The Ten Thousand Things in Around the World

May 17, 2012 Friederike Knabe rated it it was amazing

Shelves: asia

The "Small Garden" at the Inner Bay, a picturesque place where the views, the smells, sounds and colours, "held her, slowly enveloped her, showed her things, whispered her its secrets..." It is a place where time can stand still, where past and present and future, perhaps?, can fuse into one unifying image. The "lady of the Small Garden" likes to wander along its paths, or resting somewhere in the shade, letting her mind go back in time, remembering those before her who lived here and those who The "Small Garden" at the Inner Bay, a picturesque place where the views, the smells, sounds and colours, "held her, slowly enveloped her, showed her things, whispered her its secrets..." It is a place where time can stand still, where past and present and future, perhaps?, can fuse into one unifying image. The "lady of the Small Garden" likes to wander along its paths, or resting somewhere in the shade, letting her mind go back in time, remembering those before her who lived here and those who passed on. She feels, touches or imagines the many thousand things that have left their mark on this land over many generations. In her company we are drawn into a world that is real and imagined, that can reveal itself in intricate detail or in impressionistic apparition. We follow her exploring the woods at one end of the garden, or sit with her on the deck looking out into the bay, watching the gentle surf and the trade boats glide by... Does this sound enthralling and somewhat unreal? Indeed it is both. Yet, the place is real, with real people living on an island (Ambon) in the Moluccas in a more or less specific historical time. Dutch writer Maria Dermoût has created an extraordinary novel in which she paints landscape, atmosphere and characters so beautifully that you want to learn more about her, the people and the island. Drawing on her life experiences, while living and traveling for many years in the then Dutch East Indies, she is recognized as a prominent representative of Dutch literature, yet little known elsewhere.

Felicia, the heroine of the story, takes over the role as the lady of the Small Garden from her grandmother who in turn learned many of the island's stories from her own grandmother. The "small" Garden, which is not small at all, dominates the island. Each object, plant or animal in the garden had its own story, from the scientific name to the mysteries of the indigenous beliefs, to the traditional medicines of the islands and the spirits of those long past. Felicia is a modern young woman when she returns with her young son to her childhood place to stay with her grandmother. And slowly, very slowly she discovers the secrets of the place and learns to see and listen to its tunes.

Dermoût combines her talents of an intricate story teller with the eye of a painter. Her descriptions of places and people are delicate and imaginative. At the same time, she weaves into the fabric of her overall portrayal of Felicia and the Garden other people's stories from nearby places. We meet a Scots professor accompanied by an attractive proud Javanese assistant; a commissioner with a mysterious domestic arrangement; Felicia's son and his adventures, and others. Their stories are connected in some way, even if, initially, we may not quite see how these fit into the broader canvass… but suffice to say that they do in the end. The novel's structure is similarly subtle and initially not totally easy to follow. I actually read the first pages twice – once for their imaginary beauty and once for comprehension of the narrative flow. Once I realized that I was entering an unknown landscape, I also discovered that the understated narrative structure and impressionistic impressions eventually condensed to defined images of a rich portrait of lives lived in a real, yet magical place.

Maria Dermoût's novel was first published in 1955 in Dutch and in translated into English in 1958. During her lifetime, she died in 1962, she did not experience the respect and admiration for this novel and her other work that she achieved later. Hans Koning, whose sensitive translation and excellent introduction to this novel make the new NYRB edition a delight to read. ...more

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Oct 12, 2015 Dioni rated it really liked it

Shelves: recent-favorites

First published at http://www.meexia.com/bookie/2016/01/...

In The Ten Thousand Things Maria Dermoût brought us to my birth country, Indonesia. This is the first time for me to read a Dutch Indies literature so it was truly an interesting experience. I had to look up Moluccas - the place where the book is set, and only then realized it's the islands of Maluku. In fact, I only recently discovered that pre-independent Indonesia is called Dutch East Indies. Just things you wouldn't learn in school's ...more

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Sep 02, 2011 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it liked it

Shelves: nanoreadmo-2013, around-the-world, speed-date-3, location-indonesia, own, nyrb, read2013

The publisher description probably says it best:

The Ten Thousand Things is a novel of shimmering strangeness—the story of Felicia, who returns with her baby son from Holland to the Spice Islands of Indonesia, to the house and garden that were her birthplace, over which her powerful grandmother still presides. There Felicia finds herself wedded to an uncanny and dangerous world, full of mystery and violence, where objects tell tales, the dead come and go, and the past is as potent as the prese

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Aug 14, 2013 Nick rated it really liked it

It is difficult to believe that “The Ten Thousand Things”, written languorously and set in a place that defines faraway, once occupied the Best Seller List alongside “Dr. Zhivago” and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”. Rather than Pasternak and Capote, the writer who “The Ten Thousand Things” evokes most is the Faulkner of “Absalom, Absalom”, with its decaying families in decrepit mansions, its characters who destroy themselves at the intersection of ambition and illusion. In lieu of Thomas Sutpen fleein ...more

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Jun 13, 2022 Nina ( picturetalk321 ) rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: z-read-gelesen-2022, author-woman, author-white, europe, a-reviewed, world-indonesia, transl-dutch, author-hybridnation, europe-netherlands, publdate-1950s

Written by a white Dutch woman who was born and lived foe decades in Indonesia during the Dutch colonial era, until 1933. She published this book in 1955, aged 63. It is a beautiful evocation of the island of Ambon. I googlemapped Ambon in the Moluccas: an extraordinarly little island, with two bays (almost lagoons), an outer and an inner, and these two bays structure the spatial experiences of the protagonists.

The more or less main character is Felicia, an elder woman who looks back on her life ...more

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Dec 22, 2011 Christie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: aroundtheworld

This book, though short, was extraordinarily memorable. A story of living with loss- and not just moving on from loss-, it was the kind of book that you will never read again. Even if there was another book like this one, The Ten Thousand Things would make you not want to, because you wouldn't want to ruin the mystique of this beautiful little book. ...more

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