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Document Details :

Title: Een verbeelde leemte
Subtitle: Over Frans Kellendonk
Author(s): ROVERS, Daniël
Journal: Spiegel der Letteren
Volume: 49    Issue: 3   Date: 2007   
Pages: 285-308
DOI: 10.2143/SDL.49.3.2025296

Abstract :
Frans Kellendonk’s entire oeuvre rests on a longing for community, and it is the design of that longing which will be looked at closely in this article. The author’s first three novellas can be seen as a detached research into literature’s community-founding possibilities. In his last novel, Mystiek lichaam [Mystical Body], Kellendonk focuses mainly on that which stands in the way of community: the so-called ‘drive for distinction’. In this novel, the author ‘speaks his mind’ – in a highly ironic fashion. Drawing on the anti-psychological, satirical tradition of Wyndham Lewis, he develops the void he experienced in contemporary society. In doing so, Kellendonk shows himself to be a neoconservative with immaculate stylistic skills.

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