Renate Rubinstein: an Introduction

190 HERMINA JOLDERSMA, UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY Renate Rubinstein: an Introduction Of the numerous Dutch books I borrowed and Niets te verliezen,£n toch bang. Particularly read during my six months of dissertation this latter book, \Yhich documents Rubinstein's research in Amsterdam in 1979, two by thoughts and feelings about her painful Renate Rubinstein were so memorable that separation and divorce in the early 1970s, may eight years later I feel compelled to investigate serve as a good introduction to the compelling the reasons for the impact of her writing. In images in her writing, and to her ability to retrospect, it seems that both place and time provide a uniquely Dutch perspective while were conducive to my receptivity. Certainly preserving universal human validity. In the my room in Amsterdam Oost, right across book she alternates between spontaneous from the Tropenmuseum, its windows filled emotional reactions to events during the with plants and lace curtains, my black Dutch separation and divorce process, and incisive bicycle, the' market down the street, my analysis from the distance afforded by looking borrower's card to the city library and my desk back after some time has passed. It is, to quote at the P.J. Meertens Instituut, my two Aad Nuis from the Haagse Post, housemates who studied at the Gemeente Universiteit, and the fleas of the otherwise ... een bericht uit een zelfgesponnen hel, waar lovely resident cat, all gave me an insider's het inzicht dat je aile proporties uit het oog verloren hebt, helemaal niet lijkt te helpen bij empathy for Rubinstein's world that I could het terugvinden van die proporties. 'Een not have had in Canada. More importantly, kroniekschrijfster van de onwijsheid' noemt ze perhaps, and again in retrospect, I was zichzelf ergens in het boek. Je kunt ook emotionally receptive: I wanted to experience zeggen dat het haar beste reisverslag is, van modem Dutch culture as intensely as I had de moeilijkste reis die ze heeft gemaakt (Rubinstein: leder, p.195). experienced the small-town rural Calvinist Holland of the 1930s and 1940s, via my In her unabashed honesty Rubinstein immigrant parents and grandparents. expresses feelings, particularly the desire for Rubinstein's books provide a condensed form revenge on the partner who has left for of such an experience: her general theme is someone new, which are taboo for most modem Dutch culture, her style is personal members of Western societies. In almost no and emotional. Yet time and place were not moral system in our Western world is the the only factors, for even now her work desire for revenge now acceptable: it is fascinates and delights me, and each new considered primitive, uncivilized, unchristian reading gives me greater appreciation of and certainly, after the open marriage herself and her interpretation of modem philosophy of the late 1960s, very repressed Western society. and bourgeois. Rubinstein has no compunctions about admitting that she The two books I read in Amsterdam in 1979 wanted, and took, revenge: in one of the most were the controversial, just published memorable images in her writing, she Hedendaags jeminisme and the slightly earlier Renate Rubinstein: an introduction 191 describes how one day she just "happens" to books (leder). The following biographical be bicycling down the street in which her sketch is based largely on the information she estranged husband's "nieuwe vriendin" lives, gives about herself in her writings and on her how the sight of her husband's bicycle leaning interview with Jan Brokken in the Haagse against the railing brings all the anger she Post in 1985. thought she had dealt with maturely rushing to the surface once again, and how she - already Rubinstein was born in Germany in 1929 (the over forty at that time - takes revenge as only interview, p.41, says 1930); her father had a a Dutchwoman could and would, by letting coat factory in B~flin and her mother's family the air out of both his tires. lived there as well (Tamar, p.233, 236). When she was five her family moved, first to the Who is Renate Rubinstein? Despite the fact Netherlands, after two years to England, then that in 1979 she was awarded the Multatuli in 1939 back to the Netherlands again. Her prize for literature, and that since 1964 she has father was a Jew, her mother was not; the published at least 18 books, she is virtually children were not raised in any particular unknown outside of the Netherlands, and religion and Rubinstein has only recently certainly unknown on the North American begun to feel Jewish, something she qualifies continent. A thorough search in the average vaguely uneasily as "een Canadian university library (in. this case the ouderdomsverschijnsel" (Interview, p.41). Her University of Calgary) yielded almost nothing first reaction, as a child, to the invasion by the at all: she is not listed in any sort of Germans in 1940 was that she would have a international bibliography or encyclopedia, day off school. One month later, flOp de she has not been mentioned by the New York ochtend van de tiende juni 1940," her father Times, her books published between 1978 and was taken away by the "Gruene Polizei" who 1982 are not listed in the National Union promised: "Jullie vader komt gauw weer Catalog for those years (after 1983 the NUC terug" (leder, p.l00). Her father died in makes up for lost time by listing titles from as Auschwitz (Interview, p.37), and indeed none far back as 1979, but is still not of her father's family survived Nazi Germany, comprehensive), and she is not mentioned in except for one sister, unhappily married to a Delta, a Review ofArts, Life and Thought in drunkard who was fortunately a Gentile the Netherlands (issues from 1958 to 1973). (leder, p.65). She once calls Germany "mijn Only the Humanities and Social Sciences moordende land van herkomst" (Tamar, Review yielded one, very' meager, review p.226) and remarks "Moffen zijn heel enge (Nichols). In Holland, in contrast, Rubinstein mensen" (Wantrouwen, p.54), but in general is a well-known public persona; her work is she rarely refers to modem Germany. reviewed in a variety of Dutch newspapers such as NRC Handelsblad, De Groene During her studies in the 1950s at the Amsterdammer, De Volkskrant and the Gemeente Universiteit in Amsterdam, Haagse Post; she is a regular guest on talk RubiIistein was on the editorial staff of the shows, forums and panel discussions; and student weekly Propria Cures (Wantrouwen, even my Calvinist relatives, who faithfully p.44), a newspaper which seems to have been read Trouw, know something about her ideas. the first public forum for a number of Unfortunately I have not· yet been able to prominent Dutch writers during their student locate what seems to be a biography of sorts days (e.g., Aad Nuis, Jan Donkers). by Ischa Meijer, referred to as "een Rubinstein mentions her work on· the paper geschreven portret" on the cover of one of her only incidentally, in a column of political 192 Canadian Journal of Netherlandic Studies comment ("Hongarije 1956 en Nederland wordt. De meeste emstige ziekten zijn 1981," Wantrouwen p.42-49), but this column progressief want als ze dat niet waren waren ze niet emstig. Het supreme voorbeeld is is a good example of the intricate web of natuurlijk het leven zelf waaraan ze immers cultural comment she weaves into her work. sterft. Ais je maar oud genoeg wordt takel je The issue of Propria Cures which she voordien af en verlies je een voor een je describes was a response to the crushing of the functies. AIleen duurt het meestal langer Hungarian revolt by the Russians in 1956, and voordat het zover is (Nee, p.21). to Dutch reaction to this event. The pro Moscow Dutch communist party supported Rubinstein is the oJdest of three children: her the Russians, but this support enraged a sister lives in LOl)don, England, her brother in population which remembered its own recent the Netherlands. Both are married and have foreign oppression and triggered serious children (Tamar, p.233), and she writes fondly rioting against the communist party and its that she relies on "een technisch begaafd buildings in Amsterdam. Most recently these neefje" to keep her version of the wheelchair, events have been compellingly portrayed in "het 20km autootje," in running condition the award-winning Dutch film De aanslag (Nee, p.108-109). Rubinstein herselflives in (Academy Award for best foreign film 1987). Amsterdam; as befits typical Amsterdammers, at least in foreign eyes, she has a cat, a In 1964 Rubinstein published the first Siamese named Tiepje, who occasionally collection of her columns, a book entitled merits an entire column of her own. Namens Tamar, Tamar being the pseudonym Given Rubinstein's prominence in Dutch under which she writes in the intellectually intellectual circles, it is surprising that so little left-liberal Vrij Nederland. Most of her books is known about her abroad. Without a doubt are similar collections; because each column one major reason for her international is dated, the reader, and especially the foreign obscurity is that her works are not available in reader, can trace a thread of significant events translation. This in tum could be attributed to and personalities in recent Dutch history. A two factors, cultural and linguistic: because few of her books were not written as columns her work is so rooted in modem Dutch but as books around a select topic; her "thema culture, often refeming to people and events boeken" (Nee, inside front cover) include the (e.g.

Load more