One of the weekend amusements I had in Brussels was reading “Le Monde 2″ and New York Times, both weekend supplements to the French daily newspaper, which my landlord bought everyday. To be frank, with the former, I can’t really I say I ‘read’ it but, at least, I tried to read it. Of articles or sections in the magazine, the ones that retained my attention, despite a shallow attempt, for longer than others were mostly articles about photography, articles featuring eye-catching photographs, sudoku and book section. For the last two, I think I spend quite some time with any kind of journalistic products.
Of all those ordinary weekends when I pursued the pleasure of reading, I remember, if I’m not wrong, a picture of a dark-haired guy standing or sitting on the stairs against the red-brick wall — a typical architecture scene in New York City, based on my very limited sources. He was introduced as the author of several books and one of the book titles immediately widened my eyes — Netherlands. Indeed, the article revealed that the author was raised primarily in the Netherlands. But another fact made the book irresistible: he was born in Ireland. What could be the better combination of an author’s geographical background to spark my interest than this? I had to read this book.
Although in the book itself there was no Irish setting at all — except short mentioning of the narrator’s dentist’s ‘salmon-catching vacations in Ireland’, I had tremendous joy of recalling my fond memories of the Netherlands as Hans van den Broek, the novel’s first-person narrator as well as one of the protagonists, looked back on the fragmented memories of his childhood in Den Haag, the Netherlands: typical Dutch names like the main character’s, street names ending with ‘-straat’ and ‘-laan’, and some other Dutch words and phrases. Among them, one particular word led me to recall my very personal experience: ijssalon (ice cream shop). In a small town in Limburg, the most southern province of the Netherlands, which is one of my Dutch friends’ hometown, there was a small ijssalon just out of the central market plaza. I think I was taken there only once (or twice, at most), favourably offered by my friend’s mother, together with my friend and her partner. I don’t remember which flavour I had — probably, either strawberry or mango, but do remember that I was as much excited and pleased as the little children at the shop, sticking themselves to the glass storage, and that it was one of the happy memories of that summer in the Netherlands. Thinking that perhaps I will never again have a chance (or reason) to go to that ice cream shop, I felt sad. However, even if I do revisit the shop, it will never be the same — I will never feel the same excitement and happiness I had five years ago. A piece of memory completely cropped from certain time and space, and certain circumstances and relationships cannot reproduce the same experience. Hence, there is no point of remaining sorrowful about the only-once-happened-and-will-never-happen-again thing: the more important thing is that you have that memory.
Some other parts of the book that I found amusing or would like to keep here is as follows (pages as marked in a US version of hardcover published by Pantheon Books):
p. 108. [...] and while I changed, Danielle wandered around my apartment, as was her privilege: people in New York are authorized by convention to snoop around and mentally measure and pass comment on any real estate they’re invited to step into.
p. 109. Like an old door, every man past a certain age comes with historical warps and creaks of one kind or another, and a woman who wishes to put him to serious further use must expect to do a certain amount of sanding and planing. But of course not every woman is interested in this sort of refurbishment project, just as not every man has only one thing on this mind.
p. 118. For my comings and goings were frightening mysteries to my three-year-old son. My arrival, however closely anticipated, startled him; and from our first moment together he would be filled with a dread of my departure, which he could not comprehend or situate in time. He feared that any minute I might be gone; and always the thing he most feared would come to pass.
The two quotes below are not directly related to my own amusement found in the book but more to the items of an interesting list elaborated by Christian Lander in his blog, Stuff White People Like, as well as in his same-titled book. I’m thinking of sending him these quotes as cultural references.
p. 178. [...] of the Manhattanish importance lately attached to coffee and sushi and farmers’ markets, [...]
p. 188. I brushed Jake’s teeth with his dinosaur-themed toothbrush. I read him a story—at his insistence, Where the Wild Things Are, even though it frightened him a little, this story of a boy whose bedroom is overtaken by a forest—and calibrated his bedroom’s dimmer switch according to his instructions.
p.192. He nattered about his salmon-catching vacations in Ireland, which by coincidence had been precisely the pastime of my Dutch former dentist and led me to wonder if there was a connection between angling and tinkering with teeth. Certainly he seemed as happy as a fisher, this New York practitioner, and why not? One of the great consolation of work must be its abbreviation of the world’s area, and it follows that it must be especially consoling to have one’s field of vision reduced to the space of a mouth.
p. 206. Now Chuck was driving us through Brooklyn. I heard myself tell him, “My wife is seeing another guy.”
He showed no surprise, even though it was the first time I’d raised directly the subject of my marriage. After a moment, he said, “what do you want to do about it?”
“What can I do?” I said hopelessly.
He gave his head a categorical shake. “Not can do: first figure out what you want to do. It’s Project Management 101: establish objectives, then establish means of achieving objectives.” He glanced at me. “Do you want her back?”
I said, “Let’s say I do.”
“OK,” he said. “Then you should go back to London. Right away. It’s a no-brainer.”
I thought, No-brainer? What would happen in London? A seduction with flowers? A ravishment? Then what?
“Otherwise,” Chuck, growing emphatic, said, “you’re in danger of having regrets. My bottom line is, no regrets.”
