IMAGINABLE REALITY

REALISM AND POLITICS IN DUTCH LITERATURE ANDJOURNALISM 1860-1910

Ilja van den Broek

This paper explores the moral and politicalconnotations of realism as a style in literatureand journalism. Literary scientists usually dividethe period of literary history with which we areconcerned into a variety of literary styles.Within this discourse, realism can roughly beplaced in the twenty-year period between 1840 and1860. The ‘Physiologies’ genre tried to capturereality in recognizable, inherently staticcategories,1 and after a brief return toromanticism around 1880, naturalism became aninfluential style until about 1910. Naturalism isseen as a form of extended realism with a specialinterest in the seamy side of society and personallife. A distinguishing characteristic ofnaturalism in its pure form is its scientificambition. Naturalistic literature was the productof a thorough sociological and psychologicalanalysis of reality.

What deserves explicit attention in this fieldis the connection between literature andjournalism. During the latter half of thenineteenth century and the early 1900s a livelyintermingling of realist fiction and non-fictiontook place. Novelists wrote features andmanifestos in magazines and newspapers, and beganto use journalistic techniques. At the same timejournalists experimented with literary forms and

1 Van Bork and Laan, Twee eeuwen literatuurgeschiedenis, p. 78.

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genres, with the influence of naturalism beingreadily apparent.

I propose that the link between the realistnovel and journalistic reports of this period liesin their politically founded and definedrelationship to reality. According to thisanalysis, realism is not regarded as an attempt todescribe or reflect reality objectively but ratheras a dynamic, highly personal commentary onreality, aiming to attain a deeper insight intothe higher, often hidden truth of reality, and toopen minds to possible alternatives.

Within this context it is useful to regardrealism as a myth in the Barthian sense of theword. In common language, the myth of realismrefers to its ability to reflect reality in themost objective sense. Barthes’ definition of mythsconceptualizes them as a secondary system ofsemiotics – the primary system being Saussurianlinguistics, with the signifier and signified, andthe sign as the associative sum of the two.According to this, at Barthes’ secondary level,the sign – for example language, photography orritual – is understood as a mere signifier (animage), founding the myth with a newmetalinguistic signified (a concept), and thus, asa new sign connecting signifier and signified.2

Within this system, the realist novels or reportscan be read as metalinguistic signifiers, realityas seen by its writers as signified concept, andrealism as a mythological sign.

According to Barthes, the myth is political butexclusively conservative. It ‘naturalizes’society’s inequalities and political differences,transforming history into nature. It thus avoidsrendering reality as a symbol or deciphering andthereby debunking its images. In Barthes’ words:

L’opprimé fait le monde, il n’a qu’un langage actif,transitif (politique); l’oppresseur le conserve, sa

2 Barthes, Mythologies, p. 187.

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parole est plénière, intransitive, gestuelle, théâ-trale: c’est le Mythe; le langage de l’un vise àtransformer, le langage de l’autre vise à éterniser.3

This form of ideological criticism seems datednow, as Barthes has willingly conceded. However,at an analytical level the notions ofrepresentation as a threefold process and oflanguage as a partial medium have survived.Whether this discourse speaks of senders andreceivers influencing each other through a dynamicspace ‘in between’ (Bourdieu); of thoughts andacts forming each other through language(Edelman); or, at the purely political level, onegroup influencing the other through the dynamicprocess of representation (Bourdieu),4 thepostmodern principle remains the same. The imagehas become autonomous, and as a form of ‘realityas we see it’ it is non-verifiable, and has itsown dynamics.

Roland Barthes, Semiotic construction of the myth5

3 Ibidem, pp. 201-202, 223.4 Van den Broek, Heimwee naar de politiek, p. 174.5 Barthes, Mythologies, p. 187.

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1. sinifiant

2. signifié

3. signeI. SIGNIFIANT II. SIGNIFIÉ

III. SIGNE

Langue

MYTHE

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The ideological connotations of this kind ofanalysis have survived at the more practical levelof historical and cultural studies and this hasbeen a reason to neglect its results or tointegrate them into a new progressive andideologically coloured analysis that could becharacterized as a ‘politics of difference’. Fromthis perspective, individuals in nineteenth andtwentieth-century bourgeois society can be said tohave determined their identities on the basis oftheir differences with outsiders, for example,workers, women, homosexuals, madmen, natives.Realism is supposed to have exercised this po-litics of difference by emphasizing thestrangeness of this rhetorical ‘other’ and placinghim or her in another world.

This is where my argument begins – in my opinionmyths can be progressive,6 and as a Barthian myth,realism is one example. In this article I willconfirm the thematic primacy of ‘the other’ and‘strangeness’, the focus on the borders of society(as defined by class, gender and race) and thebuilding of alternative worlds by realist writers.Recurring themes in Dutch realism were the socialproblems of poverty and injustice, women and thefemale soul, and life in the colonies. I willsuggest, however, another reading of theseconcerns, with a different political connotation.In addition to not being objective in any way,realism during the period in question was not aconservative force but offered an engaging,politically progressive view of society and theindividual lives within it.

The hidden recesses of bourgeois society – theslums, the souls of ‘hysterical’ women and the FarEast – conceal a deeper experience of modern life,affecting both the personal and the political,waiting to be discovered by realist novelists andjournalists. Realist writers did not invent theirstories so as to distance themselves from these6 Ibidem.

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places and people – though I do not deny that insome cases their stories have caused alienation –but as a means of personally exploring theirsurroundings and their own psyche. They did sobecause in their opinion this was the best way ofshowing reality ‘as it really was’ hideous,filthy and unfair. Bourgeois society might havebeen a pleasant place to live for well-to-docitizens but it was also an ‘unreal’ world, andtherefore necessarily unfulfilling.

Traditional idealist literature wanted toembellish life for aesthetic purposes while at thesame time preserving moral norms. Thedramatization of ‘real life’ in the slums and inprimitive societies implied another vision ofreality in the implicit desire for change. Theendeavour to make life and society ‘more real’ nolonger implied an exclusion but an inclusion ofothers and strangeness, and made the breaking downof barriers seem possible. This is not to say thatall realist writers and journalists wererevolutionaries – in fact their conservatism couldeasily be overlooked by observers lackinghistorical training and it cannot be denied thatin specific situations some of their works had areactionary effect. However, generally speaking,by representing reality so as to suggestalternatives for bourgeois life and politics,realist writers intervened in existing powerstructures and this made their works political andprogressive.

In developing their stories and reports realistwriters aired their artistic, personal andideological opinions – the writer’s privilege.According to H. Porter Abott, narrative in generalshould not be understood as a description of afictional reality but as the exercise of the‘rhetoric of the real’. It is, he states, apowerful tool in the hands of engaged writersbecause the inevitable linearity of the realist

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story gratifies the need for causation.7 Inconstructing their narratives, realist writersmade their alternative worlds imaginable forbourgeois readers and thus more acceptable. Theimplications for society and politics are notrestricted to the story, as the politicalinfluence of this writing went beyond thenarrative.

Fictional Reality: Writing Novels

Realism as a style is opposed to nineteenth-century idealist writing which was designed todraw its readers out of their ‘real’ lives.Traditionally, literature was supposed to be abovelife and reality in order to educate the public inreligious and public morals. Within the sameideological framework, nineteenth-centuryjournalism tried to enhance moral knowledge andconsciousness, creating a civilized bourgeoissociety. However, around the mid-nineteenthcentury, artistic opinions changed. Many novelistsand journalists felt the urge to explore thecharacter and meaning of reality, to discover whatreality actually was and the ways in which itcould or should be represented in fiction.

Realist writers did not accept reality as agiven, static state. To understand the characterof these writers’ realism, the notion of ‘tragicrealism’ can be helpful. According to John Orr,the rise of the novel is contemporaneous with therise of bourgeois society. Tragic realism portraysthe irreplaceable loss of human qualities – eitheractual or potential – in the lives of itscharacters, bound to a specific society and adistinctive web of social relationships. Thisliterary style has an almost universal scope inits invocation of a sense of life continuingbeyond the boundary of fiction. It is subversivebecause it confronts the rational solutions to7 Abott, The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative, pp. 37, 40.

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human problems and challenges the distinctionbetween fact and fiction, suggesting that realitycannot be naturally ‘reflected’ in language andthat the construction of a language appropriate toreality is a creative process.8

In Holland, the novelist Jacob van Lenneppublished what could be called a pre-realist novel(1865-1866) which became extremely popular but wasalso widely criticized. Klaasje Zevenster recounted theadventures of a respectable girl who ended up in abrothel.9 Van Lennep’s choice of this moralistictheme was no coincidence. He deliberatelyconfronted his fellow citizens with this shamefulyet hidden side of bourgeois society. As wouldhappen to the ‘realist’ writers who followed, VanLennep was denounced for his perversity,10 andbecause he successfully dragged his readers intothis unseemly world through the use of evocativedetails and apparently ‘real’, rounded characterswho were neither wholly good nor bad.

Nonetheless, Klaasje Zevenster is an extremelymoralistic novel. Van Lennep wanted to confrontDutch society with its contemptible personal andsocial behaviour in order to free bourgeoissociety of its injustice. In the ethical battleagainst the regulations imposed on prostitutionthat began in the ensuing years, fictionalaccounts would be widely used to appeal to thepublic, along with pamphlets, appeals andconferences. Although it was fiction, Van Lennep’snovel would be repeatedly quoted in Parliament asa compelling example of the injustice occurringwithin the prostitution industry.11

8 Orr, Tragic Realism and Modern Society, pp. 12, 41, 46-48.9 Peters, ‘Een schandelijk boek’, p. 27.10 Mathijsen, De gemaskerde eeuw, p. 58.11 Bossenbroek and Kompagnie, Het mysterie, pp. 85, 149,166; Mathijsen, De gemaskerde eeuw, p. 73; Peters, ‘Eenschandelijk boek’, pp. 36, 39.

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In the nineteenth century, prostitution wassubjected to double standards. Prostitutes were ashameful yet necessary element of society who werethought to be needed to keep men satisfied, and inthis way to protect women by preventing aggressivesexual behaviour. They also allowed decent womento remain decent, protecting them from the sexualdesires of men that no properly brought up womancould fulfil. Prostitutes were thus consideredindecent, while their clients maintained theirrespectability. Van Lenneps was found to be atfault not only for breaking the silence kept onthe subject,12 but also for writing a story thatdebated the perceived truth. His main characterwas not a ‘fallen’ woman but a young bourgeoiswoman who could not help becoming a prostitute.Fortunately, and mysteriously enough, shesucceeded in preserving her virginity while livingin the brothel. It is suggested that she deservedprotection rather than the resigned acceptance ofprostitution as a necessary social evil.13

Paradoxically, Van Lennep was a socially andpolitically active citizen, as well as a respectedwriter,14 and as such was not supposed to writepublicly about prostitution, or examine the psycheof the women involved in the business. Nineteenth-century fiction on prostitution, similarly toerotic writing in general, was generally writtenby obscure writers or under a pseudonym. It wasstored on a hidden shelf of father’s bookcase andnot discussed in public. The protagonists were menwho had exciting adventures, rather than the womenwho suited their purpose.

Public indignation was also expressed towardsConrad Busken Huet. His novel Lidewyde (1868) was

12 Bossenbroek and Kompagnie, Het mysterie, p. 85.13 Peters, ‘Een schandelijk boek’, pp. 37, 53.14 Bossenbroek and Kompagnie, Het mysterie, pp. 75-77;Mathijsen, De gemaskerde eeuw, pp. 80, 85-86.

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about adultery rather than prostitution.15 Thejournalist and former minister wrote it during andafter a lengthy career as a literary critic. Theromantic love of his main characters, Emma andAndré, is challenged by a seductive, adulterouswoman called Lidewyde. The tragic hero André isdescribed so piteously that ‘hero’ is hardly theright term. Unable to resist temptation, hefinally chooses suicide over castration, whileLidewyde is punished by her rather stupid husbandbut does survive. Emma does not sin against publicmorals and receives the highest praise forremaining decent.

Busken Huet’s main fault in the eyes of hiscritics was his realist description of sexuality.Lidewydes ‘ivory body’ and the suggestion ofAndré’s castration were described in veiledlanguage,16 but nevertheless, contemporariesdespised the ‘lower’ aspects of reality within thestory. In general, they had an idealist view ofart – considering that it should make life morebeautiful and elevate it to a higher moral plane,concealing immorality and ugliness. In fact, thesewere also Busken Huet’s feelings. He consideredthat an idealized version of reality wouldreconcile men with life and resign them to theirfates, with art having a primarily moralfunction.17 The discussions of Lidewyde focused onnuances, but these were crucial. Why did thisparticular writer cross the moral boundaries ofhis fellow literary critics?

In his introduction, Busken Huet brieflyexplained his objectives. In his view, passion wasmost important in the creation of meaningful artand literature, as it was needed to appeal to theviewer or reader and draw them into the story orimage. He acknowledged that passion could be

15 Mathijsen, De gemaskerde eeuw, p. 92.16 Schenkeveld et al., Lidewyde, p. 59.17 Ibidem, pp. 3-4.

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dangerous and stated that only adult, educated mencould resist its dangers. He considered artwithout passion to be empty: ‘It would be a comedywithout a plot, an annoying novel withoutintrigue’. Significant in this respect was thecomment made by Dr Ruardi, lover of Lidewyde, the‘model of immorality’, that no Dutch novels withtrue heroines existed. In Lidewyde, the exoticprotagonist had Egyptian blood, while Ruardi wasItalian.18

Busken Huet deliberately walked the tightrope ofmoral issues. His purpose was to write a novelthat revealed a higher truth about bourgeoissociety.19 Therefore, he needed a passionate storythat did not hide the less edifying sides of civillife. The author did not employ the traditionalmeans of a narrator commenting upon morals, adevice which J.J. Cremer continued to use in hissocial novella Fabriekskinderen (1863). Instead,Busken Huet allowed his literary, highly stylizedversion of reality to speak for itself. In hisopinion, humanity was too weak and insignificantto be judged by idealist standards. Moreover,comparing novel writing to politics, he statedthat politics was not the only field in which onedid not do what one pleased but only what one wasable.20

It could easily be argued that Lidewydeanticipates the late nineteenth and earlytwentieth-century genre of the ‘hystericalbourgeois female novel’. In Holland, many examplesfit this description, including Juffrouw Lina (1888)by Marcellus Emants, Louis Couperus’s Eline Vere

18 Ibidem, pp. 103, 205, ‘Het zou een komedie zijn zonderknoop, een vervelende roman zonder intrige’, pp. 164,231, 176, 303.19 Ibidem, p. 60.20 Ibidem, pp. 341, 250, ‘want de staatkunde is geenszinshet enige terrein waarop men niet doet hetgeen men wil,maar hetgeen men kan’.

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(1888), and Frederik van Eeden’s Van de koele meren desdoods (1900). Dozens of less famous examples couldbe mentioned. ‘Hysterical’ females figured asvictims of a hypocritical bourgeois society,tormented by their sexual desires and theirinability to conform to existing moral standards.Lodewijk van Deyssel wrote perhaps the mostdisturbing example of this phenomenon, Een liefde [‘ALove Affair, 1887’], taking Busken Huet’sproclamation on passions as a personal motto.However, there is no doubt that his very explicitsexual scenes, with his main character Mathildemasturbating, for example, would have deeplyshocked Busken Huet. The great uproar surroundingEen liefde also shocked Van Deyssel – he censored thesecond edition himself.21

