De Kapellekensbaan

by Louis Paul Boon

Paper Book, 1973

Library's rating

Publication

Amsterdam De Arbeiderspers cop. 1973

ISBN

9029503181 / 9789029503181

Description

According to the author, Chapel Road is the book about the childhood of Ondine [. . .] about her brother Valeer-Traleer with his monstrous head wobbling through life this way and that. But the book is about a lot more than that. It is also the story of Louis Paul Boon, an author working on a novel entitled Chapel Road, surrounded by his colorful group of friends. His readers and companions include the painter Tippetotje, who habitually works a naked woman into her paintings, and Johan Janssens, the journalist and poet who is fired from the paper for refusing to agree with the Capitalists, the Socialists or the Ultra-Marxists. Beyond that, Chapel Road includes a retelling of the myth of Reynard the fox and Isengrinus the wolf, a tale that underscores the greed, stupidity, hypocrisy, pride and lust motivating the other characters of the book. Chapel Road is a pool, a sea, a chaos: it is the book of all that can be heard and seen in Chapel Road, from the year 1800-and-something until today.… (more)

Genres

General Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Subjects

Arbeidersklasse 20ste eeuw

Ideeënliteratuur

Sociale literatuur

Socialisme 20ste eeuw

User reviews

LibraryThing member lriley

IMO a masterpiece. Boon says in the short preamble leading into the main text: "Chapel road which is the book about the childhood of Ondine, who was born in the year 1800-and-something...about her brother valeer-traleer, with his monstrous head wobbling through life this way and that...about her

father, vapeur, who want to save the world with his godless machine, and about all the things which I can't quite recall now, but which try to draw a rough sketch of the laborious RISE OF SOCIALISM, and of the decline of the bourgeoise which got knocked down by two world wars and collapsed." As Boon relates the story of Ondine and her family, he also mixes in anecdotes of his and his own friends and family's present day events allowing one of them a journalist/poet Johan Janssens to retell a series of Belgian fairytales relating to Reynard the fox and Isengrinus the wolf. These three different threads weave into and out of each other in short sometimes epiphanic chapters. They are very often a hilarious, bitter, sometimes violent bit of social commentary mixing in doses of sarcasm and satire. Extremely anti-authoritarian in content. I have to say that I have never read anything quite like it and found it both profound and at the same time oddly entertaining. A wonderful read. Highly recommended.

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