To Leiden: Translating and Re-envisioning Nescio

As of late I have found myself experimenting with the writings of a Dutch author of the early twentieth century.

Jan Hendrik Frederik Grönloh (1882-1961) was a bit of a bohemian in the late 1890s. He had artistic friends, compatriots who painted landscapes and portraits as well as wrote poems about pleasant girls they couldn't kiss or understand. Some of them dreamed of translating Dante; they had an affinity for German literature. Some even entertained ideas of being good 'socialists' one day.

They also worked in cramped offices as clerks, working with men who were married and established and earning more. Men who worshiped the time tables and ledgers and the accounts.

So to compensate, Grönloh and his friends took long walks along the canals and dikes of Holland. The greater freedom they felt was under the Dutch skies along the Zuiderzee. They talked, they planned. They believed in God, in a greater power only because the world was so beautiful and how else could it be explained? They loved the sea and the sun's dappling rays upon its restless surface. To be able to paint that or write about such beauty seemed impossible. These jongens or young men belonged to a wonderful but vulnerable age.

Philip Blom, a Viennese researcher calls the time before World War One the 'Vertigo Years'. And when thinking of that time, it too seems almost impossible it ever happened. Yes, it was another world then. There was an adventurous spirit within the culture landscape of Europe. In Russia, it was the Silver Age of literature and art. France was Fin de Siecle. In Vienna, there was Jungenstil and the Secession Movement. In Munich, Der Blaue Reiter (the Blue Rider) was about to emerge and more.  Throughout the rest of Europe a Neo-Romanticism mixed with Symbolism and the writings of Freud and Nietzsche were spurning creative minds to reconsider the world around them.

The Netherlands weren't untouched. Louis Couperus, an older contemporary of Grönloh was obviously influenced by psychology and the works of Ibsen, Tolstoy and Flaubert. Couperus wanted to show the world that the Dutch were capable of great works of literature and was even a bit too honest in his depiction. Perhaps Grönloh didn't want Couperus' fame and when he finally wrote his most famous pieces between 1911 and 1918, he published under the pseudonym, Nescio, Latin for 'I don't know'. The two writers differ in that Couperus would be likened to Zola or Balzac while Nescio embodied the era's restlessness with a yearning touch. 

For me, this yearning touch I feel is addictive. 

And this is where I enter in. My experimenting is purely artistic and at times, recreational. With some of my Dutch knowledge I have been rendering some of the prose passages in 'Little Titans' (or Titaanjes) into verse. I have referenced another translation for guidance as the Dutch language has changed more than the English in the last hundred years and some phrases, expressions and verbs are a bit different and difficult to interpret when using a modern Dutch-English dictionary.

I have also been giving the pieces titles.

Here is one of my favourites, the original Dutch prose 're-structured' in verse form followed by my interpretation/translation.

Or my re-envisioning.

Naar Leiden

´t Was in December

Ik stond achter op de tram, heelemaal achter op

De tram reed maar door ´t land en stond

            Stil

            en reed weer, uren durrde ´t

            de landen lagen

            eindeloos

En de lucht werd hoe langer hoe blauwer

En de

            Zon

            scheen

            alsof er

            bloemen moesten groeien uit de

boerenkinkels

En de roode daken in dorpen en de zwarte boomen

En de

            akkers

            veel met

            riet

            gedeckt

            hadden het lekker warm,

En de duinen stonden, in de zon met hun bloote hoofd

En de

            Straatweg lag door

            wit

En pijnlijk in ´t

            Licht

En kon de zon niet verdragen

En de ruiten van de

Dorpslantaanrns

Flikkerden

Ook zij verdroegen met moeite ´t

felle

licht

Maar ik werd hoe lange hoe konden

En zoo long als de

            Zon

            Scheen

reed de tram...

En op´t laatst stond er een lijk op de tra te staren

In de malle groote

Koude

Zon

die vlamde alsof  de revolutie

moest begininnen,

alsof ze in Amsterdam bezig waren de kantoren

af te breken

En die geen vonkje leven in

M´n koude voete en

Dooie

Beenen kon brengen

En de

            Zon werd steeds

Grouter

En

Kouder

            En

            In werd steeds

Kouden

            En bleef

Even groot

En de blauwe lucht keek vreeselijk

            Ernstig

´Wat moest ik toch op die tram?´

...

