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Een winter in het Zuiderland
In de winter van 1886-1887 maakte de vijftigjarige schrijfster Virginie Loveling met een bevriend echtpaar een lange reis naar de Azurenkust en Italië. Anders dan bij veel tijdgenoten die achteraf een verhaal of een persoonlijke reisgids op papier zetten, heeft haar relaas, Een winter in het Zuiderland (1890), pas in laatste instantie aandacht voor kunstwerken en andere bezienswaardigheden. Haar nadruk ligt vooral op haar contacten met mensen van verschillende nationaliteiten en verschillende sociale status. Ze herinnert zich gesprekken over banale en over bijzonder ernstige zaken, tegen een achtergrond van de nog weinig bekende praktijk van het reizen. In die tijd maakten de spoorwegen het overbruggen van afstanden opeens veel gemakkelijker, en werden afgelegen streken voor het eerst echt bereikbaar. Loveling gaat op ontdekkingstocht en stapt vastberaden, met een grote openheid van geest, de wereld in.
- Genres19th Century
414 pages, Hardcover
Published March 22, 2022
3 people are currently reading
41 people want to read
About the author
Virginie Loveling
28 books9 followersVirginie Loveling was een Vlaamse dichter en schrijfster. Zij was de jongere zuster van Rosalie Loveling en de tante van Cyriel Buysse.
Virginie Loveling in de Nederlandstalige Wikipedia
Virginie Loveling in de Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren
Virginie Loveling bij "Schrijversgewijs"
Virginie Loveling was a Flemish poet and writer. She was the younger sister of Rosalie Loveling and the aunt of Cyriel Buysse. In 1870, the two sisters published poems together which brought them instant recognition.
Virginie wrote poems, novellas, novels and journalistic prose.
Virginie Loveling in the English Wikipedia
Virginie Loveling in de Nederlandstalige Wikipedia
Virginie Loveling in de Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren
Virginie Loveling bij "Schrijversgewijs"
Virginie Loveling was a Flemish poet and writer. She was the younger sister of Rosalie Loveling and the aunt of Cyriel Buysse. In 1870, the two sisters published poems together which brought them instant recognition.
Virginie wrote poems, novellas, novels and journalistic prose.
Virginie Loveling in the English Wikipedia
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March 10, 2023This reads like a novelization of a guidebook that occasionally blurs into an Agatha Christie novel without a murder.
Virginie Loveling was an established author when she undertook a holiday in southern France and Italy over the winter of 1886 to 1887, this work though was written a long time before she wrote Een revolverschot which I read a while ago, this book is a lightly fictionalised account of that journey. In place of Virginie, there is Livie who travels with two unnamed friends, these are non-speaking, not interacting friends possibly to guard against the reading public imagining a woman travelling on her own, from Ghent to Nice and then on to Genoa, Turin, Pisa, Rome and Venice. The furthest point south that she, **cough, cough** sorry, they, reach is Pompeii.
There is what might have counted as a will she, won't she have a holiday romance with an Englishman in their holiday accommodation in Nice. This relationship is so low-key that it can barely be described as even subtle, the most that we can say about this man is that he is prejudiced against Americans, which strikes me as a slim basis for a romance given that 'Livie' expresses no particular opinion about Americans.
Livie is a traveller who is interested in people, and that in turn provides the interest of the book. There aren't many interesting observations about the places that she sees, and of those the most entertaining is her disappointment at the leaning tower of Pisa's overly modest lean and that in the 1880s Christmas does not seem to be a holiday in Italy, but the feast of the Epiphany was a holiday - businesses seem to have been open and daily life goes on. But there are many conversations recorded with people that she meets.
She sees Nice as a frontier town the place where Garibaldi was born and Gambetta buried , where you can talk to people in Italian and they will answer in French.
Travel is much slower, she stays away from home for such a long time that she needs to travel with twenty pieces of luggage - a toothbrush and a change of underwear were not enough.
This is a world where there is a Thomas Cook office in town to help you arrange your journey, some towns are well established tourist destinations - the waiters in Nice are Germans, they don't speak French but they know English well enough to be able to work with the tourists.
As you might expect for a winter journey over a hundred years ago, it rains a lot.
