Intercities

by Stefan Hertmans

"Forgetting is a strange power, because it makes memory possible. That is why all architecture from the past is something like the music of space, which surrounds us and sends us images that we have constantly to interpret."

In Intercities , Stefan Hertmans thinks about what constitutes identity in present-day Europe. Looking at people and cities from the periphery, he tries to discover an "archaeology of streets and faces" which could bring him closer to himself. Set in peripheral cities such as Trieste, Marseille, Dresden and Bratislava, and in major ones like Vienna and Amsterdam, Intercities is about the feeling of being abroad, of losing part of one's self in order to gain a richer life.

Mingling travel stories with philosophical reflections, Hertmans's poetic text proves the sixteenth-century observation that every journey is a "voyage around your own chamber". His book is a personal statement about living in Europe today which looks beyond the surface to the heart of contemporary urban existence.

Genres: Philosophy

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Stefan Hertmans is a Flemish Belgian author, poet and essayist. He is the author of a literary and essayistic oeuvre - including poetry, novels, essays, plays, short stories. His poetry has been translated into various languages and he has taught at the Ghent Secondary Art Institute and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent. He has given lectures at the Sorbonne University, the universities of Vienna, Berlin and Mexico City, the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. and University College London. His work has been published in The literary Review (Madison) The Review of contemporary fiction (Illinois) and Grand Street (New York). He was awarded the ECI Literatuurprijs and the Golden Book Owl Audience Award for War and Turpentine, a novel based on his grandfather's notebooks recollecting his time before, during and after the First World War.

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Stefan Hertmans is een Belgisch schrijver, dichter en essayist.

Hij is auteur van een literair en essayistisch oeuvre (poëzie, roman, essay, theatertekst, kortverhaal) dat hem in binnen- en buitenland bekend maakt. Zijn gedichten en verhalen verschenen in het Frans, Spaans, Italiaans, Roemeens, Kroatisch, Duits, Bulgaars. Hertmans doceerde aan het Stedelijk Secundair Kunstinstituut Gent en de Koninklijke Academie voor Schone kunsten (KASK, Hogeschool Gent) en leidde er het Studium Generale tot oktober 2010. Hij gaf lezingen aan de Sorbonne, de universiteiten van Wenen, Berlijn en Mexico City, Library of Congress (Washington), University College London. Zijn werk verscheen onder meer in The literary Review (Madison) The Review of contemporary fiction (Illinois) en Grand Street (New York). Hertmans werkte mee aan tijdschriften zoals Raster, De Revisor, Het Moment, NWT, Yang, Dietsche Warande & Belfort, Poëziekrant en Parmentier. Van 1993 tot 1996 was hij redacteur van het Nederlandse tijdschrift De Gids, hij recenseerde voor De Morgen en schreef de boekenbijlage van De Standaard. In Nederland publiceerde hij in Trouw.

In 2017 werd hij Commandeur in de Kroonorde.
Stefan Hertmans is een Vlaams schrijver, dichter en essayist.

Stefan Hertmans in de Nederlandstalige Wikipedia

Stefan Hertmans in de Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren

Stefan Hertmans bij "Schrijversgewijs"


Stefan Hertmans is a Flemish writer, poet and essayist.

Stefan Hertmans in the English Wikipedia

Reviews

[Smiley III · Rating 5 out of 5]

A terrific tome; a mind-bender and an accessible read both at once, it tilts you through the best of European cities' sense of self, whether they like it or not, or know it or not, held upside-down and shook like a snow-globe miniature, colorful characters and literary titans referred to like ghosts, like earmarks themselves — another set of clock towers and trams and old churches, these figures' paths through life now spent and still-lingering, as invoked and meditated over by the author and his friends. A great lesson in subjective truth. It'll make you want to go for better-than-usual espresso in the city where you live! Or, quite possibly, move away from it. Hard to say!

[Carlos B. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Todo lo que he vivido, quisiera verlo alguna vez con mis propios ojos.

