the city-lit cafe

city-pick Amsterdam: 'a small and handy book introducing readers into the history, people, traditions and mysteries of the Dutch capital' says www.amsterdam.info

City-pick Amsterdam

An anthology of writing about Amsterdam from international authors – compact, full of essence, informative: “City-pick Amsterdam” is a small and handy book introducing readers into the history, people, traditions and mysteries of the Dutch capital.

About the book
City writing about Amsterdam with excerpts from almost a hundred writers. Along the names like Charles de Montesquieu, Voltaire, Albert Camus, Paul Auster, a historian Simon Schama and several Dutch classic authors as Multatuli and Nescio, there are passages from beloved in the Netherlands contemporary writers as Martin Bril, H.M. van den Brink, Remco Campert, Simon Carmiggelt, Jules Deelder, Maarten’t Hart, Gerrit Komrij, Geert Maak, Cees Noteboom and many others. Two pages from the Anne Frank “The Diary of A Young Girl” are also included.

The Dutch have a tongue in cheek saying about their celebrities – they are “wereldberoemd in Nederland” – “world-known in the Netherlands”, as they accept the fact that being a small nation, they not always are able to promote their achievements abroad. So here, luckily, you have a chance to meet many Dutch writers reading their reflections about Amsterdam – sometimes just a half page, sometimes a bit more – just glimpses rich with stories, events, ideas, images. You may also see these short passages as an invitation to read the whole book in its English translation. Hence you will find the excerpts from every one of the best books set in Amsterdam as recommended by The Guardian. Nevertheless, many of the quotes from the selection have been found among unknown titles, Dutch and foreign, which makes “City-picks Amsterdam” even more valuable.

The themes
The book divides all the excerpts around nine main themes: from general pieces about Amsterdam, through the city highlights and people of Amsterdam, the city history and traditions, completing the selection with quotations about the modern metropolis. The collection of extracts gives the reader a unique insight into these themes - full of small observations, noted events, personages, characters, emotions.

Interesting introduction by an Amsterdam based American author Sam Garrett, with a short synthesis on the subject, as well as Index and List of sources complete the book.

“City-pick Amsterdam; Perfect gems of city writing”; edited by Heather Reyes and Victor Schiferli, introduced by Sam Garrett; 244 pages; published by Oxygen Books Ltd, UK.

“City-pick Amsterdam” can be purchased online directly from the publisher The Oxygen Books via their website www.oxygenbooks.co.uk

www.amsterdam.info/bookshop

 

The ten best books on Amsterdam written by locals? Checkout Spotted by Locals

 
 

 

The ten best books on Amsterdam written by locals

Last updated: Aug 9th, 2011 | By: Spotted by Locals

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Image by joiseyshowaa

From Malcolm Burgess, publisher of Oxygen Books’ city-pick series, featuring some of the best writing on favourite cities, comes a new series for Spotted by Locals on the best city books written by local writers. He starts with Amsterdam …

Amsterdam: A Brief Life of the City, Geert Mak
Translated by Philipp Blom

The world-famous travel writer Geert Mak’s Amsterdam is an absolute must for anyone seriously interested in the place. Like many great cities, Amsterdam constitutes ‘a small nation made a larger one’, but is unlike so many others, says Mak, in being relatively ‘unmonumental’.

‘Amsterdam is not proud, indeed, it is even unproud in a proud sort of way. The wealthiest Amsterdammers have clung stubbornly to the sobriety of their seventeenth-century forefathers, with the result that the cityscape has emerged untouched by the grandeur of absolutism, and uncut by the broad avenues which might have been driven through the city in the nineteenth century.’

Joe Speedboat, Tommy Wieringa
Translated by Sam Garrett

In Tommy Wieringa’s coming of age novel, a young Joe tries something in Amsterdam a little stronger than he’s used to.

‘He took a deep breath, looked around and decided to stay in Amsterdam for a while and see how things worked out. … Joe took the train. He experienced giddying happiness – no one knew where he was, life could go any which way, there were as many possibilities as combinations on a fruit machine and every direction he chose was the right one, because it was time for the machine to pay out. P.J wasn’t home. Joe waited in Coffeeshop Baylon, sitting by the window where he might see her come by. Meanwhile he had plenty of time to feast his eyes on the economics of soft drugs.’

On the Water, H. M. van den Brink
Translated by Paul Vincent

One of the best novels on Amsterdam’s rivers and canals is On the Water, telling the story of two young rowers moving through the golden summer of pre-war Amsterdam, and into the Nazi occupation.

‘I took in everything: the freight barges on their way into the centre of town or on the contrary returning after delivering their cargo to the markets, the life on the houseboats, the flags on the larger ships, the washing hanging out to dry somewhere on board, a fisherman bent over his rod and in the distance the jumble of house fronts, masts and towers, the silhouette of the city.’

In Lucia’s Eyes, Arthur Japin
Translated by David Colmer

Set in the eighteenth century, Arthur Japin’s elegant novel reminds us that it isn’t just physical beauty that can make us love this city.

