Conserve (1947)

I started to read the complete works of W.F. Hermans. His first novel Conserve was somewhat unexpected. The story takes place in the U.S. and starts with the history of complete different characters, a few from the mormon community and one is a descendant of the American indians. Quite ambitious choice, but when you read on you'll know why W.F. Hermans is considered as one of the greatest writers in the modern Dutch (or even European) literature.

When I started I got the impression the story was all about critisizing the way religions act as a authority over people lifes in a quite cynical way. As I read on the story seemed to be more about individuals that are being judged (and even being hospitalized) for being different. Individuals that are questioning everything, even the purpose of their existence. In this context, considered his great style of bringing a lot of irony and absurdism to the table, the book really has a great story.

Here's a nice quote that reflects it's theme, roughly translated: "We're both lonely and weird. We both don't really know on which things we still may hope. What is it we still want? We've left almost nothing untried. Why did we try like that? We haven't told the half of all that we've done, but it's clear we've tried to get results that weren't really results."

But even though W.F. Hermans is known for revisioning all of his stories until the end of his life, some story lines start really messy and feel somehow incomplete compared to the rest of the story.

Nevertheless I can really recommend this book if you simply want to be blown away.

More about Conserve can be found here (in dutch).