Guest blog by Persis Bekkering

This summer’s top 3 (auto)biographies

The summer is inextricably associated with book reading. We read lying on our beach towels – the book serves as a sunshade at the same time; in hammocks under Italian trees, taking a nap once in a while; or in the shade of our camper van beside a citronella candle. At last we have time and silence, necessities that we fail to create enough of during the rest of the year.

To me, summer lends itself best to thick books, the fat ones that otherwise stay untouched on top of our bedroom shelves all year. Biographies, for example, that can take you into a colourful, vivid life, in another place and time. A biography grants you a more prolonged linger between the book covers than any bloodcurdling pageturner, which will last for two days. The pleasure might be less intense, but it lasts longer – rather like whole-wheat bread. Therefore, I offer three tips for biographies to pack in your suitcase or leave on top of the folding chair in the garden.

1. Confessions – Jean Jacques Rousseau. This month I visited a castle in the French Loire, called Chenonceau. During the Renaissance it was a royal palace, at the time inhabited by Catherine de Medici, wife of King Henry II, among others. In the eighteenth century it was often visited by Jean Jacques Rousseau, where he promptly fell for the charms of (resident at the time) Madame Lupin, who once received him, in his words, ‘half undressed’. It can be read in his Confessions, a stunning autobiographical book, full of scabrous passages, in which Rousseau reveals his deepest secrets; although we will never know how much of it is, in fact, true. Festive literature, much more exhilarating than those erotic trilogies lying around on many beach chairs.

2. Roth: a writer and his books – Claudia Roth Pierpont. This beautiful and deep-searching study on the work of American writer Philip Roth has only recently appeared. Pierpont, a journalist with the New Yorker, makes a thorough analysis of his books, in which she dares to be critical, and also brings out a lot about Roth’s turbulent life. He had money problems from time to time, suffered from depression and often had troubled relationships with women. Piermont held lengthy interviews with Roth on a regular basis and she frequently quotes from the writer’s letters to his friends, which makes you feel close to the famous writer. The biography is fascinating even if you’re not familiar with Roth’s work: Pierpont discusses the books in such an accessible way that you don’t need any prior knowledge of them.

3. Gerard Heineken, de man, de stad en het bier (the man, the city and the beer, red.) – Annejet van der Zijl (Dutch only). A moderately sized biography of 256 pages on an underexposed person: Gerard Heineken, the founder of the well-known beer empire and grandfather of Freddy Heineken, who brought world fame to the brand. When Annejet van der Zijl went through the family archives on a quest for information on the patriarch, next to nothing appeared to be known about him. Was something going on here? Van der Zijl encountered a delicate family secret: Gerard isn’t the real grandfather of Freddy. His wife Mary Tindal had been impregnated by her lover – a fact that at the time caused a small scandal. It’s a fluently written narrative that sketches a gorgeous image of Amsterdam of the late 1800s, a period of great prosperity.

 

Persis Bekkering is, apart from a professional writer for Story Terrace, a literary critic for the major Dutch newspaper De Volskrant and she is currently working on her first novel.

 

 

 

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About us: Story Terrace helps customers to capture personal stories in beautiful books alongside a professional writer. Our writers have a range of backgrounds and interests, sharing one passion: Portraying individuals through carefully crafted anecdotes and lively stories.

This month we celebrate holiday memories. Also see our interview with campsite owner Hemke Veenstra and other articles. What’s your most treasured holiday memory?