Hella S Haasse – She Reads Novels

Translated by Ina Rilke

Since reading Hella S. Haasse’s In a Dark Wood Wandering, I’ve been looking forward to reading more of her books. This one, The Black Lake, is on both my Classics Club list and 20 Books of Summer list and is also perfect for this year’s Women in Translation Month. Always good when one book counts towards multiple projects!

First published in 1948 as Oeroeg, this book is considered a Dutch classic and is apparently often taught in Dutch schools. Now that I’ve read it, I can see why it would be a popular choice with schoolteachers; it’s a short novella (under 140 pages in my edition so doesn’t take long to read), is written from the perspective of a young protagonist, and deals with the subject of colonialism in Indonesia, formerly the Dutch East Indies.

Our unnamed narrator is the son of a Dutch planter and his wife and grows up on their tea plantation in Preanger (now Priangan), West Java. As a child, he forms a close friendship with Oeroeg, the son of his father’s estate manager, and soon the two are inseparable. The narrator becomes vaguely aware that his parents and their servants disapprove of his attachment to a ‘native boy’, but with the innocence of childhood he has no idea why. However, when Oeroeg’s family is struck by tragedy, his father feels a sense of duty to the boy and reluctantly allows the friendship to continue. It’s only when he and Oeroeg start to attend school that the narrator begins to understand that their lives will never be able to follow the same path and that society has different expectations for each of them. During World War II, he leaves to serve in the Dutch army and on his return he finds that neither Oeroeg nor Indonesia are the same as when he went away.

The Black Lake is a beautifully written book, with lovely, vivid descriptions of the island of Java – the mountains, the rivers and the black lake of the title, Telaga Hideung, where one of the story’s pivotal scenes takes place. Ina Rilke’s English translation flows smoothly and is easy to read, while keeping in place some Dutch words and terms which can be looked up in the glossary at the back of the book if needed.

With the whole story being told from the perspective of a boy from a white Dutch colonial family, it’s both interesting and limiting. If Haasse was writing this book today, I think she would be expected to include the perspective of the oppressed people as well as the colonists – or maybe not write it at all and leave the story for an Indonesian author to tell. But in the context of the 1940s, when it was published, it gives some fascinating insights into the colonial mindset and I’m sure Haasse will have drawn on some of her own experiences and views (she was born in Indonesia herself and spent most of her first twenty years there).

Although I found this a powerful book, it’s not really one that I can say I ‘enjoyed’. The writing style was too dreamlike and distancing for me to fully engage with and the narrator’s story left me with a feeling of sadness. He’s naive, oblivious and looks back on his earlier years with what seems to be a fond nostalgia for an idyllic childhood, with a lack of understanding that, for Oeroeg, it was hardly idyllic at all. Oeroeg is the centre of the narrator’s life, yet there’s no indication that Oeroeg feels the same way or places much value on their friendship. Oeroeg proves to be the most socially and politically aware of the two and eventually the narrator is in the uncomfortable position of having stayed the same while everyone and everything around him has changed.

Of the two Haasse books I’ve read, I preferred the much longer In a Dark Wood Wandering, but am glad I read this one as well. If you’ve read any of her other books which are available in English translations, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

This is book 19/20 of my 20 Books of Summer 2024.

This is also book 45/50 from my second Classics Club list

“Doesn’t it seem to you that we have, all of us – the King and I and our good friends – wandered off into a forest of the night, filled with wolves and sly foxes? The darkness holds endless danger, we are stranded with no torch to protect us…We are lost in the Forest of Long Awaiting, a wilderness without prospect.”

Hella S Haasse’s In a Dark Wood Wandering was the book chosen for me in the last Classics Club Spin just before Christmas, a result I was very happy with as I’d wanted to read this book for years. The deadline for finishing our Spin books was the end of January, but I knew I would need longer as I could tell when I started reading that this was the sort of book that required concentration and couldn’t be rushed.

First published in Dutch in 1949, an English translation by Lewis C Kaplan appeared in 1989 and although, sadly, I am unable to read the book in its original language, it doesn’t feel as though anything has been lost in translation – certainly not the beauty of the writing.

Set during the Hundred Years War, mainly in France but later in England, the novel begins in 1394 with the birth of a son to Louis, Duke d’Orléans and his wife, Valentina Visconti. Louis’ brother, Charles VI of France, suffers episodes of madness which leave him unfit to rule and Louis, at this time, is one of the most powerful men in France. However, there are others who are also able to wield influence over the king and Louis seems to be locked in never-ending conflict with the royal houses of Burgundy, Bourbon and Berry. It is into this world of power struggles, political intrigue and shifting alliances that little Charles d’Orléans is born.

Charles is still in his teens when his father, Louis, is murdered by Jean of Burgundy and, as the eldest son, the responsibility for the future of the House of Orléans falls on his young shoulders. Charles and his brothers swear to seek revenge against Burgundy, but then comes 1415, the Battle of Agincourt and a French defeat. Charles is captured by the victorious English and taken to England as a prisoner of war, where he will remain for decades. During this time, he occupies himself by writing the poetry for which he will become famous, but he never loses hope that one day France and England will be at peace and that he will be ransomed and allowed to return home.

In a Dark Wood Wandering is an amazing achievement. As readers of my blog will know, I enjoy reading historical fiction of all types, but my favourites tend to be older books like this one as I find that they are often better at immersing the reader in a bygone time without using inappropriately modern slang or projecting modern attitudes onto historical characters. That is certainly true of this book; both Hella S Haasse’s recreation of early 15th century France and her portrayal of the key historical figures of the period feel completely real and believable. This might be a problem for some readers as it means that the women – with the exceptions of Joan of Arc and, at times, Isabeau of Bavaria – are not particularly strong characters and, after the prologue, are kept largely in the background. Having said that, Charles himself is a passive, introspective character, often no more than an observer of things going on around him, a personality much more suited to writing poetry than to leading armies. Not everyone can be a hero or a heroine, after all.

Telling the story from Charles of Orléans’ perspective has its limitations as the parts of the Hundred Years War in which Charles plays a more active part, such as Agincourt, are vividly described while others, particularly events taking place in France during his time of exile, have to be either related to Charles from a distance or seen through the eyes of other characters. One of these is Dunois, Charles’ younger half-brother, known as the Bastard of Orléans; I have to admit, I found him a much more interesting and engaging character than Charles and wished we had seen more of him.

I loved the imagery Haasse uses in her writing; her descriptions of poppies glowing in green fields, sunlight sparkling on clear water and reflections of clouds in the river unfold like medieval tapestries while the idea of being lost en la forêt de longue attente or in ‘the Forest of Long Awaiting’ (a better title for the book in my opinion) is used very effectively throughout the novel. It forms the subject of the poetry Charles writes during his imprisonment in England and is also a metaphor for his state of mind and for the state of the Orléans family and France as a whole. By the time the novel draws to a close, France is beginning to head out of the dark forest of the Middle Ages towards the light of the Renaissance. As for Charles himself, although his life may seem to have been a story of missed opportunities and wasted potential, history tells us that the fortunes of the House of Orléans would soon start to rise again.

Now I want to read more of Hella S Haasse’s novels. Not all of them have been translated into English, but of those that have I particularly like the sound of The Scarlet City, a novel about Rome and the Borgias. Has anyone read that one – or any of her other books?

This is book 15/50 read from my Second Classics Club list.