Tengo sentimientos encontrados con el libro. Por un lado el autor es algo prepotente y pesado, cayendo en varias incongruencias, pero por otro plantea temas y reflexiones interesantes.

Todos los libros de viaje acaba siendo sobre el que lo escribe, y en este caso el autor es alguien con el que me tomaría una cerveza, pero igual terminaríamos a tortas. Hertman viaja en los años 90 por varias ciudades europeas y Sydney. En esta especie de diario recoge sus impresiones. Me hace gracia que mencione al turista simplón en Australia o el que busca con ahínco un momento especial en Tubinga. Él se comporta exactamente igual. Una cuestión recurrente es la relación amor-odio del autor con Peter Handke.

Me han gustado los capítulos sobre Bratislava, que describe lo que debió de ser Europa del Este en los 90, el de Trieste, que no por trillado deja de ser una ciudad literaria, y Gantes, donde se habla sobre su provincianismo y la relación con su pasado arquitectónico.

En definitiva, es un libro más sobre el autor y los 90 que sobre ciudades o urbanismo. Hertman ha sido lo suficientemente interesante como para terminar el ensayo.

Ciudad/ciudades. Stadt/Städte en alemán y stad/steden en neerlandés. El plural es un ejemplo de formación del plural por diéresis. En un principio era stad/stadi. La i ha saltado el muro de la sílaba y ha convertido la a en e, de esa manera tan ilustrativa se me enseñaba antes. Desde entonces, las ciudades para mí son lugares donde se pueden saltar los muros, una maniobra por la que los sonidos se aclaran. Gramática de la vida

[Guillaume Frasca · Rating 4 out of 5]

À lire notamment pour le chapitre consacré à Marseille.

[Anja Weber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cities, Stefan Hartmans...

Intercity.
"A city becomes a world when you love one of its inhabitants"- Lawrence Darrell.

I just wanted to remind you of this chapter that compares two cities like Brussels and Amsterdam...

The Flemish writer reminds us of the maps of cities that we draw towards the body of a loved one and often bond with that city by becoming a kind of second home or sanctuary "only if we love someone in it"!? Maybe yes, maybe not...

We love cities simply because we find ourselves in the reflection of these cities, such as beauty in the eye of the beholder. There are clichés by which some cities can be defined from Vienna, Belgrade, Rome, Trieste, Athens or Jerusalem. Any city in the world has its own paradigm or pattern but our life is too wasted and short to always find someone in one of the cities.

There is sympathy, antipathy, love and resentment towards some cities. This is recognized perhaps on the first or second step in some cities, towns, countries just as India likes or dislikes. India, as I wrote a long time ago, is a lover in a colorful vest. Europe is something else entirely, a small continent that builds on Asia but which has spawned a lot of things.

It is true that in European cities, certain days drink coffee and tea in some cafes or museums; as in Amsterdam on Sundays at the Museum of Contemporary Art. But also, the trick to remember the order with which the canals are lined up: Prinsengracht, Kaisersgracht, Herengracht, “Single.” It was taken to learn to navigate bridges and canals so you wouldn't get lost. The point is, you don't get trampled by psychopaths on bicycles, as a colleague philosopher named Daniel, born in Amsterdam, said, but an obvious opponent of two-wheelers. By comparison, he is the Jew, and his own grandmother, mother were hidden during the occupation, a historian / philosopher in the profession…

Hertmans says there's something more Jewish in this town than anywhere else: "something that makes me feel at home and still not a part of it.” For him it's a language, for me it’s something completely unidentified. I agree that this sense of continuity that has made a small settlement of 20,000 citizens that grew after the colonial coup has made today's city cosmopolitan. A lot of things are allowed and some things not. Of course, you'll feel it on your skin with all the unconventionality. It happens, we're all sinners.

But confidence is visible on every corner, and it's no wonder Peter Greenway decided to stay in the city forever. A cinema icon, a conceptual artist, a director who works in opera today. For the Dutch… I think Norma was on the program those days while I was in that city. As Hartmanns says, in Amsterdam we quickly find out where we are, who we are or what we are — or what we are not a part of. Other cities like London will fool you, but here at some insane corner, a misplaced sign or a misplaced house will show you where you belong. Although a very welcome guest, it is just for a little while.

