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The Darkroom of Damocles (1958)

por Willem Frederik Hermans

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A classic pitch-black wartime thriller from the author of An Untouched House.
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rode omslag
  TychoKlop | Mar 23, 2024 |
Groene omslag
  TychoKlop | Mar 23, 2024 |
Milan Kundera offers a compound blurb for The Darkroom of Damocles; "I read it in a single sitting" and "a thriller during which the suspense never flags." While I agree with the first sentiment -- I read the final 270 pages in an evening -- the second claim is more elusive. Detailing the occupation/resistance dynamic in the Netherlands during WW II, W.F. Hermans unleashes a nightmare where his unsettling protagonist Osewoundt (O) takes up arms against the Germans and finds more than traces of evil in his own soul. The thriller aspect is maintained by having the enemy possess a sort of omniscience which leaves the reader puzzling as to the supergrass. How do they know O's activities so closely? There is paranoia at every turn and some sort of sudden sexuality. Ultimately O is a morally questionable figure. Insert symbols for Occupied Europe here. It is easy to be swept along by the novel. Enjoying it is a different task. ( )
  jonfaith | Feb 22, 2019 |

“Wat is een held? Iemand die straffeloos onvoorzichtig is geweest.”
― Willem Frederik Hermans, De donkere kamer van Damokles
Can you read the above quote? Most people can't since it is written in Dutch. One big reason William Fredrick Hermans (1921-1925) isn't a well know as other authors of his generation, say, Heinrich Böll, William Trevor or Alain Robbe-Grillet.

Willem Frederik Hermans's novel of intrigue and espionage is told not in first person narrative but has the quality of first person narrative since the story follows one Henri Osewoudt so closely the reader looks over Osewoudt's shoulder throughout the entire novel. Occasionally the narrator conveys Osewoudt's thoughts and feeling, but it's the fast-paced action driving the story told in short unnumbered chapters, short chapters fueling a keen sense of urgency as the story unfolds in twists and turns. Hermans employs simple linear progression with no flash-backs or other time shifts - events happen as Osewoudt experiences them, starting when, after his mad mother murders his father, Osewoudt, a boy of thirteen, is sent to Amsterdam to live with his aunt and uncle and nineteen year old cousin.

About five years pass and Osewoudt marries his cousin, moves back to his father's tobacco shop and is pressed into becoming an active member of the Dutch underground fighting against the Nazis in 1939. Osewouldt is the opposite of a Hollywood-style handsome hero; the author describes him as follows: "A diminutive freak, a toad reared upright. His nose was more of a button than a nose. And his eyes, even when not focusing, seemed forever narrowed, as if he could only leer, not look normally. His mouth recalled the kind of orifice through which the lowest forms of life ingest their food, not a mouth that could laugh or talk." Perhaps the author wants us to experience, reflect, and consider events happening in Nazi occupied Netherlands with a cool objective clarity rather than rooting for an attractive main character.

A man named Dorbeck recruits Osewoudt into the Dutch underground. Dorbeck has a military background and gives orders as the person squarely in charge. Turns out, Dorbeck is the same height and build as Osewoudt, and, other than the black hair and a beard to shave, looks exactly like Osewouldt. Durbeck becomes the center of Osewoudt's life and identify, in a very real sense Dorbeck is Osewoudt's double, his Doppelgänger.

After years in the underground, Osewoudt tells his girlfriend, "But I can only obey Dorbeck, and no one forced me. . . . I had no skills, no ambition. It wasn't until I met Dorbeck that I felt I wanted something, if only to be like Dorbeck, if only to want the same things as he did. And wanting the same thing as someone else is a step up from not wanting anything." As the story progresses we come to see just how tight the grip Dorbeck has on Osewoudt.

Other than Dorbeck, his leader and contact (and also his idol), Osewoudt moves in a spy versus spy world where nothing is certain and there isn't a person alive who can be trusted completely: identities and names continually shift and change, indeed, Osewoudt changes names on more than one occasion and at one point dyes his fair hair black and at another point wears the uniform of a nurse..

