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The Twin
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Review
"Bakker captures the feel of life in the Dutch countryside in a style which is both dazzling and subdued. He has produced a poignant story, recounted in a tone at once spare and loving." --"De Volkskrant"
"After finishing The Twin, all the reader can say is: here is a true writer" --"Het Parool"
"Bakker is above all a gifted stylist." --"Trouw"
"After finishing The Twin, all the reader can say is: here is a true writer" --"Het Parool"
"Bakker is above all a gifted stylist." --"Trouw"
"From the Hardcover edition."
Review
"Bakker captures the feel of life in the Dutch countryside in a style which is both dazzling and subdued. He has produced a poignant story, recounted in a tone at once spare and loving." --"De Volkskrant"
"After finishing The Twin, all the reader can say is: here is a true writer" --"Het Parool"
"Bakker is above all a gifted stylist." --"Trouw" --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
"After finishing The Twin, all the reader can say is: here is a true writer" --"Het Parool"
"Bakker is above all a gifted stylist." --"Trouw" --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Helmer runs his farm situated in the Dutch Platteland while also caring for his dying father. Now in his sixties Helmer, lost his twin brother when they were in their teens, his brother being his father's favoured son and the one destined to take on the farm. Helmer sought an academic future, but at the loss of his brother his father gave him no choice but to take on the farm.
Helmer relates the time spent caring for his distant father and the farm, his association with his neighbours and their two young boys, the period he takes on a young lad to help around the farm ,and as he looks back to his friendship with a young farmhand in his father employ. We follow Helmer as he moves from being a man who had no choice to approaching the possibility of being his own master.
The Twin is a beautiful story about a basically lonely man. There are no great dramas here, no cliff-hangers, with perhaps the exception of one brief episode, it is simply a gentle yet captivating tale; a most enjoyable read.
Helmer relates the time spent caring for his distant father and the farm, his association with his neighbours and their two young boys, the period he takes on a young lad to help around the farm ,and as he looks back to his friendship with a young farmhand in his father employ. We follow Helmer as he moves from being a man who had no choice to approaching the possibility of being his own master.
The Twin is a beautiful story about a basically lonely man. There are no great dramas here, no cliff-hangers, with perhaps the exception of one brief episode, it is simply a gentle yet captivating tale; a most enjoyable read.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
There may be some spoilers ahead!
The book addresses several themes: aging and loneliness, heartache and complexity of relationships within families, especially that thing so special that is the relationship between brothers, who in this case are twins, and one of them died young. In addition, the book is set in a rural environment, and dedicates an almost obsessive attention to tasks and their timing, and the rhythm of the work of a cattle farm, and is unsparing in remarks on bikes, ice skating, canoeing, and fauna and flora in general.
Helmer, the surviving twin, is in his fifties, lives a difficult relationship, made of a lot of remorse and revenge, with his dying father. Many moments of this relationship disturbed me a lot, either by the situation of a child having to take care of his father who is in the process of accelerated degradation, or because it has a very large dose of cruelty and I could never stop relating to what I am currently living in terms of family status.
The only company Helmer has are a neighbor and her two sons, still infants, who help him in some of the farm work, namely in taking care of the pair of donkeys that Helmer, against the will of his father, bought to the farm.
One day Helmer got the visit of Riet, the ex-girlfriend of his dead twin brother, that had been expelled from home by the brothers' father, who blamed her of this untimely death. As a result of her visit, the son of Riet, a troubled 17 year old that has the same name of his dead brother, spend a few months to live with Helmer on the farm as an assistant, and the relationship between them is anything but simple.
On his father's death, Helmer is visited by a former worker of the farm, from the time when the twin was still alive, and that was the only person who valued and paid attention, and even affection, to Helmer.
Basically, this is what happens throughout the pages of the book. But this set of complicated relationships, all full of anguish, is served by a very dry language, with very few adjectives, written in first person, and loaded with an amazing humour, sometimes ironic sometimes tender.
The book moved me greatly, but it amused me even more. It made me love the main character, and I was fascinated by the person who was able to write a book so full of emotion and humour, and especially as able to grasp feelings and emotions, particularly the more complex and subtle. It was no doubt about it, my favourite book of the year.
The book addresses several themes: aging and loneliness, heartache and complexity of relationships within families, especially that thing so special that is the relationship between brothers, who in this case are twins, and one of them died young. In addition, the book is set in a rural environment, and dedicates an almost obsessive attention to tasks and their timing, and the rhythm of the work of a cattle farm, and is unsparing in remarks on bikes, ice skating, canoeing, and fauna and flora in general.
Helmer, the surviving twin, is in his fifties, lives a difficult relationship, made of a lot of remorse and revenge, with his dying father. Many moments of this relationship disturbed me a lot, either by the situation of a child having to take care of his father who is in the process of accelerated degradation, or because it has a very large dose of cruelty and I could never stop relating to what I am currently living in terms of family status.
The only company Helmer has are a neighbor and her two sons, still infants, who help him in some of the farm work, namely in taking care of the pair of donkeys that Helmer, against the will of his father, bought to the farm.
One day Helmer got the visit of Riet, the ex-girlfriend of his dead twin brother, that had been expelled from home by the brothers' father, who blamed her of this untimely death. As a result of her visit, the son of Riet, a troubled 17 year old that has the same name of his dead brother, spend a few months to live with Helmer on the farm as an assistant, and the relationship between them is anything but simple.
On his father's death, Helmer is visited by a former worker of the farm, from the time when the twin was still alive, and that was the only person who valued and paid attention, and even affection, to Helmer.
Basically, this is what happens throughout the pages of the book. But this set of complicated relationships, all full of anguish, is served by a very dry language, with very few adjectives, written in first person, and loaded with an amazing humour, sometimes ironic sometimes tender.
The book moved me greatly, but it amused me even more. It made me love the main character, and I was fascinated by the person who was able to write a book so full of emotion and humour, and especially as able to grasp feelings and emotions, particularly the more complex and subtle. It was no doubt about it, my favourite book of the year.
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This was my favourite book of last year. A beautiful story, beautifully written. And a very fitting ending. I was really sorry to have to finish it!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Like nothing you've read before
This is a starkly beautiful book, written like nothing I've read before. Set in the Waterland of northern Holland, the prose is as spare and gaunt as the empty landscape of wintry... Read more
Published 14 days ago by James from Bath
Beautiful
Clean and crisp writing, with spartan detail, accurately portraying the heartbreakingly uncommunicative nature of many men of this generation. Read more
Published 2 months ago by liveenl
Terrific
A beautifully written and profound study of man in isolation, and his struggle to develop his own identity. Read more
Published 10 months ago by C. Vaughan
A book of loneliness, longing and beauty.
This a beautifully written book which captures the essence of love and longing and loneliness. Beneath the calm and little changing surface of Helmer's life lies a depth and... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Booklover Joseph
Wonderful Dutch book but poorly translated
I always read the Amazon reviews, but this is the first time I've felt compelled to contribute one myself. Read more
Published 18 months ago by I Wijne
The Geography of His Voice
It was interesting to me to see how voice and place can be so melded in a narrative.
The spare almost aching prose seems to reflect the lace and the life of this frugal man,... Read more
The spare almost aching prose seems to reflect the lace and the life of this frugal man,... Read more
Published 23 months ago by L Dean
Superb
This is the most extraordinary book. Laconic, well-paced, with the strongest sense of place and atmosphere. Read more
Published on 19 Oct 2009 by Anastasia Brown
The Twin
Well written. Good insight in human behaviour without losing track of how a person is feeling. Well recommended.
Published on 30 July 2009 by Mrs. T. W. J. Page
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