Amsterdam (Rough Guide) - Martin Dunford [197]
Harry Mulisch The Assault. Set part in Haarlem, part in Amsterdam, this novel traces the story of a young boy who loses his family in a reprisal-raid by the Nazis. A powerful tale, made into an excellent and effective film. Also, The Discovery of Heaven, a gripping yarn of adventure and happenstance; The Procedure, featuring a modern-day Dutch scientist investigating strange goings-on in sixteenth-century Prague; and Siegfried: a Black Idyll, whose central question is whether a work of imagination can help to understand the nature of evil in general and Hitler in particular.
Multatuli Max Havelaar: Or, The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company. Classic, nineteenth-century Dutch satire of colonial life in the East Indies. Eloquent and intermittently amusing. If you have Dutch friends, they should be impressed (dumbstruck) if you have actually read it, not least since it’s 352 pages long. For more on Multatuli, see the section under "The Multatuli Museum".
Cees Nooteboom Rituals. Nooteboom published his first novel in 1955, but only hit the literary headlines with this, his third novel, in 1980. The central theme of all his work is the phenomenon of time; Rituals in particular is about the passing of time and the different ways of controlling the process. Inni Wintrop, the main character, is an outsider, a well-heeled, antique-dabbling “dilettante” as he describes himself. The book is almost entirely set in Amsterdam, and although it describes the inner life of Inni himself, it also paints a strong picture of the city.
David Veronese Jana. A hip thriller set in the druggy underworld of Amsterdam and London.
Janwillem van de Wetering Tumbleweed; Hard Rain; Corpse on the Dyke; Outsider in Amsterdam. Offbeat detective tales set in Amsterdam and the provinces. Humane, quirky and humorous, Wetering’s novels have inventive plots and feature unusual characters in interesting locations, though the prose itself can be a tad indigestible.
Language
Dutch
Dutch
It’s unlikely that you’ll need to speak anything other than English while you’re in Amsterdam; the Dutch have a seemingly natural talent for languages, and your attempts at speaking theirs may be met with some bewilderment – though this can have as much to do with your pronunciation (Dutch is very difficult to get right) as their surprise that you’re making an effort. Outside Amsterdam, people aren’t quite as cosmopolitan, but even so, the Dutch words and phrases below should be the most you’ll need to get by; also included is a basic food and drink glossary, though menus are nearly always multilingual; where they aren’t, ask and one will almost invariably appear.
Dutch is a Germanic language – the word “Dutch” itself is a corruption of Deutsche, a label inaccurately given by English sailors in the seventeenth century, and indeed, although the Dutch are at pains to stress the differences between the two languages, if you know any German you’ll spot many similarities. As for phrasebooks, the Rough Guide to Dutch is pocket-sized, and has a good dictionary section (English–Dutch and Dutch–English), as well as a menu reader; it also provides a useful introduction to grammar and pronunciation.
Dutch |
Pronunciation
Dutch is pronounced in much the same way as English. However, there are a few Dutch sounds that don’t exist in English, which can be difficult to get right without practice.
Dutch | Pronunciation |
Consonants
Double-consonant combinations generally keep their separate sounds in Dutch: kn, for example, is never like the English “knight”. Note also the following consonants and consonant combinations:
j is an English y
ch and g indicate a throaty sound,