The Book of Everything

Have Kuijer’s books been translated before? On the basis of this pithy, short, intensely poetic novel set in the Amsterdam of the 1950s, it would be good to have more of his work in translation.

The bares bones of the story are that 9-year-old Thomas, his 16-year-old sister Margot and their mother live in fear of a bullying and sanctimonious father who misuses his Christian faith to justify controlling and hitting them. Thomas develops his own take on the bible stories his father reads to the family and tries to visit the plagues of Egypt on this disturbed and violent man. Fortunately help is at hand in the shape of an old woman, thought by the children of the street to be a witch, who helps Thomas to see that happiness comes from not being afraid.

Kuijer describes the heightened experiences of excitement, hatred, compassion and rage from Thomas’s perspective. On one occasion when his father is beating him sadistically Thomas concludes that God does not exist (although he would like him to, in order to bring bubonic plague upon his father). His disappointment in God the father leads to a series of chats with God’s son Jesus amongst other ways of dealing internally with the painful and frightening scenes he is the victim of or a witness to.

Kuijer introduces the novel by telling us that it is a true story related to him by a man now his own age who survived by being ‘disrespectful’. Who knows whether this man actually exists, and in any case it doesn’t matter for the story is absolutely true in its essentials – that to survive such experiences it is important not to respect the false and distorted picture of yourself offered by an abuser.