Rituals
Cees Nooteboom |
Dutch writer Cees Nooteboom writes the most elegant novels, and this one, woven around three suicides, is no exception.
Leading a capricious existence, dilettante Inni comes across a father and then the son, each of whom lives a precise, ritualized existence that shelters him from the outside world. Arnold Taads is an observer of time, while his son Philip attempts to create timeless moments through Zen-like rituals. The psychology is acute and convincing, and the themes are developed with clarity and power.
The writer's prose is crisp, and there is that characteristic neatness of composition in Nooteboom's works. There is no wavering, no unevenness or lack of proportion. Very well-crafted.