If you ever find yourself in a small village in Flanders, don't despair. Take a deep breath of wet grey air and go for a little walk. The centre markeIf you ever find yourself in a small village in Flanders, don't despair. Take a deep breath of wet grey air and go for a little walk. The centre marked by the closed-off church will have one light to offer: that of one of the local bars. The cold neon lights shine on the stained wooden furniture and faces puffed up by alcohol. The fat laughter that rises from behind the door is difficult to distinguish from the profanities that precede and follow it. You ignore the bar, you will encounter many more during your short walk. You will take one of the many small roads leading up to the fields and enjoy the silence there for a moment.
Maybe you start wondering what the point of this walk is. It is the following: you climb over one of the fences, get down on your knees and plunge your hand in the earth. You grab a fistful of this dark earth and green wet grass and you hold on to it, you squeeze it as you feel the raw essence get under your fingernails. You open your hand and rub the stuff all over your face. You let the smell of earthen freshness overpower you. You'll try standing up but instead you will lay down on your back, look at the ghostly rainclouds and smile, until you smell the tinge of shit emanating from the sticky stuff on your face. You look in your hand and see that it bleeds as it pulsates under the black goo. You get up to wash your hands and quickly find the watering trough but it's as dry as your throat.
I think that fistful of Flemish earth is an apt metaphor for the reading of this book. It's fresh and it's dirty. The book is often bleak and miserable but there's a spark of wit and some unexpected flashes of wisdom and tenderness. And most of all: it's REAL. It's as real and true as the wet, fertile earth that life is made of. It's a book that's unapologetic about its baseness and confident in its ultimate eminence.
I tend to avoid Flemish literature. All my experiences with it were the same: depressing. All the Flemish books I've read have one thing in common: they managed to make me a little more unhappy. They all have this chilling breeze of muted despair blowing through them. Even though "De Helaasheid der Dingen" has this same tone of hopelesness, I feel pride for this book, precisely because of its flashes and sparks. It makes me want to push this book into a stranger's hands and say: "Here. Read this. This is of our people."
The pride I feel is unwarranted however. I have to admit I myself felt like a stranger in this book. If I would have entered one of the bars at any given point in the story, I'd be greeted as an outsider and tested for drinking skills or folcloric wisecracks. I'd be asked for subtle testaments of my despair. I'd fail miserably and be violently thrown out of the bar. I'd readjust my glasses, go back to my happy home and would feel a strange longing to be part of this band of hard-to-like drunks.
Flanders has many faces. The one the author shows in this book has got an abundance of scars and rotten teeth, but it's the prettiest face I've seen....more
I've recently discovered this fine collection of L'âme des peuples, a series of booklets covering stories about countries and cities all over the worlI've recently discovered this fine collection of L'âme des peuples, a series of booklets covering stories about countries and cities all over the world. Originally published in French and all sporting wonderful cover art, they comprise a general, elaborate and wide-ranging introduction by the author and a bunch of interviews with people who live there. I had already gotten my hands on the French volumes on Iran and Israel when I also spotted a small English volume on my own city of Brussels.
I say "my own" city, but by no means am I a zinneke or a Bruxellois. Hailing from Ghent and after a detour in Vienna I arrived in Brussels just a little under five years ago, looking for a post of profitable pecuniary emolument, easy access to culture and a growing circle of international friends . This search was reasonable succesful at first as I was initiated into the Eurobubble, full of young Eurocrats keen to meet "local Belgians", and was welcomed into the vibrant professional community of Flemish civil servants.
After this relatively short time, I've recently bought a place to call my own just outside of the city centre. The shine of those first experiences has worn off, but the charm is still there. When I exit my appartment, close to Gare du Midi and the bustling Sunday market, I can take a left or a right.
The right will take me to Anderlecht, one of the poorer quarters of the city. Oranges are lying near porches after having been used to sterilise heroin needles. Trash is left carelessly on the curb, old sofas, stained mattresses and bulky plastic toys. Families gather and have dinner parties on the street that last well into the evening. People don't stay inside here, they stand in front of doors, at their homes, cafés or the city hall. They stand, talk and give a sad look to the strangers passing by.
When I take a left, I end up on a quaint little square with a fountain for children to play in, a couple of terraces and a community of homeless people who regularly get into fights. Continuing behind the square is a long boulevard that seems to come directly out of the Maghreb, the street lined with Tunisian bakers, Maroccan butchers and Algerian tea-houses. To my left, at Anneessens square, there's a white tent and policemen around it. A murder was committed. A bit further down that same street is the city centre, now a pedestrian area with Belgian bars and Irish pubs, fancy shops and dozens of kebab stands. Chances are there are some music or dance sensions going on in front of the Bourse building, with a cheering crowd and some drunk stragglers.
