Cambridge, Budapest, New York, Zurich, The Hague, Tel Aviv, the South Downs of England: the narrator has travelled everywhere. He has observed some of the major upheavals of the century - the Six Day War, the Prague Spring - and collected friends, lovers, and passions every step of the way. As he ages, the memories of his past grow sharper, the events of his childhood more vivid - so vivid, in fact, that his present life recedes into oblivion. He inhabits a world of ghosts and shadows and absence. Throughout his perambulations of time and space, one absence always looms largest: that of his father. The figure of his dead father materializes again and again, drawing the narrator back into the past, reviving the people and places of long ago. The Figure in the Distance is a hypnotic novel, told with a cinematic cross-cutting that suspends the reader in the cobwebs of memory and longing that haunt the narrator.
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"A wonderful novel" Cees Nooteboom; "The tone is authentic, with a memorable force... spectacular... a loving portrait" Tom Van Deel, Trouw; "An intriguing story, an ode to his father, a beautiful novel" Jan Paul Bresser, Elsevier
About the Author
Otto de Kat was born in 1946, and studied theology and Dutch literature at Leiden University. Since 1986 he has been the publisher of Uitgeverij Balans in Amsterdam. He has also published a volume of poetry and worked as a literary critic. The Figure in the Distance is his first novel.
Arnold J. Pomeran's translations include works by Louis de Broglie, Anne Frank, Sigmund Freud, George Grosz and Jan Huizinga. He was awarded the PEN translation prize for his translation from Dutch and French of The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh.
Erica Pomerans has worked with her husband on more than 40 titles as editor and translator.
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Truly wonderful, in parts
10 May 2011
By sdk
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I hesitate to review a book that carries on its cover the endorsement "A wonderful novel" by the greatest living writer (available in English translation) in the Dutch language, Cees Nooteboom. I have to wonder if Mr. Nooteboom, whose work I deeply admire, read the entire book. The first half of The figure in the distance IS truly wonderful. Like Nooteboom in Roads to Santiago (and elsewhere), de Kat's character travels, semi-randomly, and observations and experiences while traveling evoke memories and ruminations about life, people, and most importantly, death. "At ease, he strolled towards the night that came drifting out of the houses. Careful observation shows that night does not fall, but emerges drifting from windows and doors. When the lights are switched on, the darkness slips outside." The figure in the distance is the father of the central character; his appearance in the distance is both literal and metaphoric, and one feels he will remain present, in the distance, long after he has passed from the world. Yet the book loses emotional and philosophical power when the main character goes to Hungary and becomes obsessed with a dancer he sees only from a distance. This section (about 30 pages) disappoints. In a longer novel a flawed thread might not do too much damage to the whole, but in a novella of 86 pages, it stands out. So, I agree with Mr. Nooteboom that this novel is wonderful in many parts, but, on the whole, merely very good. Recommended especially for fans of Cees Nooteboom.
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