The language in this edition has been tidied up. I tend to think that travel writing is a way of writing about your own country, and perhaps yourself too, in a indirect manner. Here there is an interest in language and particularly in unofficial languages, and her ability to make the most of her holiday by avoiding going to church on a Sunday. We can imagine what this means in the context of the writer coming from Ghent in Belgium in the latter part of the nineteenth century.
Virginie Loveling was an established author when she undertook a holiday in southern France and Italy over the winter of 1886 to 1887, this work though was written a long time before she wrote Een revolverschot which I read a while ago, this book is a lightly fictionalised account of that journey. In place of Virginie, there is Livie who travels with two unnamed friends, these are non-speaking, not interacting friends possibly to guard against the reading public imagining a woman travelling on her own, from Ghent to Nice and then on to Genoa, Turin, Pisa, Rome and Venice. The furthest point south that she, **cough, cough** sorry, they, reach is Pompeii.
There is what might have counted as a will she, won't she have a holiday romance with an Englishman in their holiday accommodation in Nice. This relationship is so low-key that it can barely be described as even subtle, the most that we can say about this man is that he is prejudiced against Americans, which strikes me as a slim basis for a romance given that 'Livie' expresses no particular opinion about Americans.
Livie is a traveller who is interested in people, and that in turn provides the interest of the book. There aren't many interesting observations about the places that she sees, and of those the most entertaining is her disappointment at the leaning tower of Pisa's overly modest lean and that in the 1880s Christmas does not seem to be a holiday in Italy, but the feast of the Epiphany was a holiday - businesses seem to have been open and daily life goes on. But there are many conversations recorded with people that she meets.
She sees Nice as a frontier town the place where Garibaldi was born and Gambetta buried , where you can talk to people in Italian and they will answer in French.
Travel is much slower, she stays away from home for such a long time that she needs to travel with twenty pieces of luggage - a toothbrush and a change of underwear were not enough.
This is a world where there is a Thomas Cook office in town to help you arrange your journey, some towns are well established tourist destinations - the waiters in Nice are Germans, they don't speak French but they know English well enough to be able to work with the tourists.
As you might expect for a winter journey over a hundred years ago, it rains a lot.
The language in this edition has been tidied up. I tend to think that travel writing is a way of writing about your own country, and perhaps yourself too, in a indirect manner. Here there is an interest in language and particularly in unofficial languages, and her ability to make the most of her holiday by avoiding going to church on a Sunday. We can imagine what this means in the context of the writer coming from Ghent in Belgium in the latter part of the nineteenth century.
June 4, 2022
Het lijkt op het eerste gezicht pure nostalgie naar een vervlogen verleden, toen alles veel eenvoudiger was en ook weer niet (en dat is het ook wel wat), maar - vooral het eerste deel, over Nice - toont een intelligente en vrijgevochten waarneemster van haar omgeving. Die tegelijk al modern is en sepia ingekleurd. Heel vlot geschreven.
November 4, 2022
Fijn tijdsdocument, literair minder indrukwekkend.
July 16, 2023
Eerste publicatie als boek in 1890 werd voor deze herwerkte versie gebruikt.
Het Zuiderland in dit boek start in Parijs om via Lyon, Marseille voor een langer verblijf in Nizza (Nice) te zorgen. Verder door naar Genua, Pisa. Roma, Napels, Venetië.
Het verblijf in het hotel in Nizza en de relatie met de hotelgasten deed me soms denken aan de sfeer van de Villa des Roses. Het vrijzinnige denken van Loveling is merkbaar. De kennis van de toch net wat hogere klasse ook. Het is tegelijkertijd ook een tijdsdocument.
Het Zuiderland in dit boek start in Parijs om via Lyon, Marseille voor een langer verblijf in Nizza (Nice) te zorgen. Verder door naar Genua, Pisa. Roma, Napels, Venetië.
Het verblijf in het hotel in Nizza en de relatie met de hotelgasten deed me soms denken aan de sfeer van de Villa des Roses. Het vrijzinnige denken van Loveling is merkbaar. De kennis van de toch net wat hogere klasse ook. Het is tegelijkertijd ook een tijdsdocument.
August 21, 2022
3 1/2 *
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews