Novel
De teleurgang van den Waterhoek
Not translated into English
Stijn Streuvels · 1927
Synopsis
The Waterhoek, a hamlet of Avelgem on the banks of the Scheldt, has lived apart for generations, linked to the rest of the world by a ferry. A bridge and a road are announced. Old Broeke, who rules the hamlet, leads the resistance, while his son-in-law Sieper sees a promise in it; his son Lander takes part in the murder of two surveyors who have come to stake out the route. The works go on all the same, under the direction of a young engineer, Maurice Rondeau, who is fascinated by Mira, Broeke's granddaughter, whose freedom unsettles all the men of the hamlet.
Context
The novel is drawn from a real event: in the autumn of 1906, the ferry of the hamlet of Rugge, at Avelgem, was abolished and a bridge was opened on 6 September; the man who wrote it had followed the works and formed from that moment the plan for the book, which appeared first in a review and then in volume form in 1927. It was at once judged immoral by part of the Catholic critics. The second edition, in 1939, cuts more than a quarter of it, notably passages on Mira and Maurice, and the later reprints followed this version until 1987; the complete text was not restored until 1999.
Who it is for
A long novel, in a Dutch heavy with West Flemish terms; translated into French in 1943 under the title Le Déclin du Waterhoek.
Prizes and reception
One of the best-known novels of its author, adapted for the cinema in 1971 under the name of its heroine, Mira.