‘I had set my heart on Amsterdam. The city’s name as one of the first that Monsieur de Pompignac had taught me. I saw it many times in the books he gave me to read, the most important of which had all been printed in Holland, the place, he told me, where both Descartes and Spinoza had found refuge … I only had to think of that city to see before me a paradise where, amid all the flowers of the world, the liberated human spirit and all the branches of science blossomed.’

About Love, Doeschka Meijsing
(published in Dutch as Over de liefde)

In this wonderful Amsterdam novel, the narrator manages to escape an event she is far from enjoying by taking an unplanned swim in a canal …

‘The water of the Prinsengracht wasn’t too cold: the sun had beaten down on it all summer long. It should stink, but I smelled nothing. I wasn’t afraid of rats – they would be more afraid of me. I used the breast stroke to swim in between the two boats until I seemed to be in open water. It was too late at night for tourists on the water; the surface was as smooth as glass and reflected the moon. It was quiet and calm in the middle of the canal. I had the place to myself.’

The Philosopher Without Eyes, Cees Nooteboom
(published in Dutch as De filosof zonder ogen: Europese reizen)

From the greatest living Dutch novelist comes a collection of lyrical and meditative essays on the modern city.

‘The city is a book to be read; the walker is the reader …. The words consist of gables, excavations, names, dates, images. One house is called the Pelican, and would speak to us of distant voyages. Another is called the Spitsbergen and commemorates a particular wintering. A street is called Bokkinghargen, and without smelling anything you can recognise the odour of smoked fish.’

‘Harlequin on Dam Square’, Thomas Olde Heuvelt
(from the novel published in Dutch as Harten Sara)

The fashion for ‘human statues’ as a form of street entertainment is taken up by one of the most innovative and interesting young Dutch writers.

‘Today I’m a harlequin … I go to Dam Square and stand in front of the National Monument. I’m sure that the city’s aroma is lost on all these people, but I smell it, as always, because it’s mine. I’m capable of identifying every single aspect: last night’s rain, the vapours of the canals, the coffee and ventilated warmth at the entrance to the Bijenkorf department store and the salty, fishy smell because the fishmonger’s wife is cleaning oysters.’

May the Sun Shine Tomorrow, Abdelkader Benali
(Published in Dutch as Laat het morgen mooi weer zijn)

In this extract from May the Sun Shine Tomorrow, this Dutch Moroccan writer creates the unforgettable healer Malik Ben based in the centre of Amsterdam.

‘Malik’s office was in the heart of Amsterdam, in the basement of a nineteenth-century town house a stone’s throw from Leidseplein. Callers were obliged to ring a bell that jangled loudly. Even before they stepped inside, Malik could tell what was on their minds by the expression on their faces.’

H2Olland, Maarten Ascher
(published in Dutch under same title)

Maarten Ascher’s ingeniously titled book celebrates the history of Amsterdam and its waters.

‘Amsterdam, with its horseshoe-shaped, quadruple ring of concentric canals, is the most distinctive of all Dutch cities where you can live in close proximity to the water … In the early years, if I wanted to remember the order of the four main canals (from the outside in), I would often refer to the mnemonic Pier Koopt Hoge Schoenen (‘Piet buys high shoes’), the first letters of which correspond to the initials of the four canals. You soon learn that each of these sections of can forms something of a small neighbourhood and you discover landmarks: a church, a side canal, a shopping street, a distinctive corner building.’

City Eyes, Martin Bril
(published in Dutch as Stadsogen)

From a well-known Dutch writer comes a richly atmospheric celebration of the extraordinariness of the ordinary in the city’s streets

‘The Rozengracht lay there like only the Rozengracht can. It was the end of the afternoon. To the west the sun was setting in the bend the De Clercqstraat takes to the right, the sky was as pink as candyfloss … The man looked at his watch. A full tram 18 rattled past and stopped at the corner by the Marnixstraat. People got in and out. A few crossed over and walked towards the man. Two young women who passed him were discussing the fate of a mutual acquaintance. She’d just given birth.’

Excerpts from all the books featured here are available in Oxygen Books’ city-pick Amsterdam (£8.99) Other titles in the series include Berlin, Paris, London, Venice and Dublin with New York out this autumn. www.oxygenbooks.co.uk

The best book on London, Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam and Dublin? Check out city-pick in Culture Critic.

Guest Guide to City Literature...

CultureCritic | 18.July.2011 | 14:08

This week's guide offers a flash tour of some of the best fiction written about a few of Europe's biggest cities, courtesy of the folks behind the fantastic City-Lit series...

Malcolm Burgess and Heather Reyes run Oxygen Books and are the publishers of the city-lit titles, a series of books offering selections of the finest writing on their favourite world cities; a sort of literary travel guide, if you will. Taking in Woolf's Westminster, Christopher Isherwood's sordid Berlin underworld and Joyce's Dublin odyssey, they talk us through the impetus behind the series and their favourite books from their first five titles.    

Words: Malcolm Burgess & Heather Reyes

We were on the slopes of the Acropolis in the blazing heat three years ago and desperate to read a selection of contemporary writing about Athens. We had the heavy and slightly out-of-date guide books but there was nothing in them, or, we discovered later, in Athens' bookshops. There wasn't anything in London bookshops either. And so Oxygen Books and our city-pick series began, finding some of the best writing on cities we love, from fiction and non-fiction to journalism and blogs. Current titles include Berlin, Paris, London, Venice, Amsterdam and Dublin with New York out on 20 October and Istanbul and St Petersburg appearing next year. 

