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with dying tramp on the snow-covered streets, visits a
gallery with two paintings by Caspar David Friedrich
that he is fascinated by, and a library that will, in the
second half, change his life. Many reviewers have referred
to this wandering with, at best, condescension. In
particular, they disapprove of Arthur’s ‘intellectual posturing’,
which seems to mean any mention of anything
other than that which will take the story ‘forward’ into
forgetfulness. This is a form of criticism that avoids the
very issue addressed by the novel. Arthur is searching
for an. He talks with his living friends, and listens to
those who are dead, which take the form of memories,
books, paintings, films, science and philosophy. It helps
him. It helps his friends. But like all friends, they have
their limits. And he knows it. They are useful only in
their uselessness. This novel is a part of that scheme
too. It has this wonderfully strange quality of enabling
us to maintain contact with what is important to us, that
which otherwise seems inaccessible, in that which takes
us further away (i.e. ‘escapism’). Indeed, the All Souls’
Day of the title is the Catholic holiday (November 2nd)
commemorating the souls of the dead; another form of
fiction in which one has to place one’s trust in order to
cross the abyss.
On a ferry crossing the Baltic, thinking of the 1994
MV Estonia disaster, Arthur reflects that there is a thin
membrane between him and chaos, as thin as the window
he presses his face to, looking out to sea. The more
BUY Cees Nooteboom books online from and
ignorant of the reviewers (i.e. Julie Myerson of The
Guardian) would rather we weren’t reminded of this
and be allowed to plunge into forgetfulness, as if it were
possible without denial. Nooteboom’s achievement
is to open the abyss of history out of these everyday
thoughts. He does this by showing how the rich heritage
of speculation in the arts and sciences derives from
the same confrontation with trauma as experienced by
Arthur. This is seen as a failure by those, like Myerson,
who can see learning only as a trophy to be displayed.
Nooteboom wears his learning lightly but it seems one
can’t escape the philistine thought-police of English
literary criticism.
In terms of the plot, Arthur contrives to meet a history
research student beginning a project on an obscure
Spanish queen of the 12th century. From what little
is revealed, she appears, like Arthur, to be taking a
roundabout route in resolving personal trauma. Despite
this, both Arthur and readers of the novel seem to be on
the brink of relief from endless speculation by falling
into a love story. But the student, Elik, a fellow Dutch
ex-patriot, remains mysteriously private despite their
physical intimacy. Through her silence, she prompts
even more fevered questioning. After a date, she disappears
without warning and, when they meet again,
refuses to reveal very much of herself. She prefers to
argue about historiography with one of Arthur’s scholarly
friends. The novelist doesn’t fill in the blanks for
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