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Kapellekensbaan #2
Zomer te Ter-Muren
Voortzetting van het levensverhaal van een Vlaams arbeidersmeisje waarvan de jeugd besproken werd in De Kapellekensbaan, nu met haar gezin.
547 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1956
About the author
Louis Paul Boon
132 books107 followersLodewijk Paul Albrecht (Louis Paul) Boon was een Vlaams schrijver, dichter en kunstschilder.
Louis Paul Boon in de Nederlandstalige Wikipedia
Louis Paul Boon in de Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren
Louis Paul Boon bij "Schrijversgewijs"
Lodewijk Paul Albrecht (Louis Paul) Boon was a Flemish writer, poet and painter.
Louis Paul Boon in the English Wikipedia
Biography in English on NLPVF
Louis Paul Boon in de Nederlandstalige Wikipedia
Louis Paul Boon in de Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren
Louis Paul Boon bij "Schrijversgewijs"
Lodewijk Paul Albrecht (Louis Paul) Boon was a Flemish writer, poet and painter.
Louis Paul Boon in the English Wikipedia
Biography in English on NLPVF
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
sampled
January 29, 2020Despite blurb comparisons to Foster Wallace and Cèline, two dozen pages into this pomo Dutch epic, the will to continue became as impassable as Trump’s skill at building walls. A ludicrous overuse of lower case, repetitive waffle, and niche references to another novel published before this one made me say, ‘Not right now, Peter.’
September 7, 2015
Where to start? This is a long book, 500 pages of small font, dense text, so it’s more like 1000. But it was worth it. This is fundamentally a tale of a mismatched husband and wife, Oscar and Ondine, who manage to stay together in Belgium through both World Wars despite the hard times and their separate and joint dysfunctions. He is an in- and out-of work sculptor who has an eye for underage girls. She is a conniver, a shrew and a social climber married to an unfaithful husband and she spends her whole life clawing her way up a socio-economic ladder that ends up going nowhere. Meanwhile they produce a litter of dysfunctional kids and believe me, you do not want any of this family moving in next door to you.
Against this backdrop we have wars, art, and politics. The wars come and go and at times the author deliberately obscures which one (I or II) is going on. There’s great talk of art. Oscar’s companions are writers, poets and painters, none of whom actually earn any real money, so the painter paints houses and the sculptor carves gravestones. These friends are all pretty much dysfunctional as well. Oscar is a lifetime socialist and can’t comprehend why almost everyone he knows (including Ondine) doesn’t support the socialist cause; it just makes so much sense to him. In his old age, as these things happen, Belgium pretty much becomes socialist but what was the point? Oscar is still poor, saddled with his dysfunctional wife and kids, and life goes on.
The book is a metanovel. The author, in asides, talks about when he’s going to end the book, or should he have included this or that chapter, and how this or that chapter was organized. It is basically a sequel (someone called it an obese sequel) to the author’s earlier acclaimed work (which I have not read), Chapel Road. In this second book, Termuren, one of the characters wrote the earlier work, so there is discussion by the characters of the two books and how they fit together, The book is divided into short chapters with little traditional punctuation and capitalization.
Boon asks Big Questions: “Why can’t people just live, live without a goal?” Why must we follow ideas, because we end up “…driven into a corner by idea-obsessed people.” “We must…struggle for some rationality and some human feeling – among these creatures who are not yet people, and yet are in control…” There is a lot of good writing: “…my thoughts walk like Chaplin’s feet.” and “…in my life I’ve tried love, art, science, religion, and politics…but all I achieved were so many spectacular failures…”
In short, this is quite a treatise. But its good writing kept me coming back to finish it. Boon is considered Belgium’s greatest modern novelist and was nominated several times for a Nobel Prize. The book was published in Belgium in 1956 but this translation is from 2006.
Against this backdrop we have wars, art, and politics. The wars come and go and at times the author deliberately obscures which one (I or II) is going on. There’s great talk of art. Oscar’s companions are writers, poets and painters, none of whom actually earn any real money, so the painter paints houses and the sculptor carves gravestones. These friends are all pretty much dysfunctional as well. Oscar is a lifetime socialist and can’t comprehend why almost everyone he knows (including Ondine) doesn’t support the socialist cause; it just makes so much sense to him. In his old age, as these things happen, Belgium pretty much becomes socialist but what was the point? Oscar is still poor, saddled with his dysfunctional wife and kids, and life goes on.