When I take a left there I end up in St.-Gery, with more bars, and the Flemish quarter of Dansaert, with its sprawling art and fashion scene, micro-breweries and the best fish restaurants hidden amongst the worst tourist traps.
I've just described a 25 minute walk. You walk around in one version of Brussels, only to take a left or a right and find yourself in a completely different one. This can be good news, as you can stumble upon a beautiful patch of green or a hidden coffeeshop when taking one of these turns. Other turns can prove less pleasant when you suddenly find yourself surrounded by menacing looks and closed shutters.
As in every big city, the pitfalls of loneliness and frustration lurk behind corners and in stranger's eyes, but despite my dwindling circle of international friends, as many of them hastily vacate the area to start up families, follow their career paths or find their roots again, I find a city brimming with opportunities sitting behind my window. Never mind the terrorist threat, never mind Trump calling this a "hellhole". The food is excellent, property prices are affordable and people are funny here, their humour a combination of the British dry wit and the French love of funny faces, but with a little less cynicism and a little more absurdity. The Bruxellois love to speak up. The maze of political governing bodies and the people in it are the kind of joke only a Bruxellois could come up with in one of his moments of absurdity, so we have to.
Yet, at times, while I can call this place my home by now, I still feel like a stranger and an observer when I go on my habitual walks. I thought this booklet could be a way of getting to know my capital a little better.
The book mainly confirmed many things I already knew. For one, languages are a thing here. French and Dutch (Flemish) are the official languages, French being the dominant one while Flemish tries to hold its little fort. I often catch myself asking for the bill or doing other shopping transactions in French, given the awkwardness of getting a puzzled look when expressing myself in my native tongue. Many Flemish people, especially those outside of Brussels, vehemently oppose to this practice as I'm eroding our common identity whilst trying to enrich mine (and basically get served what I want). I must help to hold the fort! It doesn't help that Brussels isn't popular in the north of Belgium, considered a territory lost to the French language, immigrants and crime. English and Arabic are gaining ground, but with so many nationalities running around here it would be remiss of me not to mention Spanish, Romanian, Russian, Italian and a whole swathe of other languages you can hear on the metro. I guess this goes for many big cities, but how many have their street names in two languages?
Another thing here is Europe, of which Brussels is called its heart. Eurocrats are earning money, hooking up with each other and living in their own little part of the city, the "European Quarter". Also, they're not paying any taxes. Some of them consider this city purgatory, others inevitably lose their heart to its enduring and mystic charm and stay here a lifetime.
Another thing is inequality. You've got these rich Eurocrats and expats and bankers and antique dealers and artists on the one hand, and you've got the unemployed and the homeless and the less succesful artists on the other, with civil servants like me snuggly in between. While all of them keep to their own closed communities, Brussels is not divided geographically among them, giving room to plenty of encounters, friendly and otherwise.
What new stuff has this book taught me? Some historical tidbits I guess, but not many, which is odd given the fact that one of the interviewees is a historian and that I didn't know much of the history to begin with. Upon being asked about the origins of the statue of the peeing boy, Manneken Pis, the historian goes no further than to state the self-derisive character of Brussels' inhabitants and leaves it at that.
Also, for a book published in February 2017, it's already getting a bit out of date. It expresses its solemn hope and faith in the new mayor, Yvan Mayeur, who got involved in a scandal a couple of weeks ago and had to step down. It mentions a bar called "Flamingo" as an enduring landmark in the bar scene. It's a pity that it closed down before summer and got replaced with a gourmet burger joint. That's a problem. While this book conveys the Brussels identity reasonably well, as it set out to do, it relies more on contemporary anecdotes rather than historical analysis, making it useful for only a small window of time. The three interviewees come from similar, rather intellectual, backgrounds, which doesn't help in conveying the abundance of voices and perspectives that dwell here. In short, this book might as well have been a longread in a monthly magazine, but it does offer an entertaining introduction to the city for those not home in it. Just read it quickly, because it's got an expiry date. Brussels isn't going to be sitting on its hands. At least, that's what one hopes.
We've got an iron atom the size of a cathedral and a peeing boy statue the size of a duck as monuments. Our air is instant cancer. Our pedestrian zone is a portion of a road intended for cars but blocked off by plants. Our latest mayor stole from the homeless. Our historical Bourse building will likely become a Beer Temple for tourists. Our cafés are world wonders. So no, Brussels is not an ordinary city. Is any, I wonder?...more
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