Ja, ´t is een lange rit van Hillegom

            naar Leiden

En de

Dag is kort       in December.

To Leiden

It was in December

I stood in the back of the tram, all the way back

The tram just rode through the country

            Stopping

            riding on, hours passing

            the landscape lay 

            endless

           

And up there, in the sky, it became blue and bluer

And the

            Son

            shone

            as if

            flowers could spontaneously grow out of the

Country lads

And the red roofs in the villages and the black trees

And the

            Fields

            decked

            out

            with reeds

            had it so nice and warm

And the dunes out under the sky, bare headed

Yet the

            Lone road stood out

            pale

And pained by the

            light

           

It couldn’t endure the sun

And the glazed panes of the

Village lanterns 

flickering

They couldn’t endure the

bright

light as well

And I was getting colder, colder

And it was so long, with the tram

            Riding

            As long

As the sun.

.

And at last, there was a corpse on the tram staring

into the cheery goodness

of that cold

Sun

Flaring as if inciting the revolution

to finally begin

As if those working in their Amsterdam offices

Decided to just abandon everything

And still, it couldn’t spare a spark

For my cold feet, to

Bring

Life back to my dead legs.

And the

            Sun was still

Getting bigger

            And

Colder

            And

            I would always

Be cold

            And always

The same

And then the sky looked down blue and disappointed

            Asking in solemn earnest

‘What are you doing on that tram?’

...

Yes - it´s a long ride from Hillegom

            To Leiden

            And the

days are short              in December.

A Childhood of Names

Growing up, I assumed everyone's last name was something unique and yet cryptic. Whereas a first name was given, something our parents used to call us in at night, for our teachers to say to get our attention and our friends to differentiate us, I always assumed the name of our families were more mysterious. One simply couldn't understand them or decipher their meaning. Still, they were badges and honored. Sometimes they were the origins of nicknames. 

I think I was raised in a unique time, though I am certain everyone thinks that of their childhood. However, in my hometown of St.Catharines, there was an interesting mix and medley of Dutch, German, Italian, Polish and Italian families with the already established English-Irish-Scott variety. I liked that some of my neighbors could speak Italian or Polish to their children, that on Sunday, instead of going to church I went to visit my Dutch grandparents where my father and opa shared Dutch jokes and humor. Language floated and circulated around me, offering this cultural weave I only began to truly appreciate years later when I moved away. In a sense, I think I have always been searching for that world of European diversity and beauty. 

In the summer of 2012, I embarked on an European adventure and towards the close, landed up in Haarlem, the birthplace of my grandmother. While sitting in my hostess, Ellen's garden, sipping wine, I talked about my last name, how in university I met a German professor who suggested it was the Dutch diminutive of 'brothers'. For instance, in German, you have Haus for 'house' and then Häuschen for 'small house' or cottage. Similar, I had wrote about 'cookie' in a previous blog, it being the diminutive of  koek or cake in Dutch.

Ellen then went inside and returned with a heavy, hardbound book. She flipped a few pages and then handed me the burgundy volume of time stained, rice paper pages. I read and wrote down the following:

Broer   m         -s

Broertje; gewone, alledagse vorm voor broeder, bet.

1; ook: naam voor een jongen die zusters heeft: mijn _ is twee jaar ouder dan ik; (iron.) vergeet je grote _ niet gezegd tegen iem. Die dreigt, maar die men niet in staat acht tot optreden, voor wie men niet bang is; _tje o - s kleine broer: (zegsw.) een – ann iets dood hebben er een hekel aan hebben; als een – op iets likjen zeer gelijsoortig zijn

Ellen helped me with the translation and the main points are as follows:

"Broertje, someone who might live in a convent, a monk or a brother, a mason or a member of a community. Broertje' or 'Broers' could be a brother or someone you don't know in the street (I thought of the term, 'hey, buddy' we use in North American when addressing someone we haven't met yet). Also, a notary which I found fascinating."

