June Books 12) Het Verdriet van België / The Sorrow of Belgium, by Hugo Claus

[nwhyte]

This is another of those classic Belgian novels, a largely autobiographical account of a boy growing up in rural Flanders in the years just before, during and after the Second World War. I read it in the original Dutch, and at 715 pages I think that is the longest book I have ever read in a language other than English. It took me almost a month,

Comments

[londonkds]

Maybe use broad Yorkshire for the narration and dialogue, with "tha"?

[catsittingstill]

Interestingly enough, my parents, when they taught me a few phrases of Dutch because Oma was coming to visit, taught me "Dank u well." I think when they were growing up (which would have been in the 1930s or so) children addressed parents, and I suppose other adult relatives, with "u."

When my cousin Corien came to visit, when I was about 12, I tried using my Dutch on her only to be firmly corrected. "You say 'je' to me; I am not 'u'." I think that was when I learned there were two forms and people really cared which one I used.

Now as I study Dutch I see "je" and "u" but the books say "u" is pretty much for strangers, and, my friends and relatives assure me, generally elderly strangers at that. I kind of wonder if "u" is in the process of disappearing in the Netherlands--or at least in Amsterdam and Veldhoven, where the relatives I visited lived.

[pvaneynd]

Uneducated ranting from a native speaker follows ;)

At least in Belgium after the 1960's there was a general move away from 'U' towards 'jij' or in reality 'ge'. At the same time people stopped saying 'Mr Van Eynde' all the time and moved to 'Peter'. So I think it was part of a general move away from authoritarianism towards a more egalitarian society.

That being said in Flanders there seems to be a trend of using fixed expressions, and for example 'Dank U' (thank you) is pretty much fixed in place, even if you are not addressing an 'elder'. I'm using it even towards children. I notice from Dutch TV that over there people do say 'Dank je', but to my ears it just sounds wrong.

"Dank ge" is not used and in fact means 'do you think' in a local dialect...

A little experiment using google:

site:.be "Dank je" -> 318K results
site:.be "Dank U" -> 762K results

site:.nl "Dank U" -> 1480K results
site:.nl "Dank je" -> 2940K results

This seems to confirm my impression I'm happy to note.

nice review!

[pvaneynd]

Your review almost makes me want to read it again.... almost ;)