LONDON

Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway (1925)

No matter how many times I read Mrs Dalloway, I enjoy it and find some new detail to wallow in. Finding oneself in London on a lovely summer's morning, the whole novel floods back and increases the pleasure of it all.

When we step out into the London streets on a brilliant June morning with Clarissa Dalloway, we begin a rich day (like Ulysses, the novel observes the classical 'unity of time' rule) that draws many aspects of the city and its people into the narrative. While it is a wonderful – and often very funny – celebration of the capital, Woolf doesn't ignore its darker side. Set in 1923, the aftermath of the First World War casts a shadow both in the character of the shell-shocked Septimus Warren Smith and in Mrs Dalloway's own state of health. The sound of Big Ben haunts the novel, suggesting human mortality but also a kind of joyous pride in London. The party at the novel's close feels like a celebration of city life and brings together the characters we have met or whose minds we have entered during the course of the day. Tragedy arrives in the midst of it all, but the overwhelming impression is of a deep appreciation of people in all their failings and complexities, and of the city itself, which is equally complex but elicits love too.

BERLIN  

Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin (1939)

No matter how well you know the film Cabaret, going back to the book on which it was based is essential if you really want to get into those pre-Second World War years in Berlin. On the first page, Isherwood declares himself to be "a camera", and while this suggests a cool, objective take on events, one mustn't forget that a camera is selective and able to make us 'feel' through focusing on particular details. For me, it is this balance between the objective and subjective that makes the book work so well. Who can forget, once we have met her, the landlady of 'Herr Issyvoo', Fraulein Schroeder. While poking gentle fun, Isherwood treats her with an underlying generosity of spirit which he also applies to the "hopeless" Sally Bowles (not quite as striking and energetic as Liza Minelli in the film). Yes, there's plenty of good fiction set in Berlin, but I always go back to Isherwood when I want that satisfying blend of truth and pleasure.

AMSTERDAM  

H. M. van den Brink, On the Water translated by Paul Vincent (1998)

This is a short but truly memorable novel and reflects Amsterdam's deceptively quiet, considered nature, which conceals turbulence beneath. It is the story of two adolescent boys from very different backgrounds who find a deep friendship partly through their shared passion for being "on the water" during an ideal summer before the war. With the rise of fascism and the occupation, their world is destroyed and the more fortunate of the two boys, David, disappears. The focus on water helps one appreciate the various manifestations of this essential element of Amsterdam, but the historical setting reminds one of just what was lost to Europe as a whole through the spread of the Nazi regime. It's a quiet but powerful read that deserves to be better known – as do many Dutch writers of whom we remain shamefully ignorant.

DUBLIN  

James Joyce, Ulysses (1922)

No, I'm really not being pretentious when I say this is my favourite book on Dublin. I had made several (unsuccessful) attempts to get through it, but then came across the most marvellous Naxos recording (22 CDs), read by Jim Norton with Marcella Riordan as Molly Bloom, which simply made it work. And it really is one of the funniest, most touching, tragic, wide-ranging, thoroughly enjoyable books ever. But you have to hear it in an Irish voice. It deserves its reputation as one the great books of all time not only for its close observation of early 20th-century Dublin, but of human relationships of many kinds, and the great joys and sorrows that shape our lives. Yes, there's a brilliant (and often referred to) description of Leopold Bloom on the loo, but details often not mentioned include the fact that he and Molly lost their only child, little Rudi, as a baby. The subtle anti-semitism of Dublin society is also something Bloom has to deal with continually. And Joyce isn't just good on people: the description of the Bloom's cat is just brilliant.

PARIS 

Emile Zola, Ladies' Delight (1883)

Ladies' Delight (Au Bonheur des Dames), published in 1883, tells of the rise of Octave Mouret, and a new kind of Paris department store, based on the Left Bank's Le Bon Marche. But at its loudly throbbing heart – and this is the real story – is the rise of modern capitalism and consumerism on a scale never seen before. Although a man of the Left, Zola is able to give us the visceral feel of seemingly unlimited products and materials there for our delight, delectation and moral ruin, and our moral approbation if we can remember it.  Think Selfridges on a Saturday afternoon a week before Christmas and you'll get the picture.

Read more on the City-Lit series and order titles at www.oxygenbooks.co.uk.

Keep up to date on the latest City-Lit news, including upcoming titles here and by following the series on Twitter.

www.culturecritic.co.uk

 

Guardian Travel's top ten books set in Amsterdam. Agree?

10 of the best books set in Amsterdam

Malcolm Burgess, publisher of the City-Lit series, selects his favourite reads for the Dutch capital

• We have 15 copies of the City-Lit guide to Amsterdam to give away for the best recommendations in the comments below – Guardian User Help will be in contact with the winners by email

• As featured in our Amsterdam city guide

•  

Cees Nooteboom, Rituals, 1980

Cees Nooteboom is the greatest living Dutch novelist and Rituals is his masterpiece: Inni Wintrop wanders the streets of Amsterdam in his search for salvation.

