Bonita Avenue (part 1)

Once in a decennium a book impresses me so much that it turns into an obsession. In 2002 I read ‘Captain Corelli’s Mandoline’. I mourned almost ten years (I’m a slow mourner) for the fact I had finished the book.

The mourning process actually took place in the five stages of grief. First denial: I read it over and over again, but skipped the last page. Then anger. I was angry because I couldn’t read anything else. Every other book felt like an insult to Mister Bernières prose. Friends saw me suffering and kindly suggested literature they were very fond of, but actually they put our friendship at risk suggesting I should read Paustovski or Tsjechov. In the third stage, bargaining, I set myself goals: I had to give this book as a present at least once a week, to spread the beauty. Complete depression I felt when not everyone shared my admiration, to be honest, almost no one I knew. And in the last stage, acceptance, when I had told myself maybe this was just a phase in my life I had to go through to acquire a natural selection of my friends, it happened again. I was really unprepared for this. 

I’m talking about ‘Bonita Avenue’ by Peter Buwalda. The title is not appealing at all, nor the cover of the book. I remembered a news flash about it when it had been first brought out. Somebody had torn the cover, in several book stores. At that time I thought that it was just a way of promoting this book, bringing out a rumour that mystifies the public. Didn’t work on me. If it wasn’t for a student, who I gave an instruction to write a book review to practice his praising skills, which were apparently very good, I would never have read it.

By the time I finished the first page, I had stopped reading twice. Firstly to get my highlighter. The metaphors and comparisons were so brilliant I wanted to mark them for my students (‘see, this is how a metaphor should be like’. I stopped highlighting when I saw my book turn into a fluorescent yellow sea). The second time I stopped was to cancel all the dates I had further on that week.

What makes this book so brilliant? I’m not fond of admitting it, but it has something to do with the typical Dutch scenery. What I dislike in other Dutch books, is that writers hesitate to reveal the village or city. They give hints, but they don’t want to spoil their chances for international film rights. Buwalda couldn’t care less. He recreates Utrecht in the seventies, the firework catastrophe in Enschede, the University setting of Enschede. 

The troubling part of the book is that there is nothing to hold on to. The characters of the protagonists are extremely complicated. As a reader you are hopelessly trying to cling to a person that you want to identify yourself with. But as soon as you reach that point, that person unexpectedly does something disgusting. At the same time, Buwalda manages to make you feel compassion with the one you were very sure was the bad guy. There are no heroes and no winners.

That’s not new, but the way Buwalda handles it, is. The most intriguing challenge he took on was dealing with subjects you have always considered to be a part of boys magazines: mathematics, judo, pornography. No writer that takes literature seriously would  even think of making that central themes. 

Buwalda seemed to give priority to the plot, something that partly explains my unbridled enthusiasm because for me, plot is everything. He wanted to write a book in which a successful person, a judoka, finds out that his daughter has a lucrative business in pornographic photographs on the internet. But it can’t be coincidence when he’s on the internet once and reveals this secret. So Buwalada decided to make the judoka an injured one, who changed his career into mathematics, someone who spends his life on probability and statistics. So the plot imposed requirements on his characters. This had very radical consequences for his book. He had to make him a top mathematician, one who won the Fields-medal, but how can you do that when you’re not a mathematician yourself? So Bulwalda had to write at least two scenes that could convince the reader of the mathematic intelligence of his protagonist. 

A not unimportant part of my adoration is Buwalda’s own obsession. He knew that if he wanted to have impact as a writer, he would have to give his life to it. In an interview he reveals that he shut himself up for four years and wrote almost manically on this book. He had got a payment of forty thousand euro’s in advance from the publisher  to whom he had shown his outline. That’s is not much of a four years living. When he had finished his twenty one chapters, he printed it in a nice font and started to read. It was terrible. It was no good at all. He panicked, called a friend and said: ‘I really need your help.’ But the friend refused and told him he just had to go through this phase by himself. So Peter started to rewrite. He graded every chapter. There was only one chapter that deserved a 6,5 (out of 10), all the others scored between the 2 and the 4. And then the big recovery started. Peter worked his way up until all chapters had a 9 or a 10.  It was only then when it was good enough to hand it over to the publisher. 

Deep down, during the rare moment I allow myself to look at my deepest ambitions, this is the life I long to. Arrange myself a life in which it is possible to withdraw myself from the social pressure and create literature. Instead of that, I arranged a life that is full of pressure and obligations, apparently because I don’t dare to make the sacrifice and release all safety belts. In this book, the reader is embraced by the sacrifices Buwalda made, by his unconditional devotion to make every word of his story the best one possible.  His book leaves us with a terribly paradoxical feeling: a great relief that the scenes of terror are finally over and a deep feeling of depression that it is already over. 

