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Document Details : Title: Een legpuzzel van totaal verschillende werelden Subtitle: Grootstadsbeelden in enkele romans van Louis Paul Boon Author(s): HUMBEECK, Kris Journal: Spiegel der Letteren Volume: 48 Issue: 2 Date: 2006 Pages: 199-217 DOI: 10.2143/SDL.48.2.2019428 Abstract : This essay analyses the representation of big city life in a handful of novels by Louis Paul Boon. First the author is portrayed as a child of Chipka, the almost legendary island of industry which figures as the ‘natural’ biotope of modern man in Boon’s work. Subsequently, differences in the image of the modern city in the novels 3 Mensen tussen muren ([1941]/1969), De voorstad groeit (1943), Abel Gholaerts (1944), De paradijsvogel (1958) en De meisjes van Jesses (1973) are interpreted as symptoms of a shift from an idealistic poetics towards a rather idiosyncratic form of (grotesque) realism. This results in the question whether Boon was not perhaps too much a child of Chipka and the Industrial Age to be able to represent the post-industrial city in a convincing way. |
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