Customer Reviews

Chapel Road

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A complex but very rewarding book. There are 3 story lines, all at different times in history, but all set in the same part of Flanders, in Belgium, and all portraying a similar image of injustice and despair. Although they may seem unrelated, the attentive reader will soon discover the links. It is one of the most important books of contemporary Dutch literature. However, readers who dislike modernist may want to stay clear of this one. Personally, I do not care much for modernist fiction, but for Louis Paul Boon I am willing to make a big exception, as this is an exceptionally warm and at times humerous book

This is major literature, or, to put it more personally, one of the best novels I can remember reading. Forget "best Flemish" etc.: this is world-class, as revealed by the fact that Boon was shortlisted many times for the Nobel Prize. He has the social awareness and compassion of a Tolstoy or Steinbeck, the literary sophistication of a Kafka or Beckett. You will be dazzled even while you are moved. As one critic said, this has the authority and intensity of a novel written out of psychic necessity, out of passion; Boon was enough of a student of human behavior that everything about his heroine rings true.
The other customer reviews here are all accurate, with one exception: the second volume in this set has by now been translated into English, as "Summer in Termuren," and will be coming out in the summer of 2006. It is reputed to be even better than than this one, though that is hard to imagine. I for one will be standing in line.

Together with its successor, Zomer Te Ter-Muren (not translated!!), this is THE highlight of Dutch literature. Translators/ publishers where are you? It's time for a new print.

words are few, when it comes down to reviewing one of the masterpieces of 20th century writing. It is an absolute shame this book and its author is only known to specialists and freaks, even in the authors home-counrty belgium. read it and tell everyone you know how beautifull, tragic, inspiring, funny, confusing, touching and superb it is. and tell them how it changed your life. this is an absolute masterpiece, if kafka is a 20th century classic, or hemingway or joyce or who-ever, then louis-paul boon is too, no doubt whatsoever.