Oorlog en terpentijn

by Stefan Hertmans

Hardcover, 2013

Library's rating

Status

Available

Call number

0.hertmans

Genres

Fiction

Collection

Gelezen

Publication

Amsterdam De Bezige Bij 2013

User reviews

LibraryThing member alanteder

I hadn't heard of Stefan Hertmans' memoir-fiction about his amateur artist grandfather Urbain Martien (1891-1981) until it showed up on the New York Times 10 Best Books of 2016 year-end list. The description there of "a masterly book about memory, art, love and war," intrigued me immediately.

I have

to say honestly that the Part I Pre-1914 Section didn't really grab me and I found myself plodding through it for a long time. I mention this as I suspect there may be others with the same experience who may be tempted to give up on the book due to this seemingly rambling first half where often it is the story of Hertmans' great-grandfather that is being told. Don't give up on the book early.

The Part II 1914-1918 Section plunges you along with the young Urbain Martien into the face of the German Army's August 1914 "blitzkrieg" (the word apparently wasn't invented until 1935, but Hertmans uses it here on pg. 144 to describe the "shock and awe" tactics used) on Belgium in its roundabout path to attacking France. Suddenly I was totally swept up in the story as now it is being delivered as a first-person account as if in the voice of Urbain himself. The sheer terrors faced by the Flemish speaking Walloon soldiers in the middle between the ruthless German advance and their own contemptuous French-speaking officers. This is among the best on-the-ground description of war that I've ever read, certainly as good as, if not better than, Hemingway's "The Retreat from Caporetto" section in A Farewell to Arms.

The final Part III is a post-1918 section where we return to Hertmans' point-of-view as he describes his grandfather's post-war years and the copies that the elderly Urbain made of classic paintings as his hobby. But now the seemingly rambling style of Part I feels completely engrossing as Hertmans tries to piece together the story of his grandfather's life from the few clues that he has. I should probably re-read Part I with this hindsight as it wasn't until the Part II Section that I suddenly totally identified with Urbain and his life.

Still I don't hesitate to call this a 5 out of 5 based on the 2nd half alone.

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LibraryThing member thornton37814

Although classified as fiction, Hertman's account of the life of his grandfather, painter Urbain Martien, reads more like a well-crafted biography. It is based on his grandfather's diaries, focusing largely on the build-up to World War I and the conflict itself. One section also deals with the

artist's life after the war. The most engaging portion, and probably the portion relying most heavily upon the diaries, was the part dealing with the war itself. His grandfather was wounded three times and sent to convalesce in various facilities. Although it works fairly well in English, I suspect something was lost in the translation in a few portions.

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LibraryThing member alexbolding

Well written, despite the unwieldy, old fashioned Dutch style. The book comprises a three part story about Hertmans’ grandfather who fought bravely in ww1. The first part is part recollection by Stefan himself, and part reconstruction of the youth of his granddad (the most impressive section

consists of dairy notes of the old man himself on the death of his beloved father (art painter in churches)). The second part covers the outbreak and end of ww1 in a novella style – this is a fast moving, very well written part base don the man's own diary notes; the third and final part covers the remainder of his granddads life (ending sometime in the 1970s). The most tragic event of his life concerns the death of his first wife due to the 1919 influenza outbreak that killed more people worldwide than ww1. He then marries the sister and remains faithful to her despite a completely frugal sex life.

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LibraryThing member hubblegal

The author, Stefan Hertmans, is a well-known Flemish poet. Apparently there is some debate over how much of his book, “War and Turpentine”, is fictional and how much is true. Indeed, the main character in the book, Urbain Martien, is the author’s grandson and he did bequeath his memoirs to

him, which took Hertmans 30 years before reading. When questioned, the author has said that he only lightly edited his grandfather’s memoir. And yet it isn’t advertised as a memoir.

The book starts out with Turpentine (his grandfather’s young days as a poor European). Part of the section is told by Hertmans as recollections of his grandfather and part is told by his grandfather and includes his recollections of his own father. I enjoyed this section the most as it dealt with the art produced by Urbain and his father. It beautifully portrays the life of the poor a century ago. I especially enjoyed the photos of the artwork referenced and the personal photos contained throughout the book. There are also essays and mediations contained in this section.

Then there is a long section, the war section, told by Urbain. This is probably the best written part of the book and I tend to think this may have been the bulk of the grandfather’s writings, though it’s written with the heart of a poet, which Hertmans is. It’s a horrific accounting of Urbain’s experiences in the war. What struck me most about this section were the parts when Urbain would recount what he was seeing in front of him and compare it to his beautiful memories of the country, lighting up the stark difference. There were parts that were difficult to read due to their nature.

The book then goes back to Turpentine and tells of Urbain’s life after the war and his marriage to Gabrielle. This section has a sad story to tell.

As well as this book is written and the beautiful poetical prose throughout, I just never really seemed to connect with the characters. In the Turpentine sections, the author jumps around quite a bit between the author, his grandfather and his great-grandfather and would sometimes lose me. There were many relatives that I couldn’t keep straight. I think if I had read it as a memoir, it would have given me a different perspective than reading it as fictional based on fact. I found it a bit disconcerting not knowing what was true and what wasn’t.

This book was given to me by the publisher through First to Read in return for an honest review.

