The Figure In The Distance

by Otto de Kat

Cambridge, Budapest, New York, Zurich, The Hague, Tel Aviv, the South Downs of the narrator has travelled everywhere. He has observed some of the major upheavals of the century - the Six Day War, the Prague Spring - and collected friends, lovers, and passions every step of the way. As he ages, the memories of his past grow sharper, the events of his childhood more vivid - so vivid, in fact, that his present life recedes into oblivion. He inhabits a world of ghosts and shadows and absence. Throughout his perambulations of time and space, one absence always looms that of his father. The figure of his dead father materializes again and again, drawing the narrator back into the past, reviving the people and places of long ago. The Figure in the Distance is a hypnotic novel, told with a cinematic cross-cutting that suspends the reader in the cobwebs of memory and longing that haunt the narrator.

Genres: Fiction

108 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Otto de Kat is de auteur van de kleine roman Man in de verte, die in 1998 verscheen. De roman werd goed ontvangen en er volgde snel een Duitse en een Engelse vertaling. Otto de Kat is het pseudoniem van Jan Geurt Gaarlandt (Rotterdam, 1946). Hij was directeur van Uitgeverij Balans en voorheen literair criticus bij de Volkskrant en Vrij Nederland. Onder zijn eigen naam publiceerde hij eerder al gedichten, die gebundeld werden in Het ironisch handvest (1975).

In het najaar van 2004 verscheen de roman De inscheper die eveneens zeer lovend ontvangen werd en waarvoor hij de Halewijck Literatuurprijs ontving. De Franse en Engelse vertaling ervan verschijnen in 2008. Bericht uit Berlijn is verschenen in 2012. Het boek werd in het Duits vertaald als Eine Tochter aus Berlin. In 2015 verscheen De langste nacht, die werd genomineerd voor de Libris Literatuur Prijs.

Reviews

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

De eerste (kleine) roman van de Kat. Bij mij gaat het vaker zo. Wanneer ik toevallig een boek tegenkom dat mij aanspreekt, wil ik meer van dezelfde schrijver lezen. In dit geval was dat 'Bericht uit Berlijn.' Daarna (her)las ik zijn laatste roman 'De langste Nacht.' 'De Inscheper' en 'Julia' volgden. Het interessante (en knappe) van 'De langste Nacht' is dat in dit boek personen en gebeurtenissen uit de vroegere romans op een natuurlijke manier terugkomen. Zijn hele oeuvre vormt zo een geheel. Terugkijkend past ook zijn eersteling in het geheel. Hoewel niet bij name genoemd staat hier de zoon van de vrouw uit zijn laatste roman centraal. De zoon is vol herinneringen aan zijn vader, de tweede man van zijn moeder. Zijn moeder wordt hier alleen kort genoemd bij de dood en begrafenis van zijn vader. Naast het mijmeren over het verleden met zijn vader worstelt de zoon met zijn leven en in het algemeen de zin van het leven in Rotterdam, New York, Zürich (speelt ook een belangrijke rol in zijn latere boeken), Cambridge en Boedapest. De kat heeft een prachtig stijl met zinnen die je meerdere malen leest.
Advies: begin, anders dan ik deed, met dit boek en lees de latere romans in volgorde van uitgave. Noodzakelijk is dit echter niet.

[Maurice Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Otto de Kat's novel "The Figure in the Distance" is a "stream of consciousness" novel. It doesn't have a plot like the more common novel. Instead, it is commentary of what the narrator thinks, revealing some of the narrator's memories and impressions. There are other characters in the book, the narrator's father, his mother, brother, several friends, some identified by names, some by code letters, but the narrator is by far the main character. The narrator has a lot to say about his father, whom he loved very much. Otto de Kat writes in the first person, which makes one think the novel is autobiographical, but the publisher listed it as fiction. Perhaps this book is partly autobiographical, partly fiction. Either way, there is a theme in it, a point of view the author wants to get across. The publisher calls this book "a hypnotic novel, told with a cinematic cross-cutting that suspends the reader in the cobwebs of memory and longing that haunt the narrator." I can see that it's going to be hard to find the theme.

Otto de Kat studied theology and literature in Europe. He published poetry and worked as a literary critic before writing this, his first novel. Otto de Kat's poetic side shows in some very vivid scenes worded in a way that makes you almost see what he is describing. The best scene is a description of the narrator, his father, and brother ice skating along a frozen river near their home. I can still see the image: three of them bent over and silent, their hands behind their backs, single file, taking long rhythmical strokes so much in unison that the narrator could easily have placed his hand against his father's hand. The narrator misses his father terribly. His father died young: fifty-nine. The narrator says that, through the years, there grew an almost imperceptible desire to cling to his father, like coral to a reef. The narrator realized "His desire to become lost in somebody else was becoming relentless. A form of immaturity." He felt a similar way with his friends and, sometimes, with beautiful women he encountered. This novel is not very cheerful. It shows an unfulfilled side of the narrator, a gloomy, pessimistic view of life.

The narrator touches on religion in a way that makes it obvious he does not believe. That, coupled with his feeling of emptiness, prompts one to wonder what is the author's theme. The narrator says he feels like "a vanishing speck in the terror of infinite space." He would like to melt into the crowd. "Nothing he believed suited him."

Concerning religion, the narrator said that when he put on his black gown, at Cambridge, to say the Latin grace, he thought "It was a sarcastic mockery. A masquerade." The narrator and his friend, Roy Dawson, when discussing Protestant earnestness, concluded "that the clank of billiard balls hitting one another was more edifying than the psalmody of a professional parson." The narrator remembers how rankled his father became hearing in a sermon that the rich young man "who had been so keen to follow Jesus should have been sent away, sorrowful, told to sell everything he possessed." The narrator opines: "Religion tries to lull us to sleep, science tries to keep us awake and art has gone completely off the rails." The narrator thought that prayers were empty, like the incantations of a rainmaker, nothing but words reaching into the dark: "Father, I am here, where are you?"

Strange that someone who studied theology should express so little understanding about God. This theme is typical of modern Western thought. I can sympathize with the narrator's anguish. Many people feel the same way. The narrator quotes the story of the rich young man in the wrong sequence. The young man was not sent away and then told to sell everything he possessed. He was told to sell what he possessed and then come with Jesus. Would a man like the narrator, who has a relentless desire to become lost in someone else, who felt nothing he believed suited him--would he have been willing to sell everything he possessed and go with Jesus?

Otto de Kat's novel tells the journey of a wounded soul, longing for immortality, for communion with his departed father, for something to cling to like coral to a reef. One thought that occurred to me is that what the narrator longs for has already been offered, if only he could recognize it.

[Gijs Zandbergen · Rating 3 out of 5]

En dun en ernstig boekje. Feitelijk het eerste deel van een vijfdelige cyclus over een familie. Een man woont en werkt in New York, Cambridge, Zürich, Den Haag en Boedapest en herinnert zich vooral zijn vader, die hij niet-echt goed heeft gekend. Melancholiek en betekenisvolle scenes, die vooral voor de verteller betekenis hebben. Wel heel zorgvuldig geschreven. Een typisch Van Oorschot boek.

[Anton Segers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vroeg werk van Otto de Kat. Nog niet tot wasdom gekomen als schrijver. Er zitten heel mooie momentjes in over de herinneringen aan de overleden vader, maar het blijft wat fragmentarisch en springerig.