the author was from. The protagonists are the most unlikeable, depressing pair that you are likely to meet between the pages of a book. I thought, when it was mentioned that it was twenty years since the war, that it had been set in 1938 or thereabouts, because they lived in a hovel with no modern amenities. But then the husband visited the Labour Office and there were mentions of memories of bombing raids and hiding in air raid shelters, so I supposed it was set sometime in the sixties instead. Neither work, the husband sharpens the breadknife and replaces a loose tile on the roof after much nagging from the wife, who spends all day in bed. Rags from his boils are kicked under the bed, rubbish piles outside the door and they seem to exist of potatoes and bread. There is some action and a climax at the end, but dragging through the days of idleness and despair hardly make the journey worthwhile. The description is vividly depicted, which gives it the third star in my opinion, these feckless characters will remain in my mind for some time.

[Romolo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strak boek (zijn debuut uit 1957) over een koppel dat kampt met (wat we nu zouden noemen) post-traumatische/post-oorlogse stress-stoornissen. Man en vrouw liegen er op los en hullen zich in lethargie. Indrukwekkende opening waarin Ruyslinck laat zien wat hij kan, en enkele memorabele scènes (waaronder Silvester die infiltreert in een lijkstoet, en Silvester die op het dak klimt). Strakke verhaalboog, zwakt nimmer af. Ondanks de grimmige sfeerschepping is de humor is heel vooruitstrevend en Brusselmansiaans (denk aan dingen als "Margriet besloot een kwartier te wachten en dat tweede kwartier, dat kon er misschien ook wel bij").

[N]

Humanioralectuur

[Reet · Rating 2 out of 5]

They aren't like any deadbeats I have heard of. Nothing much happens in this novella. I think the ending is supposed to be a moral of a kind.

[Zoe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poëtisch, melancholisch en droevig

[John Jansen · Rating 4 out of 5]

In prachtige Vlaamse zinnen vertelt Ward Ruyslinck het verhaal van Silvester en Margriet, twee lethargische types met een gedegen oorlogstrauma. Tragisch, maar liefdevol beschreven.

[John Tetteroo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Het debuut van Ward Ruyslinck. Zonder twijfel vaardig geschreven. Ik heb voortdurend het gevoel dat ik meer achter het verhaal moet zoeken dan ik er nu uithaal. op het oog is het een simpel verhaal over twee mensen die door de oorlog onherstelbaar beschadigd zijn geraakt en sinds die tijd niet meer actief aan het leven deelnemen. De lethargie is tastbaar en de verkleining van hun leven zorgt voor een uitvergroting van hun kleingeestigheid. Het zijn ook geen mensen waar je veel sympathie voor kunt opbrengen, ze zijn afgezakt en smerig, vroeg versleten ook al voeren ze geen slag werk uit.
Terwijl ze elkaar het leven zuur maken, kunnen ze ook niet zonder elkaar. Wat ooit gepassioneerd begon is nu de hel op aarde, maar alleen te dragen in elkaars gezelschap. Helaas wordt een deel van de verveling overgedragen op de lezer.
Toch kon ik het boekje niet neerleggen, want ik wilde graag weten hoe deze vertelling aan zijn einde zou komen. Tja uiteindelijk worden ze beiden door de oorlog achterhaald, vergeten slachtoffers die nog niet geboekt waren in de finale afrekening, hun leven reeds lang geleden officieel beëindigd, als er dood veroordeelden wachtend op de uiteindelijke executie, lotgenoten in een zelf gebouwde dodencel.

[Marie-Ange Van Avermaet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ontaarde, maar vastgeroeste partners dwalen door het leven. Achternagezeten door innerlijke monsters schrijven de protagonisten hun eigen verhaal, onlosmakelijk met elkaar verbonden maar tegelijkertijd van elkaar vervreemd. De weersomstandigheden en historische context omringen hen als was het hun beddengoed. Waar eens de vonk oversloeg, doven uiteindelijk de lonten.