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Three comparisons kept recurring in my mind as I read 'Bruges-la-Morte', two of which were with films - the wintery canal nightmare of 'Don't Look Now', set in Venice, and the Belgian art/horror film 'Daughters of Darkness', set in Ostend. If you enjoyed either of these then this book will also have a great appeal for you. It's almost cinematic in its eerie evocations and definite sense of place.
The other comparison, which is very obvious but nevertheless worth mentioning, is with W G Sebald. 'Bruges-la-Morte' is distinctive, like Sebald's now better-known work, because the text is interspersed with black and white photos of the town in which it is set, taken by the author (at the end of the nineteenth century). Although it is a kind of gothic mystery, and therefore not particularly reminiscent of Sebald in literary style, this striking feature makes Rodenbach's book seem like an early precursor of his work. Sebald has also, after all, passed through Belgian locations more than once in his books, and both authors are obsessed with Europe and its towns and cities, especially those whose best days lie behind them.
More than anything else, this book deserves to be read for its unusualness and poetic sadness. The simple plot concerns a widower mourning his beautiful wife who died young, in a decaying town which has been chosen as a residence by him to emphasise his intense, hopeless longing for her. Things take a twist when he sees her double walking the streets....
'Bruges-la-Morte' is introduced by Alan Hollinghurst, Booker winner last year for 'The Line of Beauty' although as is usually the case with 'classic' literature, that introduction is best left until you have read the story and formed your own impressions.
Strongly recommended.
When Hugues Viane, the chief character in the novel, lost his beloved young wife, he decided to settle and shut himself away in Bruges because the dead town corresponded to his dead wife and because its atmosphere matched his inconsolable grief. Then one day, just as he was beginning to have difficulties in recalling his wife's features, he sees a woman in the street who is so much the absolute image of his dead wife that he pursues her. He rents a house in which he instals Jane as his mistress without at first feeling that he was being unfaithful to the cherished memory of his wife. After a while, it all goes horribly wrong as Jane's coarse nature diverges more and more from that of his wife; but by that time he cannot free himself from the erotic (and now experienced as the sinful) thrall into which he has fallen; and the end is terrible.
It is quite a powerful novella. It is told poetically against the pervasive atmosphere of the town which itself is a character in the story.
This atmosphere is described in an essay called `The Death Throes of Towns' which Rodenbach had written two years earlier. The publishers have added it at the end of `Bruges-la-Morte'. Though this, too, is a beautiful and evocative piece of writing; but much of it is incorporated in the novel we have just read.
When the book first appeared, it was illustrated by 35 half-tone photographs of Bruges. This edition has 23 new black-and-white photographs, but since none of them was taken in sunlight, they have the grey look which goes well with the text to which they refer.
Poor paragraph detection and formatting plus many typos.
You can read this version online if you want.
Pros: The binding and printing are OK.
Conclusion: Buy another edition.
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