The fact that the city has 300,000 students from all over the world and from Holadnia itself is impressive. The city is full of youth and blossoming.
There are also some of the loves you always come back to, not for the Dutch Golden Age, but because of countless canals. There are different smells, among other things, like the smell of coffee and beer (the latter I don't particularly like) … but their coffee is digested. Maybe it's only in Rome and Milan that it's better than apple pie like my mom's pie, a little kosher, but it's not kosher.

CITIES.
Stefan Hertmans,
From English and French translated:
Jelena Stakic and Goran Kapetanovic,
KARPOS, 2016.
Serbia, Belgrade

PS — About Brussels I didn't write even though it's related to the painting of Flanders in neighboring Belgium and it's connected by Intercity train because it's the city of Bel Epoque. Amsterdam, after all, is like Copenhagen, Oslo or some Nordic Calvinist city. Because if it wasn't for the rise of Protestantism, there wouldn't have been a golden development of this city.

Belgrade has been demolished XY times, Amsterdam not. But this drama of the city cannot be compared, just as we cannot compare two individuals. Besides, I've already written about this book, you're about to pay attention. Read and enjoy because life is beautiful when we dream and while we can fantasize and books are there to bring us closer to reality.

[Jacob Wren]

Stefan Hertmans writes:


While the new play by Peter Handke in the Burgtheater is about how two kings’ sons are unable to prevent a ‘noble people isolated from the world’ from becoming caught up in the confusion of the modern world, the chess computer Deep Blue defeats Kasparov, who is close to tears: the rooks, knights and a king tumble, the papers talk of the last human illusions being destroyed. In Der Standard, Galileo, Darwin and Freud are invoked as the previous great destroyers of illusions and in the street where I live, an unsightly old man sells second-hand newspapers – that is, he never sells anything but he is there, in the street, in the swing of things and that seems fun enough for him. I don’t know what he lives on but, however dirty and out-of-date he is, he looks happy and when I come past with my rolls from the Anker baker he grins because the day before yesterday I bought an old Die Presse from him; ridiculous of course, buying old newspapers out of sentiment, but it creates a bond. And in that issue of Die Presse, there is a report that ends with the by now famous words uttered by Kasparov after his historic duel: ‘I am ashamed.’ Kasparov is ashamed on our behalf, he is ashamed on behalf of all human beings, just as the first man on the moon took a step on our behalf, he is ashamed heroically and historically. I think it is unnecessary; he did not lose to something metaphysical, but to something made by another human being. ‘I’m ashamed.’ I am too, when the old man tries to sell me a paper again that I bought the day before. But there is shame and shame.

[Tijl Vandersteene · Rating 1 out of 5]

Overbodig boek. Pompeus geleuter dat bewijst dat meneer Hertmans veel boeken gelezen heeft en een grote woordenschat bezit maar daar niets werkelijk boeiends weet mee aan te vangen. Vervelend als het zoveelste reisverslag van een ordinaire toerist, vervelender in feite omdat Hertmans vanwege zijn schijnbaar oeverloze kennis boven de toerist denkt te staan. Gewoon genieten of zelf een fris en authentiek idee ontwikkelen is hem duidelijk vreemd. Wat een ...!
Als hij het bijvoorbeeld over Venetië en Napels heeft dan enkel via de teksten van een ander, zelf lijkt hij er nooit geweest te zijn. Hij is kritisch over de snob en overlaadt ondertussen zonder schaamte zijn zinloos gedram met citaten en namen. Steden: verhalen onderweg van Stefan Hertmans is een voorbeeld van zielloos, pretentieus salonintellectualisme. Tekenend is dat hij het nodig vindt over Marseille te schrijven dat Walter Benjamin er verbazend weinig interessants over te melden had.

[Rupert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Abandoned this: a bit too self absorbed and frankly I wasn't all that interested.