Willem van Toorn

Omtrent Kapelaan, en andere verhalen is a collection of six short stories by Willem van Toorn. The first story, also the longest, Omtrent Kapelaan is immediately recognizable and captivating, about a teacher who is inspiring while being a rather eccentric person. Other than other teachers, fully original, great with students and a disaster for the school administration, this is the type of story and the type of character that many people enjoy reading (about). However, like some of the longer stories in Pestvogels, Van Toorn cannot maintain the arc of the story, and essentially the story is too long. The story is unsuccessful because other characters and blended in and the story meanders through other ideas, blurring both meaning and intent of the story.

At least until about 20 years ago, short story collections had an overarching theme that connected each of the stories in the collection. This is clear for some of the stories in this collection. The idea to what extent eccentricity is accepted in society, and how much freedom we are allowed can be discerned in several of the stories in this collection, worked out in entirely different stories.… (más)