145. Fading away
I.
For his book De prullenmand heeft veel plezier aan mij (The Wastepaper Basket Gets a Lot of Fun Out of Me), Thomas Heerma van Voss interviewed eighteen* *writers who drew a self-portrait in 1977 for the literary magazine Revisor. The starting point is always the same: how did the authors see themselves back then, and how do they look back on it now?
Heerma van Voss sometimes finds it a bit of a struggle to get in touch with the writers, but once the appointment is made and he is visiting, the result is touching, entertaining and sometimes poignant portraits. The interviews are all down-to-earth and written with affection.
They have all grown old, and most are still writing. Even if they are hardly published anymore — they cannot help themselves. It struck me that oblivion is a theme in the book. Rudolf Geel: “Actually, dear Thomas, we are now talking about the history of our disappearance.”
Arie van den Berg says as much too. “I have ended up in the very situation I saw coming long ago: I am disappearing.” The 76-year-old writer returns to this later in the interview, when he recounts that he has destroyed his diaries. “After you turn seventy, life is an exercise in disappearing.”
Fortunately, that is not the subject that dominates this collection. “I am not concerned with decline or increasing invisibility,” writes Heerma van Voss herself. “What matters to me is hearing how they look back, what stories they recount, what underlying tone lingers.”
Van den Berg grumbles about that slow fading into obscurity, but ultimately he says that most things have gone as he wanted. “Looking back, I’m mainly very satisfied,” he says. “I’ve got through it.”
It’s a De Avonden-style little sentence. There’s a sense of resignation in it. The fact that, fifty years after scribbling a self-portrait, you’re being interviewed by a young writer actually says it all: it hasn’t gone unnoticed.
II.
The Beatles Anthology was released in 1995, but is now available on Disney+ with an extra episode. It is an incredibly well-documented self-portrait of The Beatles, with Paul, George and Ringo looking back on the rise and fall of the British band. John can be heard in archive footage.
The whole series is well worth watching, but be prepared to spend days listening to The Beatles’ music afterwards. What struck me is how razor-sharp the picture is at times and what that sense of realism does to your experience. It feels as though the sixty-year-old clips were filmed yesterday, were it not for the fact that different clothes are in fashion and there are smart cars driving on the streets. If only all films from that era had been restored so beautifully.
The series offers a wonderful overview of how time flies. You see how four lads from Liverpool, thanks to luck and talent, turned the world on its head. You see how they grow tired of performing because the screaming never stops, not even when they play the wrong chords or sing out of tune. You see how they discover psychedelia and embrace flower power. And you see how they then go back to basics, now grown up, and bring all their experiences to Let It Be and Abbey Road.
George Harrison recalls another lovely, vivid memory of days gone by. “Some people here, the sound engineer for example, always tried to go home at 5.30 pm,” he says. “And we were all trying to make history here. Mal, our roadie, had a big aluminium teapot. And then he’d go off… I remember he’d made some tea and we’d put stimulants in it. He was there with George Martin and I think Geoff Emerick gave him that tea, because they asked: can we go home now? No, you dafters, have a cup of tea. And then they sat there until 11.00 pm.”
Paul: “Then they didn’t want to go home.”
A ninth, bonus episode has been added for Disney+. It’s not so much that the Beatles fan learns anything more from it, but it’s nice to linger in their world a little longer.
- - -III.
Cartoonist Aimée de Jongh returned to the refugee camps on Lesbos for her new book Samir. She had already visited the Greek island in 2017 for an NRC report. As photography was not permitted, she drew what she saw.
This time, she did take a camera with her, for a short documentary by Het Uur van de Wolf. In it, you can see how De Jongh is doing research for her book, which is due to be published next year. She draws portraits of the people she speaks to. “That way I can give something back,” says the artist. “Otherwise I feel as though I’m just coming to take something.”
De Jongh enjoyed great success last year with her comic adaptation of the book Lord of the Flies. Before that, she created other wonderful books. My favourite is Days of Sand, about a young photographer sent to Oklahoma in the 1930s to document the Dust Bowl. That story was also preceded by a great deal of research. It’s a working method that suits De Jongh; she immerses herself in a subject and it invariably yields something special.
De Jongh has now achieved worldwide success. And now she is creating a socially conscious book about what she considers important, probably because her first visit to Lesbos made such a deep impression on her. She wants to show that many refugees are still arriving in Europe. That some people do not survive the crossing. And what it’s like to end up in a reception camp.
During her research, she hears harrowing stories. From a Greek man who has stopped fishing along the coast, for example. “I was bringing people in instead of fish,” he says. De Jongh wants to show that the refugee crisis is not yet over. “I want to show what has become invisible. I’m amazed at how easily we look away from what’s happening right under our noses.”
PS.
I haven’t seen Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery yet, but I did have a laugh at this Sesame Street spin-off: Forks Out.
- - -More good puppet news: The Muppet Show is returning in February with a (one-off) special. Seth Rogen is working on the production and Sabrina Carpenter is the special guest. There’s already a short teaser.
- - -What a tragic tragedy in Hollywood: Rob Reiner and his wife Michele Singer have been killed. Alan Sepinwall wrote a lovely article about what Reiner meant to the film world.
A.A. Dowd sings the praises of Sinners. “No other film this year has so profitably struck a balance between popcorn populism and an auteur’s own idiosyncratic preoccupations.”
When Steven Spielberg is working on a mysterious film about the discovery of extraterrestrial life, I sit up and take notice. Disclosure Day is due for release next year. The cast includes Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor and Colin Firth.
- - -Next week I’ll be listing my favourites from 2025. Merry Christmas in advance!
You’ve just read blog post №145, written during the week of 15 to 21 December 2025. Subscribe to my newsletter and you’ll receive it in your inbox every Sunday, free of charge.