The Following Story

To chase the damp chill of a late November evening The Barga Book Club met in the warm, intimate, fire lit sitting room in Albiano to discuss The Following Story by the well known Dutch author Cees Nooteboom.  As usual reviews were mixed. Marijke, whose favorite Dutch author he is, and who will have read it in its original language, loved the book citing it included everything a writer needs in a novel, history, past and present, realism, existentialism and fable. 

The story is somewhat autobiographical. It opens when the protagonist, a former Latin and ‘dead languages’ scholar and teacher, then travel writer, finds himself inexplicably in Lisbon, thinking that he had gone to sleep in Amsterdam, in a hotel room in which he had an affair 20 years ago. He is disoriented and the story unfolds in flashbacks and reminiscences of the period since the affair and its, and therefor his, history.  It is a complex narrative, shifting back and forth in time and place.

Pietro found the translation too literal, which was perhaps why he felt so-so about the book. He thought it started well but had too many flashbacks. He drew a reference to Kafka’s Metamorphosis, but felt it was too dispersive and missing something. 

Anne was disappointed initially but eventually found interesting aspects, in the teaching and the text itself. As with Margaret, she felt she would like to read it again. 

Margaret loved the idea, the beginning, themes of precision, order, constraint, rigid confined rituals, obsessiveness, not going outside certain boundaries, how sex was an intrusion after his downfall, nomadism, the concept of time and our perception of it, how it is not linear. The ‘now’.  In short a book that raises questions, but was ultimately a little depressing, but there was something of Coetze’s, Disgrace about it, which made it fascinating.

Helen thought it didn’t flow, was a difficult read, cynical, the cynicism came through as fundamentally self criticism. The references to the classics he seemed to be hiding behind to not show himself. Pretentious, provocative, snobbishness,  couldn’t get to the heart of what he was about, flipping between time and place, the classics vs. the now, fantasy of travel. Death is a woman and he was dying. The ending had hallucinogenic qualities.

Isobel also found it difficult, the theme of death was upsetting, latin references and 2nd part she found weird, all past tenses. 

Kerry found the philosophical aspects interesting, including a brief allusion to Zen in the concept of I. 

In other words, it might very well be worth re-reading.

Thank you to everyone who participated and to Anne and Rigo for the warm welcome into their cozy home. 

The next books are as follows:

Thursday December 18th at Kerry’s, Barga: Domby and Son, Charles Dickens

January, date and venue to be announced: Cemetery of Prague, Umberto Eco

February, date and venue to be announced: Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn