Research Catalog

Title

Life itself : Louis Paul Boon as innovator of the novel / Annie van den Oever ; translated from the Dutch by Annette Visser.

Author

Oever, Annie van den, 1957-

Publication

[Champaign, IL] : Dalkey Archive Press, 2008.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

Visser, Annette.

Description

137 pages; 21 cm.

Summary

"Life itself is the first book-length study in English of the great Flemish writer Louis Paul Boon. Annie van den Oever begins by questioning the paradox between Boon's international reputation as a significant innovator of the novel, and the peculiarly reductive biographical interpretations regularly uttered by some of his fellow countrymen and contemporaries. She looks for answers in Boon's misinterpreted "primitive" Flemish and analyzes the so-called refined pseudo-primitive style within both the grotesque tradition (Kafka, van Ostaijen, Gogol) and the sceptical, radical tradition of Nietzsche. In addition, she offers fresh insight into Boon's character Boontje, seen by many as a diminutive for the writer himself, outlining the sublime and slightly sinister relation of this quasi-comical character to its mighty creator."--BOOK JACKET.

Series Statement

Dalkey Archive scholarly series

Uniform Title

• Leven zelf. English
• Dalkey Archive scholarly series.

Alternative Title

Leven zelf.

Subject

• Boon, Louis Paul > Criticism and interpretation

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 111-120).

Contents

Prologue: "Form, oh boy, the form!" -- I. Life Itself -- Discovering the world of prose -- A Montaigne of the Low Countries -- From good boy to writer of illegal books -- Life itself (the sacrifice) -- Self-defense -- A Kafkaesque nightmare -- II. The "Illegal" Style of the "Popular Flemish Writer" -- Boon's pseudo-primitive narrative style -- The pseudo-primitives of literature -- The development of Boon's style -- Boon & Boontje -- Thus! 1 (doubt) -- Thus! 2 (Boon & Nietzsche) -- III. The Nocturnal Pee of Joan the Mad, or The grotesque compositions of a Flemish Historiographer -- "If I piss, I have to shit right away." -- "Too much" in the historical novels -- By way of the five dirty orifices: the grotesque compositions of a Flemish historiographer -- Epilogue: The grotesque historiography of the everyday.

ISBN

• 9781564785077 (alk. paper)
• 1564785076 (alk. paper)

LCCN

• 2007044914
• 40015209479

OCLC

• ocn180190919
• 180190919
• SCSB-8962393

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries