Essays One

by Lydia Davis

  Marketplace at Middelburg, Zeeland. In the foreground, visleursters, or fish peddlers, from the village of Arnemuiden; in the middle ground, shoppers; in the background, market stalls in front of the well-known stadhuis, or town hall.

  For instance, Volendam, to the northeast of Amsterdam, and the nearby peninsula, Marken, once an island, are close geographically, but their predominant religions and traditional costumes are different. The peaked white cap with upturned wings, so characteristic in exported Dutch illustrations that we might mistake it for a national headgear, is worn only in Volendam, whereas the small, round caps in the photo, on page 361, of the group of little girls walking together by the water, and the wide knee breeches of the lone boy trailing behind them, are worn in Marken.

  There is available online a fascinating tabulation, done over fifteen years ago, of the survival of traditional costumes in the Netherlands: for twenty-one different places, we are given the number of women and men still wearing traditional dress year-round and the age of the youngest of the group; if the costume is no longer worn, we are given the year in which it disappeared and often the name and age of the last person to wear it (draagster, in Dutch). In some regions, in 2003, there were only a handful still wearing traditional clothing; in others, hundreds. There would be fewer now, and those wearing it would be still older, of course: in one after another of Dutch family group photographs of the twentieth century, we see most of the family in contemporary clothing and the oldest generation, often a single old woman, in traditional dress.

  Traditional dress, it should be added, was worn mainly by the working classes—mostly fishermen and farmers and their families—and was common in the country rather than the city. Nicole, the Dutch proprietor of a local bookstore near where I live, and an occasional informant on things Dutch, grew up in a prosperous town near The Hague. She tells me that her great-grandmother, born in the late 1870s, would never have dreamed of wearing the traditional regional costume, but rather, throughout her decades-long widowhood, until she died in 1959, appeared daily in a simple long black dress with a white collar and a brooch at the throat.

  It was a chance event one day that led me to become particularly interested in Dutch culture and history—a conversation with a friend in Amsterdam who persuaded me to try my hand at translating some very short texts from the Dutch. Over the years following, as I continued these translations, I learned to read simple Dutch and also learned something about the Netherlands, though there are large gaps in my understanding.

  Then, several years later, I was visiting two old friends in Philadelphia, and one evening as we were talking about my Dutch translations, Francie brought out her laptop and showed me some old photos taken in Holland by an ancestor. I was entranced. I did not remember ever having seen historical photos of ordinary Dutch people in the costumes of their place, at work and at play. I was suddenly lifted beyond the endlessly repeated stylized depictions of cute Dutch figures to the everyday working reality of this small, densely populated, complex nation, with its rich history. True, the photos represent some of the same things one sees in those stylized images—the women’s caps, the full dresses and aprons and shawls, the men’s broad-brimmed hats, the wooden clogs, the canal boats—but here, the traditional dress is simply part of everyday life: women are returning from church, children are playing with toy sailboats in a canal, women in a marketplace are selling fresh fish. Daily life goes on, and the visitors from America who happened to have witnessed it have captured the images on their camera.

  Who took these photos, which are, many of them, so harmoniously composed? At first Francie could not remember, then she did: it was her great-great-grandfather Theo Shaw and his wife, Sarah Van Doren Shaw. Theo was a prosperous dry-goods merchant in Chicago, Sarah a painter of watercolors. They were enthusiastic travelers in general but had two particular reasons for visiting the Netherlands: Sarah’s Dutch–New Amsterdam ancestry and her desire to paint scenes of Holland.

  What we needed to find out, next, was when the photos were taken and exactly where in Holland.

  It is in part the traditional costume, of course, that first attracts the tourist and photographer and now charms the modern viewer—it is the exotic that we hunger for, in the sameness of our own lives. It is the costume, too, that helps to locate the photos: since it is specific to a small area, if we can identify it, then we know where the photos were taken. But the fact that it has persisted with little change even into contemporary times also means that it will not tell us whether the photos were taken in the 1890s, as I first thought, or in the early 1900s, as is more likely. Only the “modern” and cosmopolitan clothing, with its changing fashions, can date the photos more precisely when it is present.

  Interestingly, though, the possible dates are limited by several immutable facts: the type of camera most likely used, which I find out was manufactured between 1896 and 1904; the formats of the images, which came into existence in 1903; and the death of Theo, which occurred in 1906.

  I thought I had another good clue: the photo of the Middelburg marketplace shows the vast sixteenth-century stadhuis in the distance, on the far side of the square, a fantastically ornate structure with a long, steeply sloping roof that accommodates no fewer than three stories of attic windows. Because the left part is covered in scaffolding, I thought the dates of the restoration work might tell me the period in which the photo was taken. But inquiries to the stadhuis archivist revealed that one part or another of the building was often covered in scaffolding. His best guess, however, as he looked at the photo, did at least agree with my hypothesis of the early 1900s.

  I also learned from a Belgian friend who used to visit the marketplace in his childhood that the building and town have long been a well-known tourist destination. Then I realized what should have been obvious right away: probably our American friends, the Shaws, visited only the better-known spots in Holland, rather than straying too far off the beaten track. This might help to identify the specific places where the photos were taken.

  I had had an inkling of this when I did a little research into the head coverings worn in one of the first photos that Francie showed me—the little girls walking together by the water. A Dutch friend, Paul, had immediately speculated: Volendam, Marken, Urk, Stavoren, “een haven langs de voormalige Zuiderzee [a harbor along the former Zuiderzee]?”

  These are indeed villages and towns to the north of Amsterdam. The old fishing village of Volendam, I now know, is a popular tourist destination because it is not far from Amsterdam and has retained some of its old-fashioned character, especially in the traditional dress still worn by a number of its inhabitants.

  It is remarkable that the traditional costume was common so far into the twentieth century and that it persists even now. There were several obvious factors in its gradual disappearance: the changes in geography leading to a decrease in isolation; the changes in work, on the part of both men and women; the cultural penetration of modern life via television and other media. And one not completely negligible factor in its disappearance seems to have been, ironically, the intrusiveness of tourists gaping at people in regional costume—although, paradoxically, it is now the interest of tourists, as well as of the Dutch themselves, that encourages the deliberate cultivation and display of regional customs, including traditional dress.

  In examining these photos, of course I think of the invisible other side of the encounter. Observing these native Dutch people from behind the camera were the two rather elderly Americans, in American dress of the time—elaborate and fantastic in its own way. To judge from their expressions, the Dutch subjects do not seem to have warmed to the visitors, and I doubt they were paid for posing—as some were—though we can’t be certain. Most of the pictures are not posed: the subjects are often in motion, often captured in the midst of their activities—the boys pushing a younger sibling in a carriage; the old women knitting and chatting. Some don’t even seem to notice the camera, like the boys with the cart on the beac
h; others see it, but with curiosity, indifference, or possibly even hostility, like the father with his infant on his lap; only some, like the girl with the yoke and two baskets, seem frozen in position, waiting for the shutter to click.

  One effect of this naturalness is that we intuit some sense of the subjects’ real lives, and we feel more present, because less observed by them.

  2013

  Girl with umbrella, probably Middelburg, Zeeland. This elegant girl with coils at her temples, dressed in clothing typical of the island of Walcheren—like the other girls and women in the photo—has momentarily turned away from the spectacle that has attracted this crowd. Behind her, two women are standing on chairs, the better to see. A painted pattern such as the one on the door is often found on the shutters and/or doors of public and private buildings in Holland (including the Middelburg stadhuis). The umbrellas, two more of which are visible, are for protection against the sun, not the rain.

  Three boys with baby carriage. Like many others in these photos, the boys are working—in this case, minding a younger sibling—and are apparently taken by surprise, to judge from their expressions and their positions midstride.

  Young fish peddler from Arnemuiden: Here is a young version of the visleursters seen in the Middelburg marketplace. The pattern on her baskets, checkerboard squares for two rows of weaving (but not usually the third), is typical for the fish peddler, as are her shoes, either men’s shoes or low boots, worn by these women for the three-to-five-kilometer-long walk from the coastal fishing village. They might carry as much as eighty kilos of fish suspended from their wooden juk, along the path from Arnemuiden. Brick-paved in parts, the path passed through fields, crossed ditches on narrow plank bridges, and was interrupted by at least one canal over which the women were conveyed by a ferry. Each peddler, once she reached town, went off to make the rounds of her own regular customers door-to-door or headed for the marketplace. This young girl is wearing at her temples the typical gold coils that are the end points of the oorijzer she wears inside her cap. From these coils, a woman might suspend precious ornaments as a sign of her wealth. This type of wooden yoke was also used to carry cheeses or water. Notice her tight short sleeves, displaying her strong arms—traditionally an attractive attribute. The clean and well-maintained appearance of the building and pavement would seem to be typical, judging from this group of photos.

  Boy in typical Volendam dress. This image, given the boy’s wide trousers, silver buttons, tilted visored cap, and klompen (clogs), may be the most stereotypically Dutch. But one peculiar feature of the photo is that because the brick-paved roadway on which he stands is well above the level of the house behind him, and the photographer is very close to him, he appears to be the “Giant Dutch Boy.”

  Men, women, and children by harbor, Volendam. In this graceful, atmospheric photo, with its formal, balanced composition, figures stand and sit above something of great interest hidden from our view. Notice the positioning of arms and hands, the combination of intimacy and isolation in the figures, the washy background of sky and water, and in the distance the moored boats used for fishing on the Zuiderzee. The striped skirts on two of the women were typical for this area.

  Women crossing square, Volendam. Three women in traditional Volendam dress are clearly shown, and a fourth figure, probably a man, disappears into the darkness of the house in the background. One younger woman, or girl, turns to look at the photographer. Her companion holds a cane and seems to stoop slightly. Because the women are not carrying baskets or any other object associated with work, and because they are all headed toward the little houses in the background, we have the impression that they are returning from some more festive or ceremonious event, perhaps a church service. The small white scarves worn by two of them support that assumption, since they were worn only on special occasions. Their shadows are not long, so we can assume the time is around midday.

  Boy with basket. This little boy is leaning back slightly to counter the weight of a basket overflowing with what looks like seaweed or fish packed in seaweed but may simply be vegetables. He stands on cobblestones near the window of a house or shop. Visible below the basket are either his pant legs or his thick socks, almost always worn to cushion the clogs.

  Boys with rowboat, Volendam. In the background is what appears to be a row of fishermen’s houses with some wash hanging in front. Also hanging to dry, next to the boys (and stretching back far behind them), are many hoekwant—a kind of composite fishing line with multiple hooks attached. Given the angle of the photo, it would seem that the photographer crouched down quite low to take the picture. Does this make Sarah more likely as the photographer than the somewhat older (and stouter) Theodore?

  Children walking, Marken. These lively girls with their patterned bodices, striding along the waterside roadway, are from Marken: we know this from their clothing and that of the lone boy, his full knee breeches and brimmed hat being typical of that island and quite different, for instance, from the dress of the boys in the preceding photo.

  Father with infant and wooden clogs, Volendam. Clogs were left outside the house so as not to dirty the floor. The Dutch, as reputed, were indeed very clean, even to the extent of washing the stoops of their houses and the pavement in front once a week; neighbors might do it at the same time so that the whole street was clean. Clogs were worn beginning early in childhood, and even toddlers had no trouble getting around in them. They seem outsize to us because they were: for comfort, they were worn with one or two (or more) pairs of thick socks, with perhaps the addition of a sheepskin pad or (more recently) newspaper inserted inside. They were and still are very warm and practical, especially in mud and sand, and for dirty work.

  Old women knitting. These three old women, not from Holland, though also photographed by the Shaws, found their way in among the Dutch photos, and we have opted to keep them here for their busy hands, expressive faces, and sturdy shoes. They talk as they knit, and if one would perhaps like to be part of their circle, one would not like to be the subject of their talk. Set into the wall is an iron hitching ring, for a horse or other animal. The space has the feel of a barnyard, given the rough ground, the ring, and the ladders or other appurtenances in the background. Or perhaps it is a rough-surfaced alleyway or street. Though the costumes are not Dutch, the same elements figure, including the ever-present cap—here, one is black, while the others are white, surely signifying something.

  Ducks and toy boats, Volendam. The children are playing with the toy boats in a canal that runs behind the houses, or perhaps the boys are playing with the boats while the older girl feeds the ducks that swim nearby. Where is the photographer? Assuming it is Sarah, is she on a boat moving down this canal, or is she walking on a path opposite the children? From the lie of the water in front of her, she seems to be on it, and maybe the ripples in the foreground are even caused by the motion of her own boat.

  WRITERS (3)

  The Problem of Plot Summary in Blanchot’s Fiction

  I was once asked to summarize two novels by Maurice Blanchot for two publishers who needed jacket copy or publicity copy—in other words, to produce summaries comprehensible to a larger audience, of writings very hard to comprehend. One summary I did badly, the other better. Being forced to summarize meant I was forced to identify precisely what was happening in the novels and what moved the action forward. This was not easy in the case of Blanchot’s fiction. Here is one perfectly accurate summary, though the briefest possible one, of Celui qui ne m’accompagnait pas (The One Who Was Standing Apart from Me): “In a house in the southern part of some country, a man goes from room to room being asked the question ‘Are you writing now?’ by another character who may or may not exist.”

  (This summary would not be suitable for commercial release.)

  Another description, longer and more detailed, would be more conventionally acceptable:

  In a house in a region identified only as somewhere in the south (of France), during seasons that seem to
change from autumn to winter to summer, a man moves restlessly, at long intervals, from room to room: he looks out into a garden he remembers with pleasure; he goes to the kitchen for a glass of water; he stands by the staircase; he climbs to the upstairs room in which he says he lives and writes; he returns to the large ground-floor room, which contains a table and suddenly, now, a large disordered bed, a bed so vast, in the eyes of this man, the narrator—for whom the things of the world have an illusory quality that causes them to shift or disappear constantly—that it might not be a bed after all, but the ground itself, which is why he hesitates to lie down on it, though he is exhausted.

  He looks out the bay windows of the room into the garden again, where a man who may or may not really be there stands looking into the room, though this man does not seem to see the narrator. When he is not moving about the house, the narrator is engaging in a dialogue with his “companion,” who may or may not be another aspect of himself, and may or may not exist outside his imagination, and when he is not moving or speaking, he is thinking.

  This novel appeared in 1953 during an extremely fruitful period in Blanchot’s writing life, five years after his novel L’Arrêt de mort (Death Sentence) and four years before his novel Le Dernier Homme (The Last Man). In it, almost nothing “happens,” in a sense. Yet between the two characters in the book, and within the mind of the narrator, a great deal happens, on a mysterious level where abstractions like immobility and light become strong concrete presences interacting and effecting emotional changes within the narrator and between the narrator and his companion.

  Throughout the novel, this companion presses the narrator with the question “Are you writing now?” and what the novel sets out to explore in the most astounding detail, from within the very center of the narrator’s almost desperately heightened consciousness, is his hesitant approach to the idea of writing, his consideration of the possible effects of his writing, and his relationship to his own words, which themselves become active, concrete presences in the novel, sometimes flying gaily and violently through the house, and sometimes closing about the narrator in a suffocating circle.