B for Books: four quick reviews

Title: De Perfecte Partner (The Perfect Partner)
Author: Esther Verhoef
Genre: Short Story
Publisher: B for Books
Pages: Hardcover 46
Language: Dutch
Rating: 5/10

Summary: Claudia is obsessed by plastic surgery and more specifically famous surgeon Marc Wagner. He loves to operate on her. She thinks it's love.

Spoilerish review
Maybe I'm prejudiced against people who go for plastic surgery merely for aesthetic reasons, but I thought this was very cliche. I didn't like Claudia from the start, no matter if Dr. Wagner is made to be the bad guy here. The question whether he not only screwed with her body, but also her mind is not relevant. The fact that in the end she doubts what actually happened between them outside the operatingroom (did she imagine their relationship?) simply confirms my belief that she wasn't very stable to begin with.


Title: Stikvallei (Choke Valley)
Author: Frank Westerman
Genre: Short Story
Publisher: B for Books
Pages: Hardcover 59
Language: Dutch
Rating: 6/10

Summary: Fumes from a craterlake in the highlands of Cameroon kill hundreds of people and animals. Volcanologist Haraldur Sigurdsson wants to find out what happened. Was there a vulcanic eruption or did the government allow nuclear testing, as the rumour among the survivors suggests?

Spoilerfree review
The story starts as lesson in history and mentions more occasions of toxic fumes before trying to seperate facts from fiction. This educational tone in combination with the introduction of many characters made it hard to care for the cause. Despite the intriguing whispers about a conspiracy I wasn't drawn in. This event deserved a more in depth investigation.


Title: Eerder Thuis Dan Townes (Home Before Townes)
Author: P.F. Thomese
Genre: Short Stories
Publisher: B for Books
Pages: Hardcover 46
Language: Dutch
Rating: 7.5/10

Summary: Two stories about roadtrips with J. Kessels. In the first one the men end up in the seedy nightlife in Hamburg. The second story has them travelling to a small town somewhere in the Netherlands to an obscure concert by Bluessinger Townes.

Spoilerfree review
Written from the point of view of an unnamed author, who obviously has a manly crush on J. Kessels in all his grumpy glory. I'm not a fan of this unpredictable character. He's a man with no regard for his travelcompanion and wants things done his way. However: the adventures of the two men are amusing and -sadly- recognisable. They drift trough towns without directions, and end up meeting people they'd rather not have or -even better- dreamed about spending time with. Yeah, I've been there. It was just as (un)cool without the drinking and the smoking. I prefer my own sober experiences, even if I love P.F. Thomese's writing.

Interested in P.F. Thomese? I wrote a review of his book Shadow Child earlier.


Title: De Grammatica Van Een Niemand (The Grammar of a Nobody)
Author: Abdelkader Benali
Genre: Short Story
Publisher: B for Books
Pages: Hardcover 46
Language: Dutch
Rating: 7/10

Summary: The Writer (who refers to himself by his profession and is the Nobody in the title) travels back to the small town in Morocco where he was born. While he remembers his childhood and moving to the Netherlands, he gradually accepts who his is to his family and to himself.

Spoilerfree reviewThis seems like a personal story, but by using the third person point of view it feels rather detached. I guess that is exactly what the writer was going for, but I already had problems relating to his feelings and the style only pushed me farther away. But in the end I did get a good impression of what it must be like for a foreing person to have to adjust to an unknown society. Mission accomplished.

FYI: Abdelkader Benali first novel Wedding By The Sea has been internationally praised and is still available in lots of languages.