The book is a metanovel. The author, in asides, talks about when he’s going to end the book, or should he have included this or that chapter, and how this or that chapter was organized. It is basically a sequel (someone called it an obese sequel) to the author’s earlier acclaimed work (which I have not read), Chapel Road. In this second book, Termuren, one of the characters wrote the earlier work, so there is discussion by the characters of the two books and how they fit together, The book is divided into short chapters with little traditional punctuation and capitalization.
Boon asks Big Questions: “Why can’t people just live, live without a goal?” Why must we follow ideas, because we end up “…driven into a corner by idea-obsessed people.” “We must…struggle for some rationality and some human feeling – among these creatures who are not yet people, and yet are in control…” There is a lot of good writing: “…my thoughts walk like Chaplin’s feet.” and “…in my life I’ve tried love, art, science, religion, and politics…but all I achieved were so many spectacular failures…”
In short, this is quite a treatise. But its good writing kept me coming back to finish it. Boon is considered Belgium’s greatest modern novelist and was nominated several times for a Nobel Prize. The book was published in Belgium in 1956 but this translation is from 2006.
August 21, 2013
Ik heb de beide boeken over De Kapellekensbaan twee keer gelezen en vond twee keer Zomer te Ter-Muren nog inniger droevig, nog melancholischer en dus nog mooier dan het eerste boek.
February 22, 2019
What an extraordinary book. I bought this for two bucks at the Boston Book Festival a few years ago, and somehow it never made it into the Year of Reading Big Books in 2017. I finally got around to it, and I'm glad I did.
He's obscure now, but in his day Louis Paul Boon was a celebrated and innovative Belgian novelist. He was nominated a couple of times for a Nobel Prize. His acknowledged masterwork was Chapel Road, which I haven't read. But Summer in Termuren is the sequel to that work, dealing with the Chapel Road characters. We see feckless stonemason Oscar and his irresponsible wife Ondine trying to raise a family and stay alive during WWI, but we also see Boon's creative process in conceptualizing the story; his friends give feedback on the saga and propose alternate scenarios.
Boon is like Celine: funny, pessimistic, and intelligent. His way with words made this rather overstuffed novel a real pleasure to wade through.
He's obscure now, but in his day Louis Paul Boon was a celebrated and innovative Belgian novelist. He was nominated a couple of times for a Nobel Prize. His acknowledged masterwork was Chapel Road, which I haven't read. But Summer in Termuren is the sequel to that work, dealing with the Chapel Road characters. We see feckless stonemason Oscar and his irresponsible wife Ondine trying to raise a family and stay alive during WWI, but we also see Boon's creative process in conceptualizing the story; his friends give feedback on the saga and propose alternate scenarios.
Boon is like Celine: funny, pessimistic, and intelligent. His way with words made this rather overstuffed novel a real pleasure to wade through.
February 7, 2019
this book is basically a continuation of Chapel Road, with the same characters and even the same general style and structure, so you should read that one first. this one is possibly more negative than chapel road because instead of complaining about the failure of reformist socialism in belgium he's going on about how the world is becoming increasingly hitlerian after it killed hitler, and how contemporary technological society is a wasteland, always fun and relatable themes to read about. the writing here isn't really any worse than in chapel road but it's so similar that it didn't really strike me in quite the same way, even though the book is good.
March 19, 2023
30 jaar na de kapellekensbaan, las ik eindelijk zomer te ter-muren.
veel beter wordt het niet in de vlaamse literatuur.
een stijl met doorlopende zinnen zonder hoofdletters die doen denken aan saramago,
een spel met alter egos en filosofische beschouwingen die doen denken aan pessoa,
en een pessimisme dat doet denken aan celine,
dat alles in geschreven in een sappig vlaams met boon's kenmerkende humor en relativeringsvermogen.
veel beter wordt het niet in de vlaamse literatuur.
een stijl met doorlopende zinnen zonder hoofdletters die doen denken aan saramago,
een spel met alter egos en filosofische beschouwingen die doen denken aan pessoa,
en een pessimisme dat doet denken aan celine,
dat alles in geschreven in een sappig vlaams met boon's kenmerkende humor en relativeringsvermogen.
November 15, 2021
Ingekorte versie (396 pagina's)
4.5/5
4.5/5
October 15, 2020
Long and repetitive.
Very negative philosophy.
No positive characters.
The seamy side of life.
Very negative philosophy.
No positive characters.
The seamy side of life.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews