Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Publication
Nijmegen SUN cop. 1991
User reviews
LibraryThing member edwinbcn
Between 1988 and 1993, the Belgian author Eric de Kuyper published five volumes of fictionalized memoirs: Aan zee: taferelen uit de kinderjaren (1988), De hoed van tante Jeannot: taferelen uit de kinderjaren in Brussel (1989), Mowgli's tranen (1990), Grand Hotel Solitude: taferelen uit de
Grand Hotel Solitude. Taferelen uit de adolescentiejaren, the fourth volume, is situated in Antwerp, where the family moved in the 1950s. It describes the main character as a young man, aged 15 or 16, in 1957 / 1958, around the time of the World Expo in Brussels.
As with previous volumes, the author has chosen to give the main character as particularly "childish" voice, which, at times, gives the impression that the main character is only 12 years old. While this is a possibility (in a fictionalized memoir the age of the main character need not be the same as the author, who was born in 1942), nonetheless, the character's experience seems to suggest that his real age should be around 16.
The novel describes the difficulties of the main character developing his identity as gay during the harsh, prohibitive 1950s, the years before Stonewall. Beside these struggles, there is the development of his interest in the cinema, and friendship with a classmate.
Despite the "childish" voice, this volume is more attractive than previous volumes, focusing on life in Antwerp in the late 1950s.
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adolescentiejaren (1991) and Bruxelles, here I come: nieuwe taferelen uit de Antwerpse en Brusselse tijd (1993). They roughly describe the author's youth between 1944 and 1961.Grand Hotel Solitude. Taferelen uit de adolescentiejaren, the fourth volume, is situated in Antwerp, where the family moved in the 1950s. It describes the main character as a young man, aged 15 or 16, in 1957 / 1958, around the time of the World Expo in Brussels.
As with previous volumes, the author has chosen to give the main character as particularly "childish" voice, which, at times, gives the impression that the main character is only 12 years old. While this is a possibility (in a fictionalized memoir the age of the main character need not be the same as the author, who was born in 1942), nonetheless, the character's experience seems to suggest that his real age should be around 16.
The novel describes the difficulties of the main character developing his identity as gay during the harsh, prohibitive 1950s, the years before Stonewall. Beside these struggles, there is the development of his interest in the cinema, and friendship with a classmate.
Despite the "childish" voice, this volume is more attractive than previous volumes, focusing on life in Antwerp in the late 1950s.
Show Less
Awards
Boekenbon Literatuurprijs (Nominatie — 1992)
Language
Original language
Dutch
ISBN
9789061683438