I returned to Canada with a new found appreciation for last names, if not an insight. I thought of my family, the various aunts who had married and taken the last names of their husbands. My Aunt Connie, for instance. I knew Van Egmond referred to the town of Egmond, now Bergen in Noord Holland. But what about Van Wingerden, the surname of my Uncle Paul, married to my father's sister, Marleen? Well, I learned it was derived from the Dutch word for vineyard or wijngaard or 'wine garden'.

Dekker, though is a fairly common name. I have seen that name on bus benches and billboards all my life, specifically for real estate agents and repairman; and it's a name you'll typically find in telephone directories in both The Netherlands and Canada. While in Holland, however I learned that 'dek is a covering and the origin of our word 'deck'. So, it only made sense that a 'dekker' was actually a 'roofer' or 'thatcher' (which explains good ol' Margaret's name, the late and former PM of Great Britain.)

It amazes me how often last names which appear obtuse and relatively obscure, once seen through the lens of another language become common. In high school, for instance, there were Millers and Stones. I later learned that Müller and Stein are the German equivalents. There was a Steenhuis in a one of my brother's classes. Steen is stone in Dutch and huis, well, one doesn't need to guess is 'house'. So 'Stone House.'

If we continue with the German theme, I grew up alongside people with the name Neufeld (New Field), Bergthaler (Mountain Valley), Thallmann (Valley man) Zwanzig (Twenty), Braun (Brown), Schneider (tailor/dressmaker), Herzog (duke) and Herweg (way here).

And then were was Julie Giesbrecht, a pretty but quiet, blonde-haired girl in grade seven. She sat beside me and little did I know then that her last name was derived from Old High German: gisil or hostage/pledge and berht for bright/famous. 

As for the English names, there were the obvious ones likes Wilson, Elliotson and Johnson, Counsel and Smith. But then I knew a Stacy Colby. We used to call her 'Colberger' in Grade 4 as a tease. Then after my trip in 2012, I went online and researched her name. Her name is Germanic, Old Norse but from Norfolk and Cumbria. Colby or koli, a person who was swarthy as in 'kol' or charcoal may have originally worked in a forge or simply been of exotic origin. 

I think now also of a Sam Powell. Powell translates into the 'son of the servant St.Paul'. Then there was Matt Graham and his name could be taken to mean 'grey home' - ham being short for 'hamlet' or village or homestead (hamstead). Also, Graham could refer to someone of the Grantham, Lincolnshire-area of England.

In high school, I knew a Lindsay Peats. Many today know the American actress, Amanda Peet. The names are certainly related as 'peat' may refer to organic matter - so someone living on the land. But also 'peat' or peete, in contrast could pertain to a 'spoiled or pampered child.' 

Then there were the many Polish and Ukrainian names. I was friends with a Zaluski. Zalew is Slav for 'flooded area'. My mother, when she was young fell in love with a Sadowski ('from the orchard' or from Sadow, a town in Poland). I knew a Kowalsky (Kowal, 'blacksmith'), a Malinowski (malina, raspberries, so 'dweller by raspberries') and Woźniak (a 'driver' or 'chauffeur' as in carriages). 

And like 'son' in English/Scandinavian or 'sohn' German, -icz, -wicz, -owicz, -ewicz, and -ycz typically mean "son of" in Polish. And with a -k- as in czak, -czyk, -iak, -ak, -ik, and -yk, it is the diminutive. 

My Slavic grandfather's original name was Bulbuck which originally could have been 'Vulbuck'. Either way, his name could have meant 'son of a bull' or a 'farmer of cattle or oxen.' (Буйвол - buffalo or вол oxen).

As for the Italian names, I remember Pace (peace), Mantini (which could either be derived from Mantione, a maker of mantellos or 'capes' or someone from Mantua in Lombardy), and Fontana ('spring', 'well' or the obvious 'fountain').  

Then there was a Christina Prantera who lived down the street for me. I have looked up the name and have come up with no hits nor meanings. Though, I have wondered if the name is actually Latin-based. 'Pran' means dinner and 'terra' is earth. So could her name suggest a cook or someone who prepared feasts? It would only be fitting. Her father owned a restaurant and later, after working in hospitality, specifically in hotels, Christina started her own pizza joint. So one might be attempted to suggest, even occasionally believe that our names hold the meanings of who we are and sometimes who we become.