One meaning of the book's title, The Darkroom of Damocles, can be taken as the state of an entire country under foreign military occupation: at any moment, the Damoclean sword held by a thread hanging over one's head can drop and one can find oneself interrogated under a spotlight, taken away to prison, or standing in front of a firing squad.

Toward the end of the novel when held prisoner by the Dutch authorities and exasperated in his attempt to prove his innocence, Osewoudt says, "Everything I've ever done is slipping through my fingers! The people I worked with during the war are all either dead or missing, and even the streets I used to know no longer exist. It's beyond belief. I feel I'm in a different world, where no one will believe me. What am I to do? How in God's name can I ever justify myself at this rate." What a quagmire - trying to explain and justify and prove events happening within the world of war retrospectively in a time of peace.

( )
  Glenn_Russell | Nov 13, 2018 |
Dit boek heb ik minstens al eens een keer eerder gelezen en misschien wel twee keer. Toch kon ik me niets meer herinneren dan een duistere sigarenzaak waar vage handelingen werden uitgevoerd. Het grappige is dat nu ik het boek opnieuw gelezen heb, ik heel goed begrijp dat dit het beeld is dat bij mij is blijven hangen.

Ik had in het begin van dit boek heel veel moeite om door te lezen. Het deprimeerde mij zo enorm dat ik het steeds na een paar bladzijden weer weglegde. De hoofdpersoon stootte mij keer op keer af en ik kreeg er maar geen grip op wat er nu eigenlijk aan de hand was. Het was als dat ik de woorden las en ze meteen weer was vergeten omdat ze nergens aan konden blijven plakken, er geen houvast was om ze aan op te hangen.
Op een gegeven moment besloot ik om langere tijd achter elkaar het verhaal te blijven lezen. En dat hielp. Niet dat ik begreep wat er nu gaande was maar ik kwam beter in het boek en het ging me minder tegenstaan. De laatste bladzijden waren zelfs spannend en wilde ik graag doorlezen want zou de hoofdpersoon het wel of niet overleven?

Waarom ik dit boek nog eens wilde lezen was omdat het een Nederlandse klassieker is en ik dan toch benieuwd ben waarom dat zo is. Op die vraag heb ik geen antwoord gekregen. De schrijfstijl van W.F. Hermans is onomwonden een genot om te lezen. In enkele woorden worden personages scherpomlijnd neergezet en de omgeving als context geschetst. Maar dat is toch niet genoeg om zo beroemd te worden?
De hoofdpersoon is er een van handelen en niet van denken. Het boek bestaat dan ook uit een aaneenschakeling van gebeurtenissen waar de hoofdpersoon bijna hulpeloos in meegevoerd wordt. Wat ik daarbij miste was iets meer diepgang van deze hoofdpersoon en had om hetzelfde effect te sorteren in mijn beleving het boek eenderde korter kunnen zijn.

Misschien dat het thema: wat is de werkelijkheid, nieuw was in de tijd dat dit boek werd uitgegeven? Inmiddels heb ik daar al zo veel over gelezen dat dit ook niet echt indruk op mij maakte. De setting van WOII in dit boek was voor mij ook geen pre. En dat zou wel eens precies in de jaren vijftig, toen het boek uitkwam, een belangrijk element kunnen zijn dat het zo is aangeslagen bij het grotere lezerspubliek. Gedateerd wil ik het (nog) niet noemen maar het neigt er ergens wel naar in mijn beleving. ( )
  Niekchen | Oct 21, 2017 |
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Nome do autorPapelTipo de autorObra?Estado
Hermans, Willem Frederikautor principaltodas as ediçõesconfirmado
Breij, Claudia delofredeautor secundárioalgumas ediçõesconfirmado
Freriks, PhilipPrefácioautor secundárioalgumas ediçõesconfirmado
Weijts, Christiaanautor secundárioalgumas ediçõesconfirmado
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A classic pitch-black wartime thriller from the author of An Untouched House.

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