HAGUE LETTER:Writers for whom the second World War was a touchstone are disappearing, writes PETER CLUSKEY
A GENERATIONAL shift took place in the world of Dutch literature last month when Harry Mulisch died of cancer at the age of 83. He was the last of Holland’s “big three” post-war writers – and the one regarded as most likely to win the Nobel prize.
Always irreverent – some would say arrogant – Mulisch was best-known outside the Netherlands for his 1982 novel, The Assault, a political thriller set during the German occupation, which became an Oscar-winning film four years later.
Here in Holland though, The Assaultwas eclipsed by his most ambitious work, The Discovery of Heaven, which he published in 1992 at the relatively late age of 65.
More than 700 pages long, when it was reviewed at the time by John Updike in the New Yorker, he didn't hesitate to compare the irascible Mulisch with – believe it or not – Homer, Thomas Mann, Umberto Eco and James Joyce.
The Dutch public apparently agreed and, 15 years after it was first published, The Discovery of Heavenwas voted "the best Dutch-language book ever" in a 2007 newspaper poll.
Always mentioned in the same breath, the other two of the "big three" were Gerard Reve, who died in 2006 and whose novel, The Fourth Man, was filmed by Paul Verhoeven in 1983; and WF Hermans, who died in 1995 and whose novels, The Darkroom of Damoclesand Tears of the Acacias, were set during the second World War.
In technical terms though, what set Harry Mulisch apart was the enormous range of his writing, says fellow novelist, Marcel Möring (53), standard-bearer for a generation that followed Mulisch, Reve and Hermans.
“His work is incredibly unpredictable and I find that fascinating,” says Möring. “That’s what made him unique among Dutch writers since World War II: he dared to tackle anything. That’s admirable, because it’s what a writer needs – to risk failure.”
In tributes, new prime minister Mark Rutte described Mulisch’s death as “a great loss for Dutch literature and for the Netherlands”, while culture minister Halbe Zijlstra described him as irreplaceable.
There is no doubt that the generation of writers for whom the war was a touchstone is disappearing.
In the window display of one of Holland's best-known specialist bookstores, Burgersdijk Niermans, in the university city of Leiden, The Discovery of Heaven – De Ontdekking van de Hemel– features prominently to mark Mulisch's passing.
Inside the bookshop, the popularity of another Dutch writer grounded in the second World War and in her Jewish roots, poet Judith Hertzberg, is fading fast.
Hertzberg – who read in Dublin in 1976 – can only be found in English today by importing her selected poems, But What?, from a small press in the United States, The Irish Timeswas told.
Now in her 70s, Hertzberg is no longer a name on the lips of younger readers or writers. The war, it appears, is no longer relevant. The world and the commercial imperatives of publishing have moved on.
In any case, success in the English-speaking world has always been a lottery for writers in "small languages", no matter how gifted. A film, of course, is the secret to success. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, for instance, brought Czech writer Milan Kundera – now a naturalised French citizen – to a mass audience in 1986.
In 1992, Danish novelist, Peter Høeg, hit the jackpot with Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow, which subsequently became a film. It is a success he so far hasn't managed to repeat.
The movie, Sophie's World, brought the cult novel of the same name to a whole new audience for Norwegian writer Jostein Gaarder at the end of the 1990s – with a string of awards, including, as it happens, an honorary doctorate from TCD in 2005.
Although Henning Mankell and the Wallender detective series have been well known across mainland Europe – particularly in Denmark and Holland – for many years, the feature-length BBC series starring Kenneth Branagh generated a whole new audience in Britain, Ireland and across the English- speaking world for the original Swedish television series as well as for the novels.
A new wave is on the way. If you think, for instance, that Mankell, or perhaps Stieg Larsson, who in 2008 was the second best- selling author in the world, is probably the most profitable author in Sweden, think again.
Sweden’s most profitable author is Camilla Läckberg (36), who has sold three million books in a country of nine million people and who, in 2008, won France’s Grand Prix de Littérature Policière for her Erica Falck series.
You probably haven’t heard of her yet, but any day now they’ll make the film.