Roelof ten Napel (1993) has been a writer since his debut Constellations (2014) something paradoxical in itself. Because he may be productive (seven books in just ten years), the still young writer has had difficulty from the start with the form in which writing should be cast, namely ‘the story’. When he was just in his twenties and Constellations was yet to be published, he already revealed in an online interview (now no longer available) that he was averse to the way other writers use language “to achieve what they want”. It reminded him of a “fill-in-the-blank” exercise, the aim of which was to arouse the reader’s emotion. In Constellations you found a page on which only this was printed: ‘(…)’. Two brackets and three dots: you could say that it was typed together (a bit like how they used to react to a painting by Karel Appel), but it is not a fill-in-the-blank exercise. And not very moving either.
Charisma
Ten years later, Ten Napel’s preoccupation is still intact. However, he now presents this in a slightly less radical and reserved manner. The heroine of About silence is called Marie Verhulp, a poet who suddenly stopped being a poet. At a young age, she published three glorious collections in a short period of time and then gave up; Since then she has been a philosophy teacher. Such a person is of course quite an enigma to the outside world. You only have to remember the media obsession with a notorious hider like JD Salinger to imagine how much people in this novel are also fascinated by the lack of new poetry by Verhulp. She can’t suddenly no longer be a poet, can she? Isn’t someone ‘this’ or that?
Herder, a young man who comes to seek help, is in a sense a representative of asking on autopilot how this is possible, excelling at something and then just calling it a day. He travels to Paris and is allowed to spend a few days walking with Verhulp, perhaps asking some subtle questions about her sudden change of course. But he is equally, you could say, on her side. Because he is also a poet and someone who vaguely understands something about her positioning. When he attends a lecture by Verhulp and she philosophizes aloud about the issue of meaninglessness in a completely natural way, he becomes almost enchanted by her charisma. Ten Napel emphasizes that it is not just her words that impress Herder, it is also her attitude, as if it is true that she is standing there and reasoning that way.
Relaxation is also Verhulp’s reaction when it comes to her past as a poet. Why did she stop? ‘Because she never started. Writing came naturally, what she had to say was ready until one day the poems disappeared, she no longer noticed them anywhere. The look in her that saw what had to be said had closed its eyes. There had been a voice that had parroted them, and it was silent.’ Many of these types of statements can be found in the novel: showing humility towards the individual who creates, but not tipping over into cynicism, not criticizing the work itself. It may not have been Ten Napel’s goal to portray an artist or a philosopher who shrugs off the nonsense of years ago. He has attempted (see the Montaigne-esque title of his book, which nods to the essay) to get a grip on what, in his view, is an interchangeable, fleeting place that someone occupies when creating something exceptional.
Ego-free
In part he may have done this to make our narrative about something like ‘creation’, or even ‘being’, more ego-free, to emphasize that we are not the directors of our achievements. You can see from the first sentence of the novel that there is something wrong with the stories we release into the world as a result of that misconception: ‘There was a woman in Paris.’ By omitting a single word, namely ‘agree’, it can be interpreted as a pastiche of one of our canonical story forms, namely the fairy tale. Or pay attention to the chapter titles, which seem unambiguous (‘In which she checks essays’, ‘In which she walks in’), but which are then followed by a text that does not live up to expectations. So an anti-story.
There will probably be quite a few readers who are not attracted to Ten Napel’s prose universe, which is technical, quite intellectual and in which, in all honesty, sometimes some arbitrary theorizing takes place. Yes, it could go that way if you raise that question, but it could just as easily have gone a completely different way. For example, the question of whether we can even speak of a ‘person’ is treated somewhat too loosely if he can no longer imagine that he used to make this or that. You may be able to claim this based on a thought or a work of art, but such a person will certainly cherish memories or people that he also cherished tens of years ago. That smells like a core.
But fortunately there is much more in Ten Napel’s favor, such as his tender, precise style and his ability to present us with an intelligent, thinking character, instead of just another idiot who goes wrong before our eyes. He could do it too, full out rhetorical and sensitive writing, as he effortlessly steps through the chill in a chapter about a brother and sister and touches your heart, only: he doesn’t feel like it. His project, his struggle, is this: to prevent what is distinctive from being incorporated with impunity by a community that depends on commonplaces.
Apart from this: what a pity that Ten Napel’s publishing house also seems to have given up faith in stories. Because the book was published with an inexplicable austerity, it looks like an East German manual for a sandwich maker. But then one that costs 23 euros.