Going Dutch: The Low Countries and their Curious Influence on the English Language

In the late 1600s, the Dutch participated in the 'Glorious Revolution', a quasi invasion-slash-change of the constitution in England. Without tripping and stubbing our toes on various political and historical facts let us say that it was initially fairly bloodless: William III of Orange Nassau overthrew King James II and with his wife, Mary II, took the reins of the mighty British Empire. Perhaps one might call the events of 1688 a bit of a hostile takeover or someone simply getting kicked out of the royal sandbox. Jimmy, you're out, Willy, your time to play. 

Unfortunately, the sun successively set on the seductive and lavish Dutch Golden Age of Culture. William III funded several exhausting wars, those against the Jacobites in Scotland, another in Ireland and of course, one had to get France somehow involved and riled up as well. And, as a result, within two decades, back in the king's home country of the Netherlands, the Dutch Republic was financially out of pocket despite being in a place of military security. Instead of money for art, funds were invariably funneled towards arms and this is why we don't have a succession of Dutch masters like Rembrandt, Vermeer, Frans Hals and Steen in the 18th century. 

Yet even before William III was even conceived, the Dutch had already invaded English Culture. In the 17th century, the language of the rising empire was already inundated with Middle Dutch words and this was due to previous invasions.

During the Norman conquest, 1/3 of William the Conqueror's army was from Flanders. And it didn't stop there. Between the 11th and up to the 17th century, a majority of Flemish refugees, many of them weavers and others skilled in textiles peacefully crossed the channel to make their home in England, Scotland and Wales. 

So this is why we have 'boss' from Middle Dutch baas. Of course times were always tough in the Medieval period and before we had 'Dutch courage', we had büsen which became our pejorative term for alcohol, hence 'booze'. (The word slurp, from slorpen, to sip, should also be mentioned as well as 'brandy', derived from brandewijn or 'burnt wine' and 'gin', from genever.)

From tubbe came 'tub', from bicken (to slash, attack), 'bicker' and bundel, obviously 'bundle' whereas Duffel is actually a town in Belgium and the original source for the cloth of the eponymous bags. My two favourite ones are boele (lover, brother) which eventually became 'bully' (not a lover nor brother) and blinken (to glitter) which became our 'blink'. It is quite lovely to think that when you are gazing at the eyes of your better half, when she quickly closes and opens her lids, that one is seeing her face 'glitter'.

Due to both England and The Netherlands maritime position, nautical terms, too, found their way into our language. 'Deck' from dec (covering), 'dock' (docke), 'freight' (vrecht or 'load'), 'skipper' (schipper or 'shipper'), 'sloop' (sloep), and so forth. To such a list one could also add 'yacht' (jaght or jaghtship, jagen, the Dutch and German word for hunt), 'buoy' (boei, 'to shackle') and 'cruise' (kruisen, to cross).

'Aloof' is bearing mention as lof is of a 'windward direction' and 'avast' is actually 'hold fast' (hou'vast). 'Aardvark', interestingly enough means earth (aard) pig (vark). Who knew?

We also get a few military terms from the Low Countries. 'Beleaguer' (16th cent. belegeren,'besiege') and 'bulwark' (bulwerk) and when you're on leave in the army, as an enlisted man you're on 'furlough' (verlof or 'to be off'). Most recently, the American 'bazooka' is Dutch for 'trumpet', bazuin which one could also connect to bassoon of Italian (bassone), French (basson) origin meaning 'deep'. So when firing a rocket or chewing the gum, we have the Dutch to thank for the word. 

The arts of Holland too influenced our English tongue. There is the Dutch painting term landskip derived from landscap (region) which, without really having to hazard a guess we know to be 'landscape'. Schets become our 'sketch' and ezel, Dutch for donkey became 'easel'. So when you visit the Rembrandhuis in Amsterdam, the structure holding the canvas in the artist's studio was once referred to as a domestic animal.