Peter Buwalda won two debutant prizes. He was in the running for three prestigious literature prizes but didn’t win. In contrast to my experience with Bernières, I started to read the books that were obviously better than Buwalda’s, according to the jury. Maybe in a few years, when I look back, I can mark this period in my life as the ‘anger stage of the grieving process’ but I developed a complete and coherent conspiracy theory on literature prizes and why Buwalda didn’t win. That will the subject of my next writing task.  

How I wiped out a restaurant

Suddenly, it was about four months ago, we had an unexpected evening off. All children were staying at grandmothers or aunts and we were looking at a night with the two of us. Immediately, we got scared, because we had ran out of conversation material a long time ago. So we booked a movie starting at half past eight. Shall we go out for an early dinner? Great idea. We gathered around the laptop and went through restaurant review sites looking for a restaurant close to the movie theatre. A small never heard of restaurant called Ed’s kitchen, a Thai restaurant, popped up in the results several times, awarded with grades like 9,5, 9,8 and even one 10 (all out of ten, according to our aberrant metric system). Reviewers praised the quality of the food, especially compared to the price, the accessibility, the hospitality. According to the website, it was recommended to make reservations. My husband grabbed the phone, but no one answered. We started to get a little worried. What if the place was already fully booked? But one hour later, the telephone rang and we were really surprised to hear the a nice young man on the other end of the line. ‘I saw you called, what can I do for you?’ Now, that was service! Actually, the restaurant was fully booked, but he could cram a small table in, if we wouldn’t mind. Our expectations rose by the minute.

We arrived at seven o’clock at a small, plain looking restaurant. There were at most seven tables and every table was taken, except for a very small table close to the bar. A very open and friendly, Caucasian man welcomed us as if he had known us for his whole life. We ordered traditional Thai beer and studied on the menu, a piece of paper that had just come out of the printer. There were about 20 dishes on the menu, with prices around € 8,-. How cheap! Is this a snack bar? The place had an open kitchen and we were able to see a very petite Thai lady working like a Trojan. I ordered ‘fish in three flavours’, my husband choose the beef curry (his dish was expensive: € 10,-). 

Twenty minutes later our food arrived. And a few minutes after that, we entered heaven. We didn’t talk any more, we just ate. We both wanted to eat faster and faster and at the same time we didn’t want to run low on our meals, which was an extremely difficult standoff. As soon the bottom of our plates was in sight, we were overwhelmed by a feeling of disappointment. When the waiter arrived, we were licking our plates, ashamed, uncontrollably, completely helpless. Someone else made us do that, it was beyond ourselves. And when he asked: ‘Was everything all right?’ I’m afraid we gave him a retarded look. It was the most idiotic rhetorical question we had ever heard. It is that we had to catch the movies, otherwise I think we would have ordered another dish. 

When I paid the bill and my eyes glazed down the small saloon, I did a quick math and concluded: ‘I don’t understand how you can make a living out of this. Your prices are really too low.’ And then he told me how he met his wife in Thailand, how he brought her and mother over to The Netherlands, how the dishes are all authentic, prepared according to original Thai family recipes and how he thought the concept of his restaurant would eventually work out. He didn’t want to earn a lot of money, he just wanted to be happy. I insisted on my statement that he should really double his prices and that I would still think it was worth the deal. He replied: ‘Maybe once, but we are now fully booked every night and the clients are happy and that is why I do it.’ Needless to say that I left the restaurant with a very satisfied feeling and a lot of money unspent. And off course with the intention of coming back a lot of times.

Not so many weeks later, after mentioning the restaurant to a lot of people, when I wanted to take my children out to dinner, I went to the website to make reservations. There were a few new lines on the homepage: ‘As suggested we changed our concept. We hope to welcome you soon.’ It seemed directly addressed to me, and I felt a little honoured. That night, we were welcomed as old friends by the waiter. ‘Did you see that we changed our concept?’ he asked expectantly. ‘Yes I did, and how did it work out for you?’ I asked. ‘Well, I think it will take some time,’ he answered, showing me the nicest smile ever, which couldn’t conceal a hint of worry. It was already seven o’clock, and we were the first guests. When we left, two hours later – I had ordered the ‘fish in three flavours' again and although it hadn’t been as magical as the first time and I could resist to lick my plate it was still delightful- only one other table was taken. The bill was twice as high as the first time. ‘ Good for you,’ I said. ‘You really deserve to make a good living out of this place.’ ‘I know’ he said. ‘My wife is seven months pregnant and she works really hard in the kitchen. I hope we can afford to take some time off when the baby comes.’ 

