Sprakeloos (Speechless)

The titel is probably a bit strange for the other-than-dutch-speaking out there.
It translates into Speechless for those interested.
I'm not sure this novel has been translated into other languages.

It's from a flemish author who grew up in the same neighborhood I know from spending a few years and in this novel he's telling the story of his mother.
It's a very warm and heartfelt story he tells from her early days until the day she dies.
The reason he needed her story on paper is because she suffered a stroke a few years before she died, losing coherent speech, which marked him terribly.

I loved the story, partly because I know the streets and places he names in his story, mainly because he has the ability to breathe life into the story. It felt like I knew them when I closed the book.
You can't expect a 'novel' when opening this story, he makes that very clear from the beginning, instead you get a collection of memories, recollections and snapshots of his and her past. And I can't think of any better way to honor those who've mattered so much.

Fortunate Slaves

Tom Lanoye is a well known author in Belgium and the Netherlands.
He's quite controversial when no one hadn't jumped on that train and I got to know his style when I read the 'Monster'-trilogy. I don't think it's known outside of Belgium and since it largely depicts the ruinous political landscape of the nineties I don't think it would pack the same punch.
Apart from those three novels I never got back to him.

I actually picked this novel just because he had turned 60 and my library dedicated an entire table to him. I couldn't resist. I'm a sucker for decorated tables and I've gone home with great books because of that habit.

This one can join the gallery of surprisingly good books I've just picked up randomly. It's fun sometimes to read sometimes without any prejudice.

Fortunate Slaves is the story of two men who share the same name and grew up in about the same environment. I can't tell so much without spoiling a bit of the story. Both men are on different continents, but are joined together by more than their name.
Their story is raw, idealistic, naive and sometimes a bit cynical, but overall it is permeated with a sense of luck. Not so much in having luck, but striving for it.
The depiction of Flanders is raw and beautiful. It's like looking at a ruined painting, there's still some beauty in it, but most is in tatters. It's a wrecked kind of magnificence that only the Flemish can truly love and understand. We hate and we love it, at the same time.

For fellow dutchies..