Bill Bryson, noted traveler author once wrote that he found the Dutch language to be 'a peculiar version of English.' It really isn't far from the truth when we consider all the words we've gained from the Low Countries. Even today, if you visit the northern climes of the Netherlands, the Frisians are said to speak a language similar to our early English. Maybe the reason we remember William the Conqueror and see William III's bloodless invasion as a portion of minor history is because the Dutch had already infiltrated the English language. The latter William was just taking over the reigns from his ancestors, no more, no less, the Dutch having already made their home in the English vocabulary to the point the so-called British of the late 17th century were already eating coleslaw (kolsla, cabbage salad), cookies (koekje, diminutive of koek, cake) and frolicking (vrolijk, to be joyful) when the news of his take-over had reached them.

All this knowledge. One can't help now but feel like a bit of a 'geek' (gek, fool). 

Little Known Nescio: The Life, Works and Times of Jan Hendrik Gröhloh

'Amsterdam really is just a village.'

There was once a man who was born and raised in Amsterdam who wrote the following line: Behalve den man, die de Sarphatistraat de mooiste plek van Europa vond, heb ik nooit een wonderlijker kerel gekend dan den uitvreter (Except for the man who thought Sarphatistraat was the most beautiful place in Europe, I've never met anyone peculiar than the freeloader).

The author of these lines wasn't a particularly famous man. No. Aside from a brief, bohemian-romantic existence in his late teens and early twenties, he lived very typically of the time. Being Dutch he had to be practical, had to be sensible and decent and consider the future. So he joined the Holland-Bombay Trading Company in 1904 and then some two years later, married a woman named Aagje Tiket. 

A job then marriage. The couple had four kids. All daughters actually. 

In his spare time he wrote only a handful of stories, and published them anonymously throughout the years, going by the name of 'Nescio', Latin for 'I don't know'. 

Yes, just a handful. 

Yet strange and beautiful wonder his slender volumes of stories are perhaps the most beautiful in the Dutch language, a language many people may not find particularly beautiful. They are the stories of youth, a portrait of the author and his artistic friends as young, carefree, careless men, their layabout lives until they all had to learn to grow up and get on with it. They are a little melancholy these stories, each one filled with this colourful bevy of curious souls, each soul fighting the inviolable future in their own romantic way.

Only a handful of stories, really prose poems, pages filled with episodic scenes, images, everything cast in vibrant, impressionistic gold - sunsets, canals, leaves and streets. Within his tales there are girls on trams you cannot kiss, lamps heedlessly burning at the end of day like 'wonderful mistakes' (een wonderlijk vergissing), friends out rambling in the country, conversations, voices complaining about God. These young men, these little Titans drinking jenever, never really knowing what happened to Japi, the freeloader (uitvreter) on his trip to Friesland. All of them alive, falling in and out of love.

One reads his stories and knows intimately if not intuitively these worlds without having lived them. One feels them and longs for them almost as much as the author might have. Like thinking about a friend you haven't spoken to or someone you once cared for but who lives far away. That's what you feel when you read him though you live now and he lived then. Nothing changes. 

A whole other world perfectly preserved, a place that existed nearly innocently in the early twentieth century. Back then most people had no cars but then women didn't have the right to vote (though their voices were getting louder and their presence known). There were still horses in the street, carriages going by and one could still walk in horse shit. Recorded music was relatively new though gramophones could only play a few minutes of music so people still flocked to concert halls (concertgebouwen) and sat in family parlors listening to a young prodigy play Schumann or Chopin.

The war wasn't even on the horizon  in the time of Nescio' youth though the Dutch lost to the British in the Boer Wars in 1902. 

In Amsterdam, the year after Nescio married, there was an exhibit of a famous Noordt-Brabant-born artist. Famous but dead, little known in his lifetime. The son of a pastor, he worked for his uncle, an art dealer in The Hague and London before dabbling in religion only to find his love of painting in what would be the last seven years of his life. He traveled throughout The Netherlands, Belgium, England and France. Before he died he was in an institution and dreamed of returning to his native land. After a gunshot, said to be self-inflicted, his brother, an art dealer in Paris came to see him at his deathbed. Though they were both multilingual - as the Dutch tend to be - the two brothers spoke their native Nederlands, reminiscing about their far away land and lost childhood. The artist passed on, letting go of the pain, his lonely life and some time later, the brother unable to cope with his sibling's absence - no one to write him those beautiful letters - died in his own way, serene but solemnly.  