Three weeks ago, on a Sunday evening, I didn’t feel like cooking and I suggested our family to go out the Thai. My suggestion was warmly received and we took off. As soon as we arrived, I realised I didn’t reserve a table for the five of us. Surprisingly, it hadn’t been necessary. We were the only guests. The printed menu contained less than ten items but thank god, the fish was still on it. Nevertheless, it took our friends more than an hour to serve dinner. I was hungry, shoved my fish in and forgot that once upon a time it brought me in heaven. My children compared the special Thai chicken wings with ‘chicken nuggets’ if the big M (Mam, why don’t we get a present?) and my husband stayed cranky that his beef curry had vanished from the menu.

Paying the bill, I asked Ed, as I knew him by now, if things had gotten better. ‘Well, it is hard. My wife is due in four weeks and we have a replacement chef, but that doesn’t work out fine. And the guests seem to have forgotten where we are.’ Ed looked a little nervous. ‘We will never forget you,’ I said firmly and I withstood the urge to hug him. In the car, back home, our clothes smelt awful. The eldest said: ‘We would have smelt the same way if we had put the fryer on at home’. 

Last week, I drove past the restaurant. On the window, there was a big sign. ‘For rent’. It hurt me like a knife. The fish in three flavours was blown away by sadness. The taste of remorse in three flavours.

Advice to a foreigner: don’t be surprised, just be amazed (Dutch saying)

Last week, Julie asked me:  ‘Have you read the Undutchables?’
‘Well, yes of course.’ Immediately the birthday party and the small toilets as two of the strangest Dutch peculiarities came to my mind.
‘And were you able to laugh about it?’
Of course, indeed. I think of myself as a person with a lot of self-reflection and self-criticism, and I’ve always doubted whether my ancestors were really Dutch.
Julie: ‘I met a lot of Dutch people who didn’t think it was funny at all.’

The reason for that is explained on the first page of The Undutchables, where  Dutch people are characterized as self-conceited, idle, judging, jealous, rude, stingy, tactless, undiplomatic  and generally impolite people. In short: narrow-minded people in an even narrower country.  

Julie went on: ‘Maybe you can write for you next assignment a piece on how ex-pats can survive strange Dutch customs.’

That put me into a difficult situation. Simply because I just can’t imagine how a foreigner must feel when he or she sets foot on our clay or moor grounds.  

When I read The Undutchables for the first time, every sentence hit me like a knife. I didn’t need any more conviction; this was a hundred per cent true. But I couldn’t have noticed it myself. I never felt like I lived in a doll’s house, everything being so petite, crowded and crammed, and I never questioned the our public transport manners. The only way to get a proper seat in the train is to join in with the pushing and shoving. 

Only from a foreigner’s point of view, we are sitting in a ‘circle of death’, a doctor’s waiting room, at a birthday party, ordering coffee and cake from the person who is celebrating his birthday by working his ass off. I always had a hunch it was kind of strange to say ‘gefeliciteerd’ to every guest already in this circle (I heard from an expat that he thought a girl introduced herself as Felicity and he was very confused when all the party guest seem to have the same name), but I never made that a point of discussion either.

I never thought of our toilets being claustrophobically small, and I never had any trouble to finds the thing that flushes it. 

I never realised that the bicycle is a nationwide conducted mascot, and that we derive our identity from it. Actually, we are busy making Holland a safe place for cyclists and it never occurs to us that non-cyclists could experience them as  dangerous high speed vehicle driving aliens. 

To make fun of a nation, foreigners are needed. They help us question the customs that we can’t even comprehend ourselves. For instance:  Carnaval and Sinterklaas. Need I say more? (I’m working on a piece that describes the customs, backgrounds, and history of the latter convention, but I can’t find synonyms to avoid the words ‘slavery’ and ‘dirty old man threatening little kids’.)

But due to the national character of the Dutch, it is difficult to laugh about ourselves. We are haughty and proud-hearted and we tend to patronize other cultures.  We are full of unsolicited advice and have an opinion on everything, as long as it has no consequences. And the few who thought Holland was too small, founded a new Holland in a bigger country, a painful remembrance of our colonial past.  

If you keep in mind how the Dutch think about themselves, it is really hard to believe that there is no country in the world that has the same unintellectual, shallow-brained,  sordid, distasteful, rancid, mouldy reality TV like Holland. For instance: Oh oh Gerso, The Villa, Brabantse Nachten. Even Booze Britain is civilized compared to these programs. Apparently, millions of people like to watch eight singles in a luxurious house with gallons of alcohol and camera’s everywhere. Let’s call this the Dutch paradox. 

I come to the conclusion that we are not the glorious nation we want it to be. My advice to foreigners? Have a big laugh. Find nationals of your own. Make fun of the Dutch. Write a bestseller. And after that: just blend in. To reassure you: it is possible to survive Holland without dying. Or maybe better: teach us your tricks. Because I can tell you: if you invite Dutch people over to the pub, you’re making friends. That is: if you pay the bill.