The Pelican by Martin Michael Driessen

Published in the Netherlands in 2017; published in translation by Amazon Crossing on November 12, 2019

A brief section of The Pelican relates a character’s memory of friendships based on sacrifice in World War II. The last section takes place in Germany fifteen years after the main story. The bulk of the story is set in a small town on the Adriatic coast of Yugoslavia at the end of the 1980s, shortly before the onset of the Yugoslav Wars.

One of the charms of the village is that nothing ever happens there. The place has been unchanged for generations. Its historic buildings and its clock museum cannot compete with livelier tourist destinations. It has no industry or commerce and “the coastal region was, agriculturally speaking, of little consequence.” Yet Martin Michael Driessen populates the village with characters both ordinary and eccentric, the kind of people who make the best of their lives without worrying too much about politics or the outside world.

The village postman, a man named Andrej, steams open letters for lack of anything better to do with his life. Thus he learns that Josip, a war hero with a pension who now operates the funicular, is having an affair with a woman in Zagreb. Andrej decides to blackmail Josip, in part from a sense of entitlement (the world has been unkind to Andrej and he believes he is owed better). He uses the proceeds to gamble unsuccessfully but also to purchase an unhappy racing greyhound that would otherwise be put to death. The greyhound’s new circumstances do not make him a happier dog.

The story takes a comedic twist when the blackmailer is blackmailed. The comedy has a Shakespearean flavor that depends on the improbable concealment of identities. Josip and Andrej are stumped in their efforts to unmask their blackmailers, although they tend to suspect everyone. One of the blackmailers justifies his crimes with the thought that corruption has a good side — it “at least gave the unfairness of existence a somewhat more human face.”

The two blackmailers develop an unexpected friendship that leads to unexpected bouts of shame. But is a guilty conscience a sufficient motivation to change one’s behavior?

While a subtitle bills the novel as a comedy, it might be better described as a tragicomedy. It is, at least, a dark comedy of errors into which conflict and bitterness intrude. War is coming. Everyone knows it, although the villagers do their best to ignore the inevitable. After generations of stability, the village and its people are destined for disruption.

While the residents are primarily Croatian, they live in relative harmony with residents who are Serbs. An anti-Semitic character named Schmitz, who engages in spirited rants at the local café, is opposed by more enlightened characters who understand that “if Croatia wanted to be recognized as a nation, and even dreamt of future membership in the European Community, where even chickens are protected, then there was no place for this kind of talk.” Another character emphasizes the essential humanity of all people with the phrase “pumpkins are just pumpkins,” a “people are just people” philosophy that has allowed Croats to survive all “the doges and the sultans and the emperors and the dictators” who eventually bit the dust. Pumpkins, after all, thrive and reproduce without regard to political subdivisions and ethnic groups.

It is only a matter of time, however, before nationalism trumps tolerance, before artillery changes everything. As Josip realizes, years later, much of his own history as well as the region’s history was based on pettiness. Regret changes nothing while understanding one’s mistakes, even late in life, at least has personal value.

The Pelican tells a story from the perspectives of characters who balance corruption with kindness. The ending is fitting. This is a book that might leave the reader feeling happy or sad, but either way, the novel encourages a better understanding of the happy and sad aspects of human nature.

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Childhood: Two Novellas by Gerard Reve

First published in the Netherlands in 1949 and 1950; published in translation by Pushkin Press on March 12, 2019

Childhood collects two novellas that were published a few years after World War II. Both are told from a boy’s perspective.

“Werther Nieland” is the name of a “pale, sallow-skinned boy” who first meets Elmer at the home of Elmer’s developmentally disabled neighbor. Elmer narrates the story. He is also a boy, but unlike the neighbor boy and Werther, Elmer is bossy and cruel. Elmer creates clubs and appoints himself the president, but the clubs never have more than two or three members and all but Elmer are quickly expelled or quit due to Elmer’s testiness.

Elmer is a darkly imaginative child; Gerard Reve’s ability to recreate a child’s imagination is one of the story’s highlights. Elmer’s first club is dedicated to the creation of tombs and the cremation of dead (or nearly dead) birds. Elmer advises the other boys that the club has many enemies, and insists on blind obedience to the club president, who happens to be Elmer. The reader might wonder what kind of adult Elmer will turn out to be, but given the imminent Nazi invasion, it seems likely he will be drawn to the Germans.

The novella is notable for Werther’s home life. When Elmer visits Werther, Werther’s mother makes them stay inside so that she can pretend to be childlike. Werther’s father is obsessed with Esperanto; his mother seems to be obsessed with boys (or “young men” as she fondly if questionably labels them). The story’s “ick” factor begins with the mother’s ambiguously suggestive comments and is heightened when she playfully grabs Elmer’s crotch. Werther’s mother has an obvious mental illness, but Werther’s aunt attributes her behavior to a nervous condition brought on by fatigue. Perhaps that’s the way families in that place and time dealt with emotional illnesses.

“The Fall of the Boslowitz Family” is narrated by Simon, who is seven when the story begins. His parents introduce him to the Boslowitz family at a children’s party. Simon makes friendships within the family (he considers the adults to be his uncle and aunt) that last through Simon’s early teen years, when Germany invades the Netherlands. The adults talk of war, which Simon thinks will be cool to watch, but his exposure to combat is limited to watching airplanes fly overhead on their bombing runs.

The Boslowitz family is Jewish. Simon doesn’t understand and doesn’t pay much attention as Nazis begin to take Jews away, because the adult discussions he overhears do not resonate with his perspective as a child. He pays more attention when the members of the Boslowitz family are threatened. It is only the father’s paralysis that keeps him from being taken away; one of his sons is beaten on a pretext. The family is fearful of going outside and is eventually prohibited from leaving the city. They hope that the father’s physical disability and a son’s mental disability will inspire mercy. The way Simon relates those events makes clear that he is only beginning to understand what is happening.

The two novellas are very different, but they are connected by a child’s unease in a troubling world that the child cannot fully comprehend. Seeing the world from a child’s eyes reminds the reader of how children misinterpret the adult world, or try to frame it in terms they understand.

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