The raging around the world
The Rage of the World is a novel by the Dutch writer Maarten 't Hart . The original edition was published in 1993 under the title Het woeden der gehele wereld by De Arbeiderspers , Amsterdam. The German translation by Marianne Holberg was published in 1997 by Arche-Verlag Zurich ( ISBN 3-7160-2225-X ), and in 1999 a paperback edition was published by Piper ( ISBN 3-492-22592-6 ). The book was very successful commercially.
The title is part of the characterization of the cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach BWV 80 ( A strong castle is our God ) by the hero or by the author on page 333 of the book. It is said of this that it "conjures up the raging of the whole world and then appeases it again". However, the title is not, as has often been claimed, a quote from this cantata, nor is it, as is also claimed elsewhere, a quote from "Au bord de l'eau" by Gabriel Fauré .
action
The main character of the novel is Alexander Goudveyl, who - apart from the prologue - appears as a first-person narrator and initially describes his childhood as an outsider in a small Dutch town, the son of strictly religious parents who work as a rag dealer, while he discovered his inclination for music at an early age . The central event took place in 1956, when Alexander, at the age of 12, witnessed the murder of policeman Arend Vroombout at close range. He believes he saw the perpetrator, who also pointed to him before he disappeared undetected.
The murder remains unsolved, Vroombout's pedophile tendencies, which Alexander experienced firsthand, ultimately do not provide any motive for the crime. During the nearly three decades of his life, told in the following novel, he can not free himself from the trauma , on the one hand he feels threatened by the murderer as the only witness and on the other hand looks for a motive for the crime that took place in his parents' barn. As he grows up, against his parents for a study of pharmacy decides inherits a small fortune after her death and eventually his love for music (and women) can live, there are always occasions to pursue the old issues that arise in the end in an astonishing - but no longer entirely unexpected - way in view of numerous hints at the time.
In a conversation with his father-in-law, the conductor Aaron Oberstein, who had to flee Germany as a Jew, the connection between the failed attempt to escape by some predominantly Jewish citizens in 1940 and all previous results of Alexander's research, described in the prologue, becomes clear. Vroombout was a co-owner of the ship that was sunk by a German submarine while trying to escape; between him and the surviving refugees, including Oberstein, there was still an old account open, which was to be eliminated on the day of the murder.
While Alexander now believes he has the murderer in front of him, his further explanations reveal to him that he is not the birth child of his parents, but the son of Oberstein's fiancée at the time, who did not survive the Third Reich : his father-in-law is so also his biological father. When the latter vehemently denies the murder of Vroombout and claims to have been a witness himself, it also dawns on him that his father or mother killed Vroombout before he had the opportunity to explain Alexander's origin to his real father. However, between the two men, the final conclusions that Alexander draws remain unspoken, only the readers are let in on the secret.
interpretation
The book, which contains elements of a developmental as well as a detective novel , echoes almost all of the motifs that are typical of 't Hart's works: a certain love for small Dutch places and their peculiarities while at the same time criticizing the narrow horizons of many of their residents, an argument with the entanglement of resistance and collaboration during the time of the German occupation , a clear appreciation of classical music and a certain sympathy for protagonists who do not succeed in the "normal" heterosexual role behavior or who are social outsiders for other reasons, as well as a struggle with elementary religious ones Questions ( theodicy ) while at the same time expressing atheism and harsh criticism of religious zeal and bigotry . By using the stylistic devices of a crime novel, these motifs are packaged in a common pattern and thus better brought to the readership.
In 1994 the novel received the highest Dutch award for crime fiction, the Gouden Strop from the Dutch Genootschap van Nederlandstalige Misdaadauteurs (GNM) for the most exciting book of the year. Also in 1994, the Svenska Deckarakademin (Swedish Crime Academy) named the novel with the Martin Beck Award as the best international crime novel of the year.
The character of the pharmacist Simon Minderhout, who plays an important, albeit not central, role in this book, made 't Hart the main character of his 1996 novel De nakomer (English title: Die Netzflickerin ).