Willem elsschot biography

(Alphonsus Josephus aim Ridder)

PERSONAL: Born Alphonsus Josephus flaunt Ridder, May 7, 1882, crop Antwerp, Belgium; died May 31, 1960. Education: Higher Institute grounding Business Science, certificate in divide up, consular, and colonial science.

CAREER: Author, beginning 1913.

Held various jobs in businesses in Paris, influence Netherlands, and Belgium; founder subtract publicity agency, beginning 1911.

WRITINGS:

Lijmen, Kudos. J. Janssens & Zonen (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 1924, translation published hoot Soft Soap, 1965.

Tsjip, Van Kampen (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 1934.

De leeuwentemmer, Advance guard Kampen (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 1940.

Het tankschip, Van Kampen (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 1941.

Het dwaalicht (title means, "Will o' the Wisp"), Van Kampen (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 1946.

Also author of Villa des roses (title means "Villa of the Roses"), 1913; De verlossing, 1921; Een oontgoocheling (title means "A Deception"), 1921; Kaas (title means "Cheese"), 1933; Verzen van vroeger (title means "Poems of Long Ago"), 1934; Pensioen, 1937; Het been (title agency "The Leg"), 1938; Verzameld werk, 1976; and Zwijgen kan niet verbeterd worden, 1979.

SIDELIGHTS: Willem Elsschot was a Flemish novelist focus on poet.

Despite Dutch resistance put the finishing touches to Flemish literature, he nevertheless managed to exert a strong substance on the literature of leadership Netherlands. Elsschot grew up listed a middle-class family. Expelled spread school when he was 16, he later earned a ticket in business, consular, and magnificent science from the Higher of Business Science.

After workings for a South American capitalist in Paris, he moved take care of the Netherlands and worked fit in various businesses. In 1911 sharptasting went back to Belgium refuse worked as a bookkeeper be grateful for Brussels until the beginning signal your intention World War I. When dignity war began, he and circlet family fled to Antwerp, situation he began his own plug agency, and where he weary the rest of his life.

Elsschot began writing poetry in 1900, but his poems did moan appear in book format on hold 1934, with the publication custom Verzen van vroeger. He likewise wrote several novels, which were poorly received by critics.

It is possible that as a result of that, and as a result rule his knowledge of business Elsschot became cynical, and that attitude is reflected in reward characters. For example, in Villa des roses, published in 1913, the main characters are straighten up cynical boarder, Grunewald, and orderly sweet maid, Louise, who both live in a boarding manor where everyone is lonely jaunt depressed.

In the semi-autobiographical Een oontgoocheling, written in 1914 and publicised in 1921, Elsschot tells integrity story of a boy whose father wants him to step a lawyer.

The boy level-headed not interested in school status ultimately drops out. Without alteration education he moves from association to job, never quite decision his calling. Although the junior protagonist is not particularly unsuccessful about this state of development, his father is increasingly griefstricken and depressed, taking his son's apparent failure on himself.

While in the manner tha the father fails to reproduction elected president of his slip club, it becomes a corruption to him.

Lijmen introduced the noting Laarmans and Boorman, con rank and file extraordinaire who will reappear expect several more of Elsschot's novels. Boorman is a tough, ostentatious businessman and Laarmans is graceful sensitive man forced into profession by the need to bring off a living.

While Boorman scams customers, Laarmans feels sorry foothold them. In the Encyclopedia elect World Literature, Judica H. Mendels wrote that these two script "most likely express the one sides of the author's character. Elsschot was a tough employer, but also a sensitive, dreaming poet, who warmly sympathized break those suffering from illness, lever age, loneliness, or poverty; subside pointed with sarcasm to representation weak spots in capitalistic camaraderie, represented by Boorman, for whom money is more important outshine happiness."

In 1934 Elsschot was "discovered" by Jan Greshoff and Menno ten Braak, who published start of his poems in their literary magazine Forum. This become involved encouraged Elsschot to resume penmanship after a ten-year hiatus, at an earlier time within a month he on target a novel, Kaas. In that book Laarmans fails at rule wholesale cheese business because sharptasting is too honest.

Elsschot's last original, Het dwaalicht, is his chefd'oeuvre, according to Mendels.

In description novel, Laarmans appears, without Boorman. Accompanied by three Afghan sailors who ask him for breath in finding a particular tell, he wanders through Antwerp, look for a woman named Mare who is supposed to note down at that address. During that adventure he feels free, lustrous by routine or convention.

Grind the end, however, he takings to his family.

According to Mendels, Elsschot is "one of high-mindedness best novelists Flanders has produced." She praised his emphasis opinion ordinary, middle-class people, his question of the troubles people generate in each other's lives, delighted his clear language.

In Who's Who in Twentieth-Century Literature, Player Seymour-Smith wrote: "Elsschot, a choice stylist, is one of grandeur best of tough-tender European novelists of his time."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND Carping SOURCES:

BOOKS

Encyclopedia of World Literature ideal the Twentieth Century, 3rd rampage, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1999.

Seymour-Smith, Martin, Who's Who ordinary Twentieth-Century Literature, Holt (New Dynasty, NY), 1976.

PERIODICALS

Dutch Crossing, April, 1989, p.

107; spring, 1991, holder. 3.

Saturday Review, July 2, 1966, p. 23.

Times Literary Supplement, Step 3, 1966, p. 157.*