"Six years previously, on the eve of his marriage, he had wept on the steps of the Palace of Justice on the same Prinsengracht, exactly such genuine tears as Zita had shed when he deflowered her in a room full of frogs and reptiles in the Valeriusstraat."
• Prinsengracht

Sylvie Matton, Rembrandt's Whore, 1997

Visiting Rembrandt's House is a memorable experience and his home is captured brilliantly in Sylvie Matton's novel of the painter's descent from fame and wealth to bankruptcy.

"The great hall at the front, the little room at the back, the antechamber next to the courtyard and the cabinet of curiosities. Every wall in every room is hidden behind paintings and objects. Weapons I've never seen before."
• The Rembrandt House Museum, Jodenbreestraat 4

Geert Mak, Amsterdam: A Brief Life of the City, 1995

The classic account of Amsterdam past and present by the distinguished Dutch writer and commentator.

"The patron saint of the Oude Kerk, Saint Nicholas, the 'water saint' … was to have something of a second career as a friend of children, riding his horse over the rooftops of Amsterdam on the eve of his name day, 6 December, and distributing presents by dropping them down chimneys."
• De Oude Kerk, Oudekerksplein

Harry Mulisch, Last Call, 1985

From one of the Netherlands' best-known writers, the compelling story of classic Dutch actor Pierre de Vries and a richly detailed portrait of modern Amsterdam.

"He turned into the Nes, where a slight gloom came over him. Entertainment districts in the morning are as dismal as seaside resorts in winter. In the narrow street, he found the theatre in a building of which he had no recollection … "
• Nes

HM van den Brink, On the Water, 1998

This beautifully written story of two young rowers moves through the golden summer of pre-war Amsterdam, and into the Nazi occupation.

"I took in everything … the houseboats, the flags on the larger ships, the washing hanging out to dry somewhere on board, a fisherman bent over his rod and in the distance the jumble of housefronts, masts and towers, the silhouette of the city."
• Amstel river

Geoff Dyer, Hotel Oblivion, 2002, a short story that appears in Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bothered to do it

A visit to the Magic Mushroom Gallery is combined with a quick one to the Van Gogh Museum as the narrator and his friends take a weekend trip to Amsterdam.

"We headed for the relative tranquillity of the Van Gogh Museum, where the paintings pitched and reeled in a blaze of yellow … a sun burst over the writhing corn of Arles, a roman-candle night – starry, starry – swirled into life. Blossom-tormented trees reared into view … "
• Van Gogh Museum, Museumplein

Rupert Thomson, The Book of Revelation, 1999

Rupert Thomson's strange and haunting novel is full of perceptive descriptions of daily life in Amsterdam.

"I had always liked the red light district during the day, especially when the sun was shining – some bleary, slept-in quality the streets had, the neon diluted, pale, and, every now and then, a girl on her way to work in full make-up and impossible high heels."
• Red light district, De Wallen

Dubravka Ugresic, The Ministry of Pain, 2005

Amsterdam has always been a haven for refugees and Dubravka Ugresic shows us with great insight the lives of eastern European immigrants in a poorer district of the city.

"I would take the Zeedijk, in the direction of the Nieuwmarkt … Sipping my morning coffee, I would observe the people stopping at stalls displaying herring, vegetables, wheels of Dutch cheese and mounds of freshly baked pastries. It was the part of town with the greatest concentration of eccentrics … "
• The Oudezijds Kolk/Zeedijk area

Sean Condon, My 'Dam Life, 2003

Sean Condon made Amsterdam his home for three years and his love for the city and its sights, big and small, is captivating.

"[Cafe Papeneiland] is a wonderful place with a low, exposed-beam ceiling, a tiny staircase leading up to a tiny toilet, wood-framed windows and a panel of antique Delft porcelain allegedly discovered in the basement during renovations 15 years ago. The bar has been here since 1641."
• Intersection of Brouwersgracht and Prinsengracht canals

Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl, 1947

The famous story of Anne Frank and her family, who were caught in hiding by the Germans in 1944. Their house, now a museum, is one of Amsterdam's most popular tourist destinations.

"After we arrived at 263 Prinsengracht, Miep quickly led us through the long passage and up the wooden staircase to the next floor and into the Annexe. She shut the door behind us, leaving us alone. Margot had arrived much earlier on her bike … "
• Anne Frank House, Prinsengracht

• Malcolm Burgess is the publisher of Oxygen Books' City-Lit series featuring some of the best ever writing on favourite world cities, oxygenbooks.co.uk

Check out the latest city-pick 2011-12 catalogue here (includes our new titles New York, Istanbul and St Petersburg)

Oxygen Books new catalogue has just arrived from the printers and we think it looks brilliant! All our current titles, plus city-pick New York, Istanbul and St Petersburg in special postcard-style format.

Do check it out here: Download Oxygen Books catalogue 2011-2012

If you'd like a copy sent to you please send your name and address details to: malcolm.burgess3@btopenworld.com

 

 

 

 

 

Van Gogh, David Sedaris and traitors: What happened when Chris Mills road-tested city-pick Amsterdam?

