Education

Dutch Literature Special

.chap H.M. van den Brink % On the waterReviewed by: Henry Ismail, from Jakarta, Indonesia, home to 15 million people and a river that is, he says, “so dirty that you’d have to be crazy to go rowing on it.”

Henry studies political science at Leiden University.

Practice…practice…practice. That’s all that matters to Anton, a teenager from a working-class family in Amsterdam. Ever since childhood, Anton has been in love with the river. He sees the river as a movement. When he was a little boy, Anton saw a racing row boat glide by on the water and he was amazed by how the boat could glide so smoothly on the water and how all the rowers in the boat acted as one. He dreamt of being one of them someday. That dream seemed to be too good to be true, however, because the sport of rowing belonged to upper class society. But sometimes miracles happen, and Anton was able to make his dream come true and joined a rowing club. Anton’s partner, David, a Jewish middle-class boy, was appointed by Dr. Schneiderhahn, their German coach, who sometime disappears from time to time for unexplained business trips.

“Don’t you read the papers?” David asks, pointing out Anton’s complete obliviousness to everything outside their small, intense world of training. For Anton, nothing exists in the world except training and rowing. His relation with David is merely rowing partner, not more than that.

All that matters is the time spent on the water in the boat, sharing the supreme effort needed to produce perfect harmony in rowing. H.M.Brink writes very powerfully about class differences and divisions; how the petit-bourgeois snobberies of the members and officers of the rowing club intimidate Anton and how Anton sees David’s life like a golden dream. It’s a nice book to read, full with the emotion of a relationship in the world of athletes, of how they force themselves to be what they dream of and forget the world outside their sport. In the beginning the book seems boring, but it becomes more captivating later on.

.chap H.M. van den Brink % On the water

Reviewed by: Henry Ismail, from Jakarta, Indonesia, home to 15 million people and a river that is, he says, “so dirty that you’d have to be crazy to go rowing on it.” Henry studies political science at Leiden University.

Practice…practice…practice. That’s all that matters to Anton, a teenager from a working-class family in Amsterdam. Ever since childhood, Anton has been in love with the river. He sees the river as a movement. When he was a little boy, Anton saw a racing row boat glide by on the water and he was amazed by how the boat could glide so smoothly on the water and how all the rowers in the boat acted as one. He dreamt of being one of them someday. That dream seemed to be too good to be true, however, because the sport of rowing belonged to upper class society. But sometimes miracles happen, and Anton was able to make his dream come true and joined a rowing club. Anton’s partner, David, a Jewish middle-class boy, was appointed by Dr. Schneiderhahn, their German coach, who sometime disappears from time to time for unexplained business trips.

“Don’t you read the papers?” David asks, pointing out Anton’s complete obliviousness to everything outside their small, intense world of training. For Anton, nothing exists in the world except training and rowing. His relation with David is merely rowing partner, not more than that.

All that matters is the time spent on the water in the boat, sharing the supreme effort needed to produce perfect harmony in rowing. H.M.Brink writes very powerfully about class differences and divisions; how the petit-bourgeois snobberies of the members and officers of the rowing club intimidate Anton and how Anton sees David’s life like a golden dream. It’s a nice book to read, full with the emotion of a relationship in the world of athletes, of how they force themselves to be what they dream of and forget the world outside their sport. In the beginning the book seems boring, but it becomes more captivating later on.

Editor Redactie

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