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Life Itself is the first book-length study in English of the great Flemish writer Louis Paul Boon. A.M.A. van den Oever begins by questioning the paradox between Boon's international reputation as a significant innovator of the novel, and the peculiarly reductive biographical interpretations regularly uttered by some of his fellow countrymen and contemporaries. She looks for answers in Boon's misinterpreted "primitive" Flemish and analyzes the so-called refined pseudo-primitive style within both the grotesque tradition (Kafka, van Ostaijen, Gogol) and the skeptical, radical tradition of Nietzsche. In addition, she offers fresh insight into Boon's character Boontje, seen by many as a diminutive for the writer himself, outlining the sublime and slightly sinister relation of this quasi-comical character to its mighty creator.
"It is the story of the author L.P. Boon, who continues his "illegal writing" of the novel "Chapel Road" amid cynical reflections on the work in progress, theories about art, and hilarious anecdotes of Belgian life supplied by his friends."--Back cover
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Set in Belgium shortly after the Allies drove out the Nazis, this novel contains little plot to speak of; rather, it consists of a series of vignettes profiling a few dozen quasi-anonymous characters (many referred to as simply whats-his-name), everyday people whose lives have been made absurd and uncomfortable, if not outright miserable, by the war.
"Spanning two world wars and anticipating a catastrophic future, Louis Paul Boon captures the history of the twentieth century by exploring the twisted, corrupt lives of the inhabitants of one small town - a microcosm for the changing world."--BOOK JACKET.
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