City-Pick Amsterdam: the city, the guidebook and the footsore tourist • Chris Mills We took a trip last month to Amsterdam; a weekend trip squeezed in between work and school commitments. It was to be a brief taster of all that the city has to offer if one only had a bit more time to spend there. I took along with me the literary travel guide City-Pick Amsterdam (Oxygen Books, edited by Heather Reyes) which I had been sitting on for a while without actually putting to good use.

This was finally to be my chance to put the guide book to the ultimate test. But things never really go according to plan, do they? The reality of the case was that I did it slightly backwards and didn’t actually get around to reading half of the book until after I had come back from Amsterdam. I managed to read the introduction and several pieces (the book contains excerpts from over 70 writers) but I didn’t read solidly. Quite clearly I now have to return to the city and visit the places I managed to read up on afterwards but missed seeing this time. I certainly recommend at the very least browsing through the guide before venturing forth because the personal accounts here give the visitor a flavour that a conventional guide book won’t capture. I wish I had read more before going because now I have an itch to return and explore further Amsterdam’s streets, canals and history. But more from the guide book shortly.

Unfortunately, the one thing I actually did do before travelling was to get sucked into reading some ‘Trip Advisor’ reviews on the hotel that we had booked into (Hotel Citadel). I am not entirely sure whether the site is a Good Thing or not. It seems to me (on admittedly a brief acquaintance) to be full of reviews from people who obviously didn’t do their homework before going somewhere and then complain about stuff afterwards. It looks to me as though a lot of people don’t read the large print let alone the small print when they are making a booking. I say this because in spring I booked a stay in York at a Travelodge hotel and then idly skimmed through TA reviews afterwards. Many people complained about parking (the lack thereof) and left luggage facilities (ditto) and yet the company website quite clearly stated the situation in the first place. I don’t drive, but I must admit that a left luggage facility would have been handy. As there wasn’t such a thing to be had it would seem pointless to make a fuss about it. But I digress. To return to the Amsterdam reviews: I was pleased to see that our prospective hotel had a pretty good press on the whole and was praised for its good breakfast buffet selection (always a good thing to have). It was referred to as ‘charming’ and ‘clean’ which seemed most satisfactory.

But back to literary Amsterdam: In his introduction to the literary guide to the Dutch capital Sam Garrett describes the city thus, ‘Giddy Amsterdam, staid Amsterdam. Empress, fishwife, lady of the night. Hero, artist, traitor, beggar. Visionary, Calvinist and clown’. It’s a bit of a daunting description really, considering that we have only got a weekend to get to grips with all of those personalities. But in a couple of days you can only really scratch the surface of any city I suppose, let alone one with as much going on as Amsterdam. And with a child along on the trip, there’s a limit to how much giddy night time activities can be accommodated. So that’s a visit to the Sex Museum marked down for another time then I suppose.  The guide book is divided into sections covering different aspects of the city’s history, culture and geography, beginning with a clutch of extracts attempting to explain the hold that Amsterdam gains over those that come to know the city well. Some pieces have been especially translated for this anthology (for instance excerpts from Cees Nooteboom and Peter de Graaf to mention but two). Not surprisingly, water and the canals figure largely in people’s hearts and minds and there is whole section devoted to ‘Water, water everywhere...’  Nobody mentioned Trip Advisor though, which can only be a good sign I feel.

We walked (and walked and walked) along canal paths, craning our necks up to look at bits of buildings and down to look at lovely house boats on the water. Thank goodness for a pair of flat boots and dry weather to walk around in. There is so much to look at that you could easily just spend a day wandering the streets. In one extract from Cycling Amsterdam Kelvin Whalley explains how it is that so many of the old buildings are so tall and narrow; a width tax no less. His wife then swiftly steers him through the red light district where women are making good use of the windows in those tall houses, ‘I tried to explain that I was just curious to sample the diverse cultural nuances that make Amsterdam simultaneously traditional and racy..’. Don’t try that one at home.

Not that there is any need to walk or cycle as there is a very efficient tram network around the city. Living in Dublin where we have two tram lines crossing the city that don’t intersect, it is refreshing to encounter a transport system that appears to be geared up to facilitating route hopping to your hearts content. We didn’t really set off with any firm plan other than an intention to visit the Van Gogh Museum later in the day. In the end we paid a visit to the Artis Royal Zoo (founded 1838) before finally reaching the famous sunflowers.

The highlight of the trip was undoubtedly the Van Gogh Museum, despite my total lack of preparedness for the queues or the high level of security in the place. And if I’d only discovered the Amsterdam tourist card before arriving we could at least have been saved some of the queuing. I cheerfully admit to being the kind of person who would really like to have the whole art gallery to myself and not to have to share it with hundreds of other people who all want to look at the same paintings at the same time as I do. Bearing that in mind you can imagine how frustrating is to finally get to see paintings only seen previously in books ‘in the flesh’ but then to have other people’s heads in the way when you are trying to see what is arguably the most famous painting on display.