Mathilde experiences her feelings for Jozef veryphysically, right from the beginning of their‘love affair’. Sometimes in her mind he appears asan ‘ideal’, or ‘a radiant aura’, but mostly shefeels strange shivers when dreaming and wakes up‘with an unknown and fearful gasping’, with ‘thelower part of her body bent up to the vacantblankets’.22 She is a very passionate young woman,excessive in everything – crying and laughing whenreading, or playing the piano, or drawing forhours without looking up, as well as experiencingwaves of fervent religiosity.23 One night she playsout her love on the piano, imagining that everyonecan see it – ‘like a storm inside and a fireconsuming her’ – present with her in the blueroom. She feels as though she is going crazy: ‘Oh,her love, oh, her love, how happiness hurt her!’24

After the birth of her first child, Mathildesuffers from a disease now known as postnatal21 Timmerman, Tim’s herinneringen, p. 220; Mathijsen, Degemaskerde eeuw, p. 92.22 Van Deyssel, Een liefde, p. 65.23 Ibidem, p. 105.24 Ibidem, p. 202.

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depression. Her husband, who visited prostitutesand kept ‘maintenées’ before their marriage,becomes unfaithful to her when she rejects hissexual advances. He turns to the maid, a personalfriend of Mathilde and, again, to prostitutes. EenLiefde follows Mathilde and her emotions ondiscovering these escapades, through to her finalresignation and acceptance of the circumstances,by which she becomes a properly civilizedbourgeois woman.25

Van Deyssel’s fellow writers struggled in theircritiques to mingle praise with disgust. The well-known poet Willem Kloos wrote that ‘his book is abeautiful book, a sweet book, a powerful book, atrue book … but … this book is from time to timealso an indecent book’. Frederik van Eedenreproached Van Deyssel and his fellow naturalistsfor failing to avoid crude expressions, analysingsexual feelings and describing physicalexperiences in detail: ‘The book is annoying,irritating, disgusting – shocking! – justshocking! – that is the word’.26

These novels with female protagonists can beclassified as naturalist. In literary historythere is a distinction between realism andnaturalism. Contemporaries, however, used bothterms interchangeably27 and at the most saw only aslight difference – realism was quite bad,naturalism was worse. Naturalistic writers dugdeeper into the shameful, immoral aspects of life.They used examples from French literature, mostlythe works of Emile Zola, which would have shockedBusken Huet, who considered that Gustave Flauberthad already gone too far. Their ambitions were tothoroughly investigate bourgeois reality, not only

25 Mathijsen, De gemaskerde eeuw, pp. 59-60.26 Harry G.M. Prick, ‘Nawoord’, in: Van Deyssel, Een liefde,p. 12.27 Van Bork and Laan, Twee eeuwen, pp. 79, 138.

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in a sociological but also a psychological sense.28

On the margins of society, amidst hidden sexualityand the repressed female soul, the essence of ‘thebourgeois experience’, as Peter Gay called it, wasto be found.

In the end, it was not the detailed descriptionof reality that upset Van Lennep’s and BuskenHuet’s critics, nor those accounts of Van Deysseland his contemporaries. It was their vision ofreality and their capacity, thanks to theirliterary talents, to empathize with theirdisturbed yet powerful female protagonists.29 Theiropinions about the reality of bourgeois society,their comments on accepted civil reality, andtheir implicit attempt to alter it by presentingan alternative to ‘heartless’ liberal politicswere considered to be seriously subversive.30 Thesewriters described reality as inherently immoral,following the same lines of thought as theiridealist contemporaries. People who observedreality in detail would inevitably see terriblethings, there was no debate in that regard. Thequestion was whether one should look the otherway, appear to be personally decent and preservesociety’s moral order, or analyse and representreality in order to challenge this staticbourgeois view of society.

