ELSSCHOT, Willem 1882-1960

(Alphonsus Josephus de Ridder)

PERSONAL: Born Alphonsus Josephus de Ridder, May 7, 1882, in Antwerp, Belgium; died May 31, 1960. Education: Higher Institute of Business Science, certificate in business, consular, and colonial science.

CAREER: Writer, beginning 1913. Held various jobs in businesses in Paris, the Netherlands, and Belgium; founder of publicity agency, beginning 1911.

WRITINGS:

Lijmen, L. J. Janssens & Zonen (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 1924, translation published as Soft Soap, 1965.

Tsjip, Van Kampen (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 1934.

De leeuwentemmer, Van Kampen (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 1940.

Het tankschip, Van Kampen (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 1941.

Het dwaalicht (title means, "Will o' the Wisp"), Van Kampen (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 1946.

Also author of Villa des roses (title means "Villa of the Roses"), 1913; De verlossing, 1921; Een oontgoocheling (title means "A Deception"), 1921; Kaas (title means "Cheese"), 1933; Verzen van vroeger (title means "Poems of Long Ago"), 1934; Pensioen, 1937; Het been (title means "The Leg"), 1938; Verzameld werk, 1976; and Zwijgen kan niet verbeterd worden, 1979.

SIDELIGHTS: Willem Elsschot was a Flemish novelist and poet. Despite Dutch resistance to Flemish literature, he nevertheless managed to exert a strong influence on the literature of the Netherlands. Elsschot grew up in a middle-class family. Expelled from school when he was sixteen, he later earned a certificate in business, consular, and colonial science from the Higher Institute of Business Science. After working for a South American businessman in Paris, he moved to the Netherlands and worked for various businesses. In 1911 he went back to Belgium and worked as a bookkeeper in Brussels until the beginning of World War I. When the war began, he and his family fled to Antwerp, where he began his own publicity agency, and where he spent the rest of his life.

Elsschot began writing poetry in 1900, but his poems did not appear in book format until 1934, with the publication of Verzen van vroeger. He also wrote several novels, which were poorly received by critics. Perhaps as a result of this, and as a result of his knowledge of business practices, Elsschot became cynical, and this attitude is reflected in his characters. For example, in Villa des roses, published in 1913, the main characters are a cynical boarder, Grunewald, and a sweet maid, Louise, who both live in a boarding house where everyone is lonely and depressed.

In the semi-autobiographical Een oontgoocheling, written in 1914 and published in 1921, Elsschot tells the story of a boy whose father wants him to become a lawyer. The boy is not interested in school and ultimately drops out. Without an education he moves from job to job, never quite finding his calling. Although the young protagonist is not particularly unhappy about this state of affairs, his father is increasingly upset and depressed, taking his son's apparent failure on himself. When the father fails to be elected president of his card club, it becomes a calamity to him.

Lijmen introduced the characters Laarmans and Boorman, con men extraordinaire who will reappear in several more of Elsschot's novels. Boorman is a tough, crass businessman and Laarmans is a sensitive man forced into business by the need to make a living. While Boorman scams customers, Laarmans feels sorry for them. In the Encyclopedia of World Literature, Judica H. Mendels wrote that these two characters "most likely express the two sides of the author's personality. Elsschot was a tough businessman, but also a sensitive, dreamy poet, who warmly sympathized with those suffering from illness, old age, loneliness, or poverty; he pointed with sarcasm to the weak spots in capitalistic society, represented by Boorman, for whom money is more important than happiness."

In 1934 Elsschot was "discovered" by Jan Greshoff and Menno ten Braak, who published ten of his poems in their literary magazine Forum. This success encouraged Elsschot to resume writing after a ten-year hiatus, and within a month he finished a novel, Kaas. In this book Laarmans fails at his wholesale cheese business because he is too honest.

Elsschot's last novel, Het dwaalicht, is his masterpiece, according to Mendels. In the novel, Laarmans appears, without Boorman. Accompanied by three Afghan sailors who ask him for help in finding a particular address, he wanders through Antwerp, looking for a woman named Maria who is supposed to be at that address. During this adventure he feels free, unencumbered by routine or convention. In the end, however, he returns to his family.

According to Mendels, Elsschot is "one of the best novelists Flanders has produced." She praised his emphasis on ordinary, middle-class people, his examination of the troubles people cause in each other's lives, and his clear language. In Who's Who in Twentieth-Century Literature, Martin Seymour-Smith wrote: "Elsschot, a superb stylist, is one of the best of tough-tender European novelists of his time."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Encyclopedia of World Literature in the Twentieth Century, 3rd edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1999.

Seymour-Smith, Martin, Who's Who in Twentieth-Century Literature, Holt (New York, NY), 1976.

PERIODICALS

Dutch Crossing, April, 1989, p. 107; spring, 1991, p. 3.

Saturday Review, July 2, 1966, p. 23.

Times Literary Supplement, March 3, 1966, p. 157.*