Chris Evans in an extract from The Good Thief’s Guide to Amsterdam rails against the ubiquity of Van Gogh’s The Sunflowers, ‘It’s a wonder the average visitor knows that Van Gogh painted anything else’. To balance this tartness the book includes a lovely, thoughtful piece by César Antonio Molina where he introduces the reader to his favourite works at the museum (and yes, he does mention sunflowers).

I was reading a couple of excerpts on visiting the Anne Frank House, but I have to come clean and state here and now that I didn’t end up visiting it despite it being one of the ‘must see’ items on a trip to Amsterdam.  I read the famous diary many years ago as a teenager and promised myself that one day I would visit Anne’s place of hiding. So why, after all these years did I not then make time to go on this trip? I think probably because I have mixed feelings about her former home and hiding place being a tourist attraction at all. Obviously people who are familiar with her history want to go, and so do I, or at least a part of me does. Part of me is squeamish about the intrusion into what would have been her private space.  Perhaps David Sedaris has the right idea in his irreverent approach to a tour round the iconic building, ‘My months of house hunting had caused me to look at things in a certain way, and on seeing the crowd gathered at the front door, I did not think, Ticket line, but, Open house!’ He then goes on to decide what improvements he would make if he bought the house. Another writer, Salil Tripathi writing of a visit to the house, recalls that Ayaan Hirsi Ali, threatened with loss of citizenship drew attention to the fact that the Dutch had betrayed Anne Frank also. Thus, sadly: the traitor of Garrett’s introduction.

This guide book has had more use after the trip than before it (see above) and acquired a fair few highlighted and marked passages for future reference. Next time I really travel though, I will be so much better prepared. I also have a date with Rembrandt, sadly neglected on this trip, my interest reawakened by the extract from Sylvie Matton’s Rembrandt’s Whore.  It has to be said that the book is also a great armchair travel guide; just read a few words from a gifted travel writer, shut your eyes and away you go. No need for queues, passports or security checks. Club class please!

© Chris Mills May 2011

www.hackwriters.com The International Writers Magazine

If you'd like to road test any of our city-pick titles (Paris, Berlin, London, Venice, Dublin and Amsterdam) and are happy to write about your experiences, we'll gladly send you a copy of the relevant book. Please contact malcolm.burgess3@btopenworld.com

 

'''The city-pick series has re-invented the travel guide'' - city-pick Amsterdam does full justice to the claim' In Other Words (British Centre for Literary Translation)

 

city-pick Amsterdam: 'You can't just go to Amsterdam, you have to live it ... the latest in the wonderful city-pick series' The Good Web Guide

 

Amsterdam is a place you go to reclaim yourself. Or to escape. Or to fulfil wanton fantasies of libertinism. Or to invent similar overblown reasons why you might have visited. There is an indefinable otherness to the famed Dutch port town which makes visitors to it transform their experience of the city into something mythical. You can’t just go to Amsterdam, you have to live it. 

 The latest in the wonderful city-pick series of travel guides -which replace the customary accommodation+sightseeing approach with a selection of texts offering insight into different aspects of life in the city in question - features some very well-known names. We have excerpts from work by Paul Auster, Geoff Dyer and Ian McEwan, a bit of Camus, some Tobias Smollett and a touch of Voltaire. 

 The expected angles are covered, from drug culture and the Nazi occupation, to canal life and the great Dutch masters of Western painting. The presence of extracts from a book by Alain de Botton, a curator of the blindingly obvious, is an annoyance to this reviewer, especially as that author is also quoted in the introduction by Sam Garrett. However, such frustration is mitigated by the presence of lesser-known Dutch authors, some of whom are translated into English for the very first time here. If names such as Gerrit Komrij, Bianca Stigter and Jules Deelder mean little to you, you will find revelation in these pages. 

 There is a mood throughout this guide, a polite anything goes, which captures the curious duality of Amsterdam, that sober loucheness which is not to be found anywhere else, and which is being threatened by a conservative desire to remake the tolerant order. 

Garan Holcombe

Thomas Olde Heuvelt is a major writing talent. UK readers and publishers please take note.

 
 
 At Oxygen Books we’re privileged to read some of the very best writers, past, present and future. Sometimes it’s the great and the good, and that’s perfectly fine but sometimes – and this is the most exciting part of the job– it’s being introduced to a new writer who’s absolutely extraordinary and makes you cry (and laugh) on your commuter rail journey and reminds you of when you first read J D Salinger.

 Thomas Olde Heuvelt is one such writer. We were introduced to Thomas by Dutch translator Laura Vroomen for our city-pick Amsterdam volume.

 Oxygen were excited to be able to include his ‘Harlequin on Dam Square’, in which a human statue has the perfect vantage point for observing the city’s population and for letting his imagination getting to work on them. It’s the wit, it’s the humour, it’s the detail, it’s the left-field vision that makes this writer so exceptional and compelling.

 

Thomas, born in 1983, has already written three novels – with a fourth out early next year, plus appearances in many anthologies and magazines. Laura, his translator, very kindly showed us a novella, ‘The Boy Who Cast no Shadow’, and it was this that convinced us (if we needed any convincing) that here is a writer who is just waiting to be discovered by UK readers.

