Ray Kluun's Love Life
August 26, 2007 at 10:31 AM
by Ashleigh
I bought some books on Thursday when I visited the dentist.
One of the biggest perks of visiting my dentist is the bookstore on the way there.
It's called Island Bookstore (or het Boekeneiland), is at Westerstraat 15, Amsterdam, and it is a treasure amongst bookstores.
It has an extensive, and extraordinary selection of English fiction, poetry and non-fiction, and books that I don't usually get to browse through otherwise, are there on their shelves.
They also remember me every time I go in, which is rare and unusual.
Well, actually, people usually remember me, so it's not that rare, but it's unusual with the bookstore because I only visit them once every six months when I visit the dentist.
I got a few books this time, including Nicole Krauss' History of Love, but the one I've been most excited about is Ray Kluun's Love Life.
I love that this book is set where I live!
I love that I recognise the addresses and the places and the type of people and the clothing and the lifestyle. Not that I'm one to go clubbing in the Paradiso, but it's somehow very exciting to read a book that's set where you live.
The storyline itself is deceptively simple.
Danny and his wife Carmen and baby Luna lead a wealthy and charmed life, (except for Danny's fear of monogamy), blah blah, and then Carmen gets breast cancer and Danny gets more anti-monogamous.
The comparison is drawn throughout the book between life and death; one character waning, the other waxing.
The subtext is of the emotions of dealing with death and pain, written from a guy's point of view, with some infidelity thrown in for good measure. The sex scenes could have been better, but hey, they were written by a man. You can't expect too much!
The story itself is poignant because it's based on actual events in the life of the author.
Then again, perhaps I feel it's poignant because I fall into the target audience - women in their 30s.
Maybe in our 30s we are more pre-occupied with mortality, the loss of beauty and affection, the passage of time.
Every time Danny has an interval with some firm young flesh and then goes back to the horror of his wife's cancer treatment, it's an conscious reminder to the 30-something woman that for us there could be horrors just around the next corner.
Every time Danny dips himself into some young willing flesh it's a reminder that men don' t worry about the horrors that might lurk around their own corners.
Such inequality in the way we think.
I thought the book had been translated pretty well by Shaun Whiteside but I picked up a few direct conversions from the Dutch that come out a little shaky.
For me that's charming because I know the original phrase that was translated. For someone with no knowledge of Dutch it might seem a bit peculiar.
I like how the translator recreated the direct, almost brutal voice of Danny. I can hear his voice in Dutch while I read the book in English. For me, that makes for a good translation!
I'm going to read the next book, The Widower, in it's original version although I see on Amazon that it's expected to be published in English in April 2008.
If you're interested (and read Dutch) you can read Kluun's blog and an article in the NRC Handelsblad.
Comments
My book club has chosen that book for the next meeting. I won't be there, so I've skipped it. You've reminded me how highly recommended it was. Maybe I should pick it up anyway!
Hi you,
I bought Chris both the 'De Vrouw gaat naar de doktor' and also the sequel to it. Chris loved the first one (hence the purchased sequel) but was not as moved by the widow sequel. He read both in Dutch and remember hearing him chuckling away in bed, and later saying how sad he had felt....
I bought a friend of mine, Kluun's "help, I made my woman pregnant" (something like that...) before his girlfriend gave birth to their daughter and he said, "finally somebody who understands how I feel"...
enjoy it the books ...
Love and kisses
August 26, 2007 9:10 PM