In Nescio, there is a troubled artist named Bavink who is in love with sun. And like Van Gogh he too was in love with the light and also was a heavy drinker. Bavink, like the great failure, went into a institution after cutting up his great, modern masterpiece into tiny pieces. Some believe Van Gogh cut off his own ear but it was only the lobe and again there is some speculation it wasn't self-inflicted. Maybe he was protecting his friend Gauguin from the authorities.

Bavink and Van Gogh. One might say there is a coincidence here or is it life and art simply doing their dance, wondering who precisely inspires who. 

(What came first, the art or the artist?)

But more than a painter, Nescio is a philosopher, always aware of the flux and flight of time, the changes incurred. He is a precursor of that erratic and joyful cynic Celine who would later write we are "nothing more than lamps on streets no walks down any more," that people are "sad when they go to bed" in his masterpiece Journey to The End of the Night (Voyage au bout de la nuit). Nescio wrote something along those lines in a quaint tale of quiet desperation. 'And we thought it a shame to have to go to bed, people should stay up forever. That was one of the things we'd change.' (En we vonden dat 't zonde war naar bed te gaan, dat een mensch eigenlijk altijd op moest kunnen blijven. Ook dat zouden we veranderen.)

For the author lived his other life, the life of going to bed at a decent time successfully, eventually becoming a director of the company he started with back in 1904. A director some twenty years later in 1926 only to suffer a breakdown the following year for which he was hospitalized. Was it cognitive dissonance, being a man who lived two lives, one largely public and important, the other tiny and insular, a poet's interior life of angst and fragmented beauty? How could he be true to the two deities of his existence, the business and the artistic? Like being between the devil and God. 

It is no wonder these two figure so prominently in his story, the Little Poet (Dichtertje - Dichter being poet and tje being the dimunitive). Here a man who knows that because he is a poet only the pretty girls walk on the other side of the canal. Though the Little Poet is married to Coba he finds himself falling in love with the sister. And like life, he didn't notice the sister at first. How could he? Dora was fifteen when they first met but of course a beautiful girl is bound to become a beautiful woman, old enough  'to read edifying books, with chocolate in her mouth and the rest o the chocolate bar on the table' (Ze was nu zoo oud, dat ze verheven boeken las met een mondje vol chocla en de rest van de reep op't tafeltje.)

For the Little Poet's life, it doesn't end well. Between the devil and God, Coba and Dora... What can we say of the author, that he wanted to sacrifice a fictional life because that's what he wanted secretly for himself? 

Then in 1929, he Nescio, the man known as 'I don't know' had to tell the world who he was lest someone else receive all the credit for his works. So Jan Hendrik Frederik Gröhloh announced publicly he had penned the stories that concerned rebellious youths and wanderers, freeloaders and bohemians. There was some shock amongst his peers and colleagues but I'm sure they were probably suspicious. No man can keep an entire secret, fragments falling out here and there, scraps and sketches leaving a trail back to the source. 

One wonders if given the chance he could have forged a literary career. Nescio, nee Gröhloh was born the same year as Czech literary giant Franz Kafka  (1882) and was only four years younger than Robert Walser (1878), another genius storyteller of Swiss descent. Where could he have taken his career had writing won out over the practical and decent? Maybe nowhere. In 1937, ten years after his breakdown, the director of the Holland-Bombay Trading Company retired, exclaiming he was free after forty years of servitude, free of his 'valley of obligations'. But free to do what? His youth behind him, some friends dead, some alive and close to retirement, he didn't manage to write anything other a smaller handful of sketches and stories. What we have then is all he was capable of.

Today he is known in The Netherlands and little known elsewhere. While Tolstoy and Dickens, Shakespeare and Ibsen, Austen and Bronte and other literary gods command the shelves of bookstore and libraries, Nescio appears now in the English-speaking world on the periphery, slender, tidy but still well-spoken. His works are like luminous afternoons you've half-forgotten but they were still beautiful even though nothing monumental or dramatic happened but you want to go back to them nonetheless. You are nostalgic only because you remind yourself to be, having the photographs and snippets of conversation still circling in your head. 

Nescio/Gröhloh, like a business man you might see on a tram in modern day Amsterdam, newspaper in hand, a spring afternoon maybe outside the window, his younger version by the canal or in a boat, the Sint Nicolasskirk standing in the distance.