 

We offer a short extract from this story for you to be convinced too. Magic realism? Fantasy? Surrealism? An allegory for our current dark days? These descriptions don’t really do justice to this story of a fragile glass boy who was not made for these times. Already it’s won a major Dutch prize and is soon to be published in the Postscript anthology from PS Publishing, so see ours as a sneak preview. This is a major talent: other prospective UK publishers please remember you read it here first:

 

My name is Look. You’ve probably heard about me, in newspapers or on TV. I’m the boy without a shadow. You can shine spotlights at me all you like, but it won’t make the slightest bit of difference. Physicists say I’m an evolutionary miracle. The Americans used to say I was a secret weapon, owned by the Russians that is, because they didn’t think Al-Qaeda had the necessary know-how. Christians say I’m a Divine Messenger. Mum calls me an angel, but of the earthly variety. But I’m none of these things. I’m Look, that’s all. I just wish I knew what that meant.

It’s something to do with my genes, they say, but they don’t know what. Molecular structures and the effect of light, blah-blah-blah. It’s all the same to me because whatever it is they can’t fix it. You won’t even find any shadow under my chin, armpits or ribs, no matter how you illuminate me. Apparently, it makes me look rather two-dimensional. I don’t actually know what I look like because I have no reflection. My left hip bears a scar in the shape of a question mark. I got it when the midwife dropped me as she held me up in front of the mirror. Mum told me that only a piece of floating umbilical cord was visible and that the midwife fled the room screaming. The photos of the delivery showed plenty of people going aaaw and coochie-coochie but no baby. The only images ever captured of me are the scans of mum’s belly. They use sound instead of light.

‘You should be proud of your genes,’ mum and dad always say. They’re the founders of the Progressive Parish, a local political party in Waspik that worships difference. General meeting: ‘We just adopted a little Filipino kid.’ ‘No kidding! Our son is gay.’ ‘Really? Well, ours has no shadow.’ Three-nil, nobody can beat that. Mum is a Zen Buddhist and does yoga, while dad would rather cook for the homeless than for us. In the interests of others (read: my parents) my own best interests tend to get overlooked.

Until I was seven, they managed to keep me more or less under wraps. But you understand that it was bound to come out. One day two men in dark sunglasses snatched me from the class-room, bundled me into an armoured car and stuck a needle into me. When I came to I found myself at an army base in the United States, where a team of scientists and agents spent four months examining and interrogating me. During the first three weeks I kept claiming I was from Mars and that my goal was total world domination, but then they became extremely impolite and started threatening me. I got really pissed off when I woke up one morning to find that they had cut a piece of skin from my backside to grow a culture. I decided to suspend all cooperation with immediate effect, but that same week I was told that they had no use for me and reunited me with my parents. To compensate for the inconvenience we were offered a feature in National Geographic. At first my parents refused and considered legal action, but when they discovered that the men who had kidnapped me were above the law and that the ensuing media hype was a veritable goldmine for the Progressive Parish’s coffers they soon came round.

And me? I became a celebrity. Thanks a bunch. On Oprah they wouldn’t let me wear make-up because they figured that a floating, painted mask without any eyes or mouth would look too sinister on TV. A completely invisible boy struck them as a nice little stunt, which meant that everybody who wasn’t actually in the studio just saw a set of moving clothes and that I had to pick up objects and stand behind an infrared machine to prove that I was there. To Oprah’s question about how the scientists had treated me I responded in broken English: ‘I find that the government has no right to experiment with my ass.’ My wisecrack cost them three million in hush money but that didn’t stop the accusations of sexual abuse from pouring in. Idiots.

One-all, you’d think. Not by a long shot. In the years that followed our front yard was overrun by camera crews eager to catch a glimpse of me – which is technically impossible. Twelve circuses and twenty-three cabinets of curiosities offered astronomic amounts for the privilege of exhibiting me in their freak shows. I’ve been canonized 268 times and have 29,000,000 hits on Google, as many as Brad Pitt. It’s a lark, mum and dad, this business of being different. Until it’s you who’s different. Everybody knows who I am. Everybody, except me.

Splinter once said that your dreams make you who you are. But I never dream. Loads of people say this, but I really don’t dream. To tell you the truth, I don’t even know what dreams are. The countless EEGs that I’ve had show that my brain performs absolutely zilch activity during REM sleep. They never established a conclusive link with my condition, but duh. I think it’s why I have no friends, no feelings and no imagination. I lack a goal. I lack depth. Do I mind? No, it leaves me cold.

All I want in life is to find my reflection. If I have no idea what my face looks like, how will I ever know who I am? And you know how it is with saints and celebrities. They get crucified, and while they watch the life seeping out of them the people piss on their shadows.

 

*

 

The arrival of Splinter Rozenberg changed everything.

I was fourteen by then and living a relatively quiet life. The hype had died down, as hypes usually do. We had moved a couple of times within the village and in exchange for a statement saying that I hadn’t been abused during my stay in the US two men in dark sunglasses were stationed in front of our house for a year, removing pilgrims and other loonies from the garden path.

