Works
His first published work was a volume of poetry titled Paddestoelen ("Mushrooms") under the pen-name Ton Ven. It was not particularly well received.
His breakthrough came with the short novels Blokken ("Blocks", 1931), Knorrende Beesten ("Growling Animals", 1933) and Bint (1934), and two longer works Rood paleis ("Red Palace", 1936) and Karakter ("Character", 1938). Blokken was a dystopian work which was perceived as a criticism of communism. It is comparable to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, which appeared one year later and which Bordewijk deemed to be junk ("een enorme prul").
Read more about this topic: Ferdinand Bordewijk
Famous quotes containing the word works:
“Again we mistook a little rocky islet seen through the “drisk,” with some taller bare trunks or stumps on it, for the steamer with its smoke-pipes, but as it had not changed its position after half an hour, we were undeceived. So much do the works of man resemble the works of nature. A moose might mistake a steamer for a floating isle, and not be scared till he heard its puffing or its whistle.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“My first childish doubt as to whether God could really be a good Protestant was suggested by my observation of the deplorable fact that the best voices available for combination with my mother’s in the works of the great composers had been unaccountably vouchsafed to Roman Catholics.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Reason, the prized reality, the Law, is apprehended, now and then, for a serene and profound moment, amidst the hubbub of cares and works which have no direct bearing on it;Mis then lost, for months or years, and again found, for an interval, to be lost again. If we compute it in time, we may, in fifty years, have half a dozen reasonable hours.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)