elsschot the man interests me too. i've just been reading the introduction/translator's note, in which there are a number of elsschot quotes on writing and he has exactly what we imagine as the "artistic temperament" - perfectionistic and melancholic, self-deprecating and arrogant at once, and yet both in private ways, without being depressive or swaggery, writing as an affliction and a betrayal and yet a need. "the sole reason i write is to produce classic prose, which is beautiful and will stay beautiful. it is pure vanity" he says. and then on a different occasion: "my literary work is a periodic torture that i cannot escape from. it is like malaria, a three day fever that lays one low from time to time." "may my wife and children forgive me for forsaking them for one last time for that accursed realm of splendour where a golden bird sings, far higher than the lark" how contradictory! and yet it all seems to make sense, fit. i'd like to read more books by him. more when i finish this book.
i wonder about willem elsschot and why i didn't start reading him earlier. su-lin would like him, i think. maybe i only think this because the copy of villa des roses i've got from the library comes in the aqua-spined penguins that the f scott fitzgeralds she loves do, but also because - novellas about old europe and pensions and men and women abroad and the comedy of manners is particularly charming. i've just started villa des roses, and i knew our library had it since i looked it up the start of last term, but i've let the school year go by without ever taking it out. i'm now reading it in between school books, and progress is slow, although i'm sure i'll finish it by the end of the week. (see, i never look forward to being able to read freely at the end of exams as much as people might imagine, but only because i read what i like during exams too. this is also why i seldom get much studying done)