Novel
Character
Karakter
Ferdinand Bordewijk · 1938
Synopsis
In pre-war Rotterdam, Katadreuffe, the son of a poor mother who refused to marry the child's father, grows up in the shadow of that man: Dreverhaven, a powerful bailiff feared by the poor. The boy, eager to learn, vows to become a lawyer. After setbacks, he enters a large firm and applies himself there with unfailing obstinacy, while his father, without ever saying why, stands in the way of his every step, and the young man silences even his feelings.
Context
The novel develops a story published in serial form in 1928 and devoted to the same father and the same son, and owes much to the law firm where its author had begun his career as a lawyer. Written in 1937, it appeared in 1938 from Nijgh & Van Ditmar, in Rotterdam, under the subtitle of a novel of a son and a father. Translated into English by E. M. Prince and into many other languages, it was adapted for the cinema by Mike van Diem in 1997.
Who it is for
A novel of nearly two hundred and fifty pages in Dutch, in a dry prose laden with symbols. It can be read in English.
Prizes and reception
The best-known novel by its author, regarded as canonical in the Netherlands; fifteen votes in 2002, and a film crowned with the Oscar for best foreign film in 1998.