Anton Koolhaas (1912–1992)

Most stories and novels of Anton Koolhaas are about animals. Stories in which both animals and people appear are often written from the perspective of the animals.

Een schot in de lucht is a short novel or novella in five chapters. The central character in the story is the hound Dian. The main event in the book is a deadly car crash, caused in an attempt to avoid running over another dog in the story, Moppie. However, since the perspective lies with the dogs, the car crash is of minor importance in the life of Dian.… (más)

This turns out to be a form I've never come across before: a picaresque novella! A series of otherwise unrelated scenes are linked by the presence of a randomly-wandering dog, as it abandons the country-house where it is well looked after but not loved, visits a farm, wanders into town, witnesses a road accident, spends some time hanging about a station, and ends up with a depressed and lonely railwayman in his signal-box.

We catch glimpses of complex human and animal stories as the dog passes by, but the dog has always moved on before we get a chance to examine them in detail and see how they are going to end. Both from the animal and the human points of view, the view of life is a fairly bleak one, and definitely meant for adult readers: more Richard Adams than Beatrix Potter, but always with an ironic twist. The animals behave in naturalistic ways, but they have a kind of anthropomorphised consciousness that the narrator can see into. Not the sort of thing I often read, but interesting, and quite nicely done.

Fun, too, to be back in the world of 1962, with lever-frame signal boxes in the middle of nowhere with telegraph bells and buzzers, coal trains, and a station buffet with revolving doors...

In keeping with the picaresque plot, the committee commissioned no fewer than five artists to illustrate a chapter each with line-drawings. Lots of variety in style, as you would expect, and also in form: four of the drawings are double-page spreads, others are little sketches of dogs, birds and flies that pepper the margins. Fun!… (más)

Deed me aan Murikami denken wat betreft de realistische menging van fantasie en werkelijkheid. ik mag dat wel.
Vooral in het eerste deel van het boek wordt meer beschreven van actie en persoonlijke conclusies dan we tegenwoordig nodig vinden. ik wende er aan en zag het maar als een tijdsbeeld.
ik vind dat de schrijver slechter overweg kan met de ideeën, handelingen van de vrouw dan met die van de man.

'translation'
Did me think of Murikami :The realistic mixing of fantasy and reality. I can appreciate that.
In particular in the first part of the book is described more of action and personal conclusions than we think is necessary today. I took it as a time frame.
I think the writer can get along worse with the ideas, the actions of the woman than with those of the man.… (más)