GIJSBERT KAMER | Volkskrant 16 November 2014, 21:06
Hertmans reads from his successful novel, Lysenko plays melancholy passages to it, and the audience watches breathlessly. So beautifully in harmony and with surprising performances was Crossing Border this year.
Less than twenty-four hours after winning the AKO Literature Prize for his novel War and Turpentine, Stefan Hertmans is in the upstairs room of The Hague’s Nationale Toneel Gebouw. Sitting next to him is Ukrainian accordionist Oleg Lysenko, and next to him again is Flemish illustrator/painter Koenraad Tinel. Hertmans reads from his successful novel, Lysenko plays beautiful melancholic passages from the work of his compatriot Victor Vlasov, and on a large screen above the stage the scenes from War and Turpentine, produced with black brushstrokes by Tinel, are clearly visible to everyone.
The audience watches breathlessly. A wonderful combination: Hertmans’ quiet diction, the melancholy music and the white sheets on which the most beautiful drawings keep appearing. Should this be a one-off performance, that would be a shame: the trio could just take it around the country, that’s how special it is.
Also special is the performance by Jaap Boots, who has already crossed the country with his performance Donderweg. In the book of the same name, he describes in a very engaging way what music (Bruce Springsteen, Beck) has colored his life path at crucial moments. On stage, Boots emerges as an accomplished cabaret artist with beautiful storytelling interspersed with appropriate music.blob:https://oleglysenko.oleglysenko.com/f6746148-1059-4938-8940-2253cfe19556https://acdn.adnxs.com/dmp/async_usersync.html
It is for this kind of performance that Crossing Border, the annual festival presenting the better recent literature and (pop) music together, was founded more than twenty years ago.
Writers who seek collaboration with musicians and musicians who want to exhibit their literary ambitions: at such times Crossing Border is at its best. Not that it always works out. Too often in the history of the festival there were bands and writers with their own audiences and their own dynamics, just “doing their thing. Playing or reading aloud, that was it. The audience came to see the one big name that was nowhere else, and in the empty rooms were the lesser-known names.
This festival year, everything is nicely balanced. On Saturday, American author Willy Vlautin demands attention, not only as a writer of bitter novels populated by losers, dropouts and other sad characters for whom The American Dream threatens to turn into a nightmare. No, in addition to novels such as the recent, politically charged Vrij, Vlautin also makes his presence felt in song lyrics that are at least as wry. He used to deliver mainly for the band of which he was also the frontman, Richmond Fontaine, but recently he has been writing songs for singer Amy Boone of The Delines, the band in which Vlautin himself plays a supporting role as guitarist.
The Delines start Saturday in the main hall of the Koninklijke Schouwburg with darkly tinted country songs, taken from their wonderful album Colfax, released this year. Boone has just the empathetic voice to bring Vlautin’s characters to life. It’s as if the stories of American writer Raymond Carver were set to music, that’s how hard the songs hit.
Vlautin says a few hours later, during an audience interview, he is relieved that he doesn’t have to act as frontman himself for a while. ‘You can see that I hardly dare to look into the room,’ he says. And that’s right. Vlautin does his story in a full room, which turns out to be well filled every time a writer is interviewed. This year’s literary offerings are strong and timely. It seems like the line for writer Ian McEwan is longer than for pop musicians like Thurston Moore and Jeff Tweedy.
Yet musically there is also a surprise in the person of Courtney Barnett. Accompanied by a solid guitar band, the Australian singer emerges as a cross between Lucinda Williams and Patti Smith. Equally inspired and dogged, with songs that grab hold of you more and more. Crossing Border 2014, which finally crossed some boundaries between literature and music again, was a highlight.
14-15/11, Crossing Border
Various locations in The Hague.