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LibraryThing member RidgewayGirl

Belgian poet Stefan Hertmans was given his grandfather's diaries but it took him several years to get around to reading them. With War and Turpentine he has taken his memories, his family's memories and the diaries and written a novel about his grandfathers' life. The book is divided into two

themes, that of painting (turpentine) and WWI (war). His grandfather, Urbain, was a keen amateur painter, carefully copying various classical paintings. His own father had been a church painter, restoring paintings and frescos in religious buildings around Ghent and further afield. A love of art in general and of classical painting in particular bookended his life.

Urbain was a young man when WWI started and Belgium was a battlefield. This part of the book is taken directly from Urbain's diaries, which he wrote some years after the war had ended. This part of the book has a very different feel than the rest. Urbain was either a brilliant and prescient soldier, surrounded by less able men, or he thought he was a brilliant soldier surrounded by idiots. In any case, he was injured numerous times and spent one convalescence in England, before returning to the battlefield.

War and Turpentine is a picture of Belgium that no longer exists, and is a character study of a man who was both ordinary and unique. I found the parts about his childhood and what being poor meant at a time before government assistance and social safety nets to be both fascinating and sobering.

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LibraryThing member abycats

Writing this book was obviously highly therapeutic for the author. The atmosphere of the times during which his grandfather lived is etched finely and with care. Further, the writing style is beautiful and caring. Unfortunately, for me as a reader, the subject matter was so unrelentlessly grim that

I found it very difficult to read more than a page or two at a time. Eventually, I just realized the book was meant for readers that didn't include me. Have put it aside, unfinished.

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LibraryThing member kakadoo202

Part documentary. Part art documentary woven into a war story. Some parts interesting and detailed and then rather a rough draft.

LibraryThing member JulieStielstra

I think this may be my first 5-star review. A book I read slowly, even skipping a day now and then, so I would not finish too quickly. Through my years-long fascination with World War I, I've read a LOT of books, fiction and non-fiction, on that horrific conflict, contemporaneous and not, and this

is one of the best. Is it a memoir? Partly. Is it a novel? Sort of. The brilliance is in the way Stefan Hertmans, a Belgian poet (and it shows) mingles the genres and turns it into something more like life itself. Based on the two notebooks painfully filled by the narrator's grandfather, Urbain Martien, the first third is a narration of Urbain's life as a boy and a young man, son of an impecunious painter, as the narrator understands it (and at the same time does not - he calls it his "unforgivable innocence") - the poverty, the illness, the miserably hard work, the abiding love, and his own discovery of art. And then comes the war. The middle portion is as written (maybe? has the writer transformed it?) by the young man in the foulest depths of the war, and Belgium saw some of the worst. Harrowing, appalling...a place where men fling themselves out of line toward the enemy screaming, "All right, you fucking Bosch, go ahead and kill me!" Which of course, they do. And other men who survive because they stop caring whether they will live out the next hour or not. The final part uncovers the story and tragedy of Urbain's great love, the stunning young woman next door. And how he lives out the rest of his life, painting splendid copies of other people's paintings. And how the narrator tries to understand it all. Moving, beautifully written, humane, just a wondrous piece of work.

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LibraryThing member Castlelass

This work of historical fiction is based on the life of the author’s grandfather, Belgian artist Urbain Martien (1891 – 1981). Martien, the son of an artist, grew up in Ghent in a poor family, fought at the battlefront in the Great War, suffered the loss of loved ones, and turned to art for

healing. He meticulously copied the masters and wrote in his journals. He exhibited the values and traditions of the nineteenth century while dealing with tumultuous changes of the twentieth. He struggled with traumatic memories, family tragedies, and unfulfilled artistic ambitions.

Hertmans has a knack for portraying the atmosphere of the era, and the reader can sense the harshness of life before modern medicine and conveniences. The horrors of trench warfare are described in vivid detail. Martien was wounded, and returned to the front, only to be wounded again (and again). His grandfather adhered to a code of honor, sense of duty, and self-discipline. The accounts of Martien’s experiences on the battlefront are strikingly offset by the beauty of art.

It contains three parts – the first and third are written in third person by the grandson, who inserts his own recollections into the narrative. The second, containing memories of war, is written in first person from Martien’s perspective. The writing is elegant. Hertmans is a poet and it shows. (I read the English translation from the Dutch by David McKay.) The flow is a little choppy in places, with occasional gaps in the narrative.

I felt drawn in and transported back in time. This book is a wonderful tribute to the author’s grandfather. Hertmans has taken a fascinating life and fashioned it into a moving and memorable story.

It slowly dawns on him, as he stares into the roaring stoke hole in the iron foundry and the sparks dance around him like fireflies, that his shock of revulsion at the sight of that apocalyptic heap of rotting flesh filled with gaping dead eyes has awoken something that tugs at him, that hurts, that opens a new space inside him – that for the first time he feels a desire that seems greater than himself. It is the desire to draw and paint, and the instant he becomes aware of it. The sudden realization washes over him with overwhelming force, in which there is an element of guilt. The realization that he wants to do what his father does. It wells up inside him like a sob, like a painful, electric shock from deep within, where his unconscious has taken its time to ripen before coming to light. And he cries.

4.5

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