Realist writers refused to estrange themselvesfrom reality – they wanted to see and represent itin its most basic forms. Many of them developed aspecial, and according to their critics, evenperverse interest in squalor, obscenity,aggression and sexual behaviour. However, forthese writers the core of reality was to be foundon the borders of society. During the latenineteenth and the early twentieth centuries,realist writers chose prostitution and adultery,

28 Schenkeveld, Lidewyde, pp. 13, 64.29 Mathijsen, De gemaskerde eeuw, p. 34.30 Anbeek, De naturalistische roman, p. 7.

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social issues of poverty and injustice (mostly inan industrialized urban context), or life in theDutch East Indies as their subjects. They wereespecially interested in the female soul, inexotic foreign elements of Dutch life and in thepsychological traits of people living in slums orotherwise in great misery.

P.A. Daum was the tempo doeloe (the periodbetween 1870 and 1900 in the Dutch East Indies)writer who became most famous in later years. Hewas an illegitimate child from a poor family.However, he managed to provide himself withsomething of an education and in later yearsreceived the support of a wealthy relative. Heworked his way up from a soul-destroying job as aclerk to become a journalist at the respectednewspaper Het Vaderland. He was interested inliterature and an admirer of Multatuli. He wrote anumber of novellas which were conventional andidealist.31 In 1879 he moved to the Dutch Indies,where he worked as a journalist for severalnewspapers. It was in the East that Daum developeda very individual style and opinion in hisjournalism and as a novelist writing under thepseudonym of Maurits, who is still appreciatedtoday. During this period, he remained ajournalist, publishing all of his ‘East Indiesnovels’ as serials in his newspapers.32

In the foreword of his first East Indies novel,Uit de suiker in de tabak [‘From Sugar to Tobacco’], heclaimed to be making a break with romanticism,including that of his own Dutch novellas. Thisbook, he wrote, ‘will cause annoyance. Muchannoyance even, because things will be said thatare usually kept silent’. Daum did not offer anyeasy solutions. In his writings he paid closeattention to characters of humble background who,at great cost, managed to work their way up in

31 Termorshuizen, P.A. Daum, pp. 42, 45, 56, 61.32 Ibidem, pp. 65, 72, 90, 168, 172, 205.

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life – but he was no revolutionary. He criticizedliving conditions and social services in thecolony but did not sympathize with ‘ethical’politics, as he viewed the people of the EastIndies as lazy and uncivilized.33

His literary and personal worlds were placeswhere inequality continued to exist, unavoidablyso. Daum’s purpose both as a writer and as ajournalist was to acquire knowledge of reality. Inhis opinion, the enhancement of this knowledge bymeans of study and research was the basis of thesearch for truth, and an indispensableprerequisite for the progression of humanity.34 Hebecame an admirer of Zola and formulated his owntheory of naturalism. Uit de suiker in de tabak was hisattempt to write the first Dutch naturalistnovel.35

However, the book was not widely known in theNetherlands despite receiving a very positivereview from Lodewijk van Deyssel, who appreciatedMaurits’s research into real life. He connectedthis modern realism with Daum’s life in the East.36

Daum’s description of James van Tuyll’s life inthe colonies no longer bears the marks ofidealistic embellishment. As a law school dropout,Van Tuyll is sent to the Dutch Indies to work onhis uncle’s sugar plantation. Within a few yearshe inherits his own factory, but strange eventsconnected to a conflict with the wife and theforeman of his former boss make his lifemiserable. He is assaulted several times and hishome is burned down. He is the subject of so muchlocal gossip concerning supposed relationshipswith older women that he eventually seems to liveup to his reputation.37

33 Ibidem, pp. 46, 53, 93, 117, 120-121 and 128.34 Ibidem, p. 111.35 Ibidem, pp. 159-160, 208.36 Ibidem, pp. 15-16, 213-215.