Obviously this whole business had an effect on my reputation in school. I have no friends, but because I’m tall I have a lot of nerve where others don’t. They tend to avoid me, which is how I like it. Now and again I punch someone, not because I like it, but because I have an image to uphold. And let’s be fair, it’s not all that obvious, unless I’m in front of the mirror. I wear long sleeves. My face is the only give-away. With the sun on the right it looks as if I’m luminous on the left. Mum once tried to hide the effect with make-up, but I ended up looking like a bit of a tranny, so thanks but no thanks.

Even Jord Hendriks draws the line at verbal abuse, which means that I get off lightly. When he’s in a good mood he calls me ‘His Lightness’. When he’s in a foul mood it’s ‘dim-witted light bulb’ or just ‘freak’. He claims that without a reflection I don’t actually exist, except that my ugly mug hasn’t twigged yet that I’m dead.

That’s a bit of an exaggeration if you ask me. If the stories are to be believed I’m no oil painting, but it’s not as bad as all that. Lots of artists, including my grandad, have made impressions of me. None of the drawings look alike, and I don’t think any of the faces suit me. The charcoal drawing on the cover of People is definitely a joke, because it creates the illusion of shadow. Some show a boy with a broad, roughly hewn face. Mum says that grandad’s is the best likeness. But grandad also did a portrait of mum which makes her look more like a man than a woman, so that gives you an idea of how credible mum’s words are.

Too bad that Jord Hendriks is such an incredible dickhead. The other kids are afraid of him. I think he’s hot. I mean, just look at that body in the changing room. Holy fuck!

Of course that’s the last thing to say to him if you know what’s good for you. One disorder is more than enough, trust me. Mum and dad would love it and that’s exactly why I won’t tell them. They’d drag me to gay pride parades and conferences on tolerance organized by the Progressive Parish, and then we’d be back to the same old media circus. I don’t think so. The internet isn’t the answer either. It’s easy enough to tick the Yes, I am aged 18 or over box, but chat-rooms give me the boot because I’m supposedly too scared to appear on webcam.

Whatever. The thought of Jord Hendriks finally putting his mouth to a better use and my right hand offer adequate release for a healthy boy like me. Exclamation mark, smiley face.

Splinter was the new boy in class and thus relieved me from my victim status. Thanks in part to his mother, Mrs Rozenberg, who had made the unforgivable blunder of accompanying him to school that first day to explain his condition. I can still see them standing there, side by side, Mrs Rozenberg looking like she was lecturing a group of toddlers and Splinter staring glassy-eyed into the classroom. Splinter was always glassy-eyed – literally, because his eyes were made of glass. As was the rest of his body. It was one of those rare mutations you get in certain gene pools. Polished, he was a perfect mirror. He had some flexibility and was able to move his limbs, but in slow-motion, like Neil Armstrong on the moon. Facial expressions were quite a different story however.

Mrs Rosenberg, ordinary flesh and blood, beseeched us to think of him as a china cabinet, which wasn’t all that far from the truth actually. He wasn’t allowed to play games during recess or PE, because a well-aimed football would be the death of him. Pulling a jack-ass was obviously out of the question. When we heard that word from an old bag like her, we shrieked with laughter. Mrs Rozenberg was delighted, thinking she was hip. Splinter knew he was doomed.

From day one Jord Hendriks and his mates fired metal missiles at him, non-stop, from paperclips to coins and from small biro springs to the pens themselves. They were competing to find out which part of the body to aim for to elicit the opening note of Man in the Mirror. ‘Your dick, all right?’ Splinter said when the teacher had left the classroom. ‘Will you please stop now? What you’re doing is dangerous.’

Oops, that only made things worse. Splinter knew how fragile he was and that paperclips and coins would probably cause no permanent damage. But accidents will happen and when a biro launched by Jord scratched his neck he grassed on him.

Big mistake. Suspensions aren’t forever. After some third-year kid acting on Jord’s instructions concocted a story to lure the science teacher out of the classroom Jord grabbed hold of Splinter and put him on the workbench. Splinter screamed. Not with pain – he didn’t have any nerves – but to catch a teacher’s attention. He didn’t put up a fight because he knew that any wrong move would break him in two.

‘I’ve always wanted to be a glassblower, shitbag,’ Jord said as he ignited the Bunsen burner. ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall, who in the land will have the crookedest dick of all?’

About three or four boys formed a cordon around them to keep the softies at bay. The rest of the class smirked or pretended not to notice. And me? I was glad it wasn’t me.

Jord stopped at Splinter’s left little finger. He heated the tip and squeezed it with a pair of pliers, so Splinter would never need another spoon to stir his tea. Then one of Jord’s mates ran out and made a lot of noise about Splinter having had a welding accident. Anyone who blabbed, we were told, would suffer the same fate, glass or no glass.

I was convinced that Jord wouldn’t get away with it. But I was wrong. Feel free to dismiss it as yob culture. We give each other hell and we cover each other’s backs – a question of self-preservation. Sooner or later the bubble of deceit and lies will burst. But that’s too easy. Time has taught me that we live in a world full of figures like Jord Hendriks, a world that thrives on the destruction of its rare miracles and where people live under a blanket of smog, the stench of sameness.

 

www.ddeheuvelt.com

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