Hans Münstermann (1) (1947–)

Written in short sentences, in short fragments, Hou me vast reads swiftly, an interesting story sufficiently complicated to keep the readers'attention. Both the title and the story have the feel of being a movie ripp off, or another sense of familiarity.

Obviously, the story itself is quite universal. An enigmatic teacher at an art university encourages his students to go all the way, and open themselves up, while, as the story progresses it turns out the teacher is holding back, or even hiding something, hiding something personal or something from his past. For most part of the book the teacher appears like a magician, his students seem to be in his thrall. For one of his students this takes the form of a secret love. The novel does not quite deliver on this build-up and the story ends disappointingly.… (altro)

This is a rather dark novel about the rise of a populist politician. The blurb calls it a satire, but Münstermann never quite makes it clear whether it's the central character he's satirising, or the way that society reacts to him, in particular the media and political establishment.

The novel is narrated by Anita, a writer who arranges to spend an election campaign shadowing Harrie Honthorst, an eccentric and outspoken elderly barrister who by some fluke won a seat for his one-man party in the previous election and is now widely expected to disappear from the political scene. It looks as though the campaign is already over a couple of days in, when Honthorst has a row with a party worker and sacks him on stage during a live TV debate.

But then a new figure turns up to replace the sacked man, the suave, intelligent and very young James Moreau. Within a matter of days, Moreau has started to attract the attention of the media in a big way, and has quietly taken over the leadership of the party from Honthorst. He's a clean-cut, house-trained populist-with-a-PhD in the style of Pim Fortuyn and Thierry Baudet (significantly, these two are just about the only names from recent Dutch political life that are never mentioned in this very name-droppy book), who renames the party "Geweldig Oud" (Fabulously Old) and markets himself almost exclusively to elderly voters. His policies are somewhat nebulous — he's going to give old people back the right to hold their heads up high and be proud of their country's achievements, he's going to give them a voice again, and so on, although he never seems to say how. All we know for sure is that he's against immigration and the EU. And that the oldies all love him when they meet him. But he does keep telling everyone that he isn't a racist, and that — like Baudet and Fortuyn — he considers women's rights and LGBT rights as inalienable parts of Dutch culture. But, also like Baudet, he is mysteriously stumped when someone asks him whether he believes black people are less intelligent than whites.

Meanwhile, Honthorst is allowed to roam freely through the press jungle saying totally unacceptable things about black people, euthanasia, and whatever else comes into his head, all of which Moreau can distance himself from as required. Death threats against Moreau increase as the press coverage mounts in the Netherlands and abroad, and his security man Ron achieves whole new levels of paranoia (he would like to live in a world where everyone is covered by facial recognition cameras 24 hours a day).

Right up to polling day, neither we nor Anita are allowed to be quite sure whether Moreau is the sincere champion of the elderly he makes himself out to be, the sinister crypto-fascist-with-a-hidden-agenda the liberal press and his mainstream opponents believe him to be, or as Anita half suspects, just an opportunistic con-man with no convictions at all. There's plenty of evidence for all three possibilities.

A bit predictable, and more in-jokes about Dutch media figures and politicians than really fit into a book of this length, but quite fun in parts.… (altro)