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His luck seems to change when he meets his wifeto be Hélène Sanders, an upstanding plantation-owner’s daughter. Their marriage, however, is soonas wretched as Van Tuyll’s whole life. The couplecannot have children, Van Tuyll begins to visitwomen in the so-called ‘desa’ and Hélène loosesher interest in him. Financially, they try theirluck growing tobacco, but this turns out to be thedefinitive step on the road to disaster. Anexpensive trip to Europe finishes it and whileHélène manages to retain her respectability VanTuyll does not. Divorced and impoverished, hespends the rest of his life on a tiny piece ofland with an indigenous woman as his companion.Not coincidentally, he now lives the life of hisacquaintance Drossaart, who throughout the storyhas been his fortune-teller, warning him in vainand discussing the ‘relativity’ of goods andgains.38

Daum’s realism is an ‘East Indies’ realism. Themain characters are clearly affected by life inthe East, as was the writer himself. Van Tuyllhimself, cries for the first time since he was 10years old shortly after his arrival in thecolony.39 Van Tuyll tells his own story as a lonelymiddle-aged man sitting on his veranda, sighinghalfway through the story: ‘I am doubly unhappyabout this. Firstly, I feel obliged, now that Ihave come this far, to tell everything there is totell. I am no longer permitted to skip animportant episode, although I would do thisgladly. Secondly, I am facing a task that isbeyond my powers’.40 In describing a duel with37 Daum, Uit de suiker in de tabak, pp. 10, 55.38 Ibidem, p. 6039 Ibidem, p. 4.40 ‘Ik ben er dubbel ontevreden over. Vooreerst, gevoelik mij, eenmaal zóóver gekomen, verplicht alles tegeven, wat er is, en ben ik nu niet meer gerechtigd eenbelangrijke episode over te slaan, hoe gaarne ik dat zou

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Hélène’s fiancée he remarks, ‘if I were writing aconventional novel, I would describe a duel inthis place that would provide pleasure. However,the whole duel experience turns out to behumiliating’.41 What then, was real life? Could asingle person change it by moving to the colonies,buying a tobacco plantation, marrying arespectable woman or describing this wholeexperience in detail?

A subgenre of John Orr’s tragic realism is thepolitical novel. This type of novel portrays theimpact of politics on people at all levels ofsociety. One of the most famous examples is Zola’sGerminal, which investigates the formidable socialproblems within a mining community. Both employersand workers are trapped in the system. Thefictional strike is an attempt to break free thatis destined to fail and as heroic as it is tragic.The story shows how marginal the impact of goodintentions and changing opinions can be. Theuniversal truth effectively revealed by Zola isthat the advance of the working classes could onlycome about in the long term and with giganticlosses. Those taking part in the protest would notbe the ones to benefit.42

Orr states that the political novel differed inthis way from socialist novels, which were eitherutilitarian or romantic.43 The Dutch example,however, reveals the schematic nature of thisqualification of socialist literature. Socialistwriters also tried to write political novels oftragic realism, elaborating on Zola’s example. Inthe late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,prostitution returned as a recurrent subject of

willen; ten tweede sta ik hier voor een arbeid, welke ikvrees dat mijn krachten te boven zal gaan’ (ibidem, p.86).41 Ibidem, pp. 139-140.42 Orr, Tragic Realism, pp. 41-42, 88, 90, 92, 96.43 Ibidem, p. 96.

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literary writing. Social issues in general becameimportant, shifting emphasis from the ‘inner’realism of the Eighties Movement,44 to an ‘outer’realism by explicitly engaged literary writers.

An early example of social issues being thecentral theme was Fabriekskinderen. Een bede, doch niet omgeld [‘Factory Children, 1863’], a novella by JanJacob Cremer. This book was published in the samedecade as the moralistic novels of Van Lennep andBusken Huet. A traditional narrator commenting onmorality, told the story of the salvation of one‘factory child’ and the tragic death of another,his little sister, due to poverty and lack ofcare. The author, a very popular writer ofregional novels, was explicitly asked by arelative, the engineer A.A.C. de Vries Robbé, towrite this story. He was a politically activecitizen who advised the government on the issue ofchild labour and was very disappointed with thegovernment’s lack of appropriate measures (it wasnot until 1874 that Minister S. Van Houten’s ChildLabour Act was accepted).

De Vries wanted Cremer to write about the awfulcircumstances he had witnessed in factories,judging the reach of literature to be wider thanpetitions or commission reports. He took Cremer toa textile factory in Leiden where ten-year-oldchildren worked fifteen hours a day on unsafemachinery. This direct confrontation withindustrial reality inspired the writer.45 He readhis story aloud to a group of Members ofParliament and sent it to Thorbecke, the Ministerof the Interior.46

Cremer clearly wanted his educated and wealthypublic to identify with the law student Willembaron Van Hogenstad, who rescued the ten-year-old

44 Van Bork and Laan, Twee eeuwen, p. 101.45 Mathijsen, De gemaskerde eeuw, pp. 212, 217.46 Henk Eyssens, ‘Inleiding’, in Cremer, Fabriekskinderen,p. 11.

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Sander. ‘[T]hat is how people are,’ he wrote,‘[t]hey have to see in order to be able to feel’.Reading about terrible things in newspapers wasnot enough – ‘quickly a laugh appears again ontheir lips’. In his concluding remarks he statedthat factory children were being ‘murdered’. Hehad hoped his story would be judged to be ‘notbeautiful’, and claimed that it was based on ‘thetruth’ he had seen in the factories. In a finalplea over five shrill pages he implored the Kingand the lawmakers to live up to theirresponsibilities, adding that until they actedthey would have blood on their hands.47

At the end of the nineteenth century, socialistwriters had roughly the same objectives as theliberal Cremer when writing about social issues.Herman Heijermans the younger is an interestingexample of an author working between professions,genres and ideologies, as he was a journalist,playwright, novelist and an SDAP (socialist party)member, but not a politician in any sense.Heijermans is still famous as a playwright, havinghad enormous success for over a century now withthe melodrama Op hoop van zegen [‘Hoping for theBest’]. This play discusses the injustice ofpower, and the poverty in the fishing industry.Less well known is that Heijermans wrote manynaturalist novels and hundreds of so-called‘sketches’ under the pseudonym of SamuelFalkland.48 His own ‘hysterical female’ is a livelybut poor country girl called Trinette who wasdragged into prostitution after having moved tothe city of Brussels.49

Heijermans’s special skill was ‘realistdescription’ or even ‘realist painting’, or the‘life-like image’, of life in the poor andbackward Jewish community of Amsterdam, according

47 Cremer, Fabriekskinderen, pp. 36, 44.48 Heijermans, Falklandjes.49 Heijermans, Trinette.

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to the blurbs for some of his novels. Thenaturalist approach is apparent in his subtitles,for example, Sabbath. A Study by Herman Heijermans. In hisnovel Diamantstad [‘Diamond City’],50 Heijermansexposed working conditions in the diamondindustry, which employed many Jewish people in theDutch capital. The workers lived together in akind of ghetto where living conditions and humanrelationships were appalling. In Van Deyssel’s Eenliefde, the engaged couple rides through the Jewishdistrict on a carriage tour, expressing theirdisgust, averting their eyes and smoking toprevent the smell from penetrating their senses.They find the people living in these quarters tobe a strange species, pitiable and totallydisconnected from their own lives.51

Heijermans, however, was not an alien to thiscommunity and his descriptions were widely read.Diamantstad seems to be inspired by the plot ofZola’s Germinal, as an outsider is involved in astrike and ultimately perishes. When Eleazararrives in the slums after living in the UnitedStates for many years,52 he meets some children whoturn out to be his cousins. They are busy fishingan apple out of a waste pipe and when they succeedthey eat it with delight. Meanwhile, their youngerbrother sucks a lemon peel he found in the street.

Moos creeps on hands and knees to the weed-greencorner, where men pissed and the garbage slowlydecayed. In that place he found an used lemon peel,grey with lush mould. The sickly child, pale, withbelly distended, and large, idiotic, vacant eyes,picked with his black finger at the peel’s sourbumps, sucked, making disgusting noises, screamingsilently. His little buttocks brushed the dark, dankspot where the prickling foul vapour of piss had

50 Heijermans, Diamantstad.51 Van Deyssel, Een liefde, p. 74.52 Heijermans, Diamantstad, p. 52.

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been stinking for years, and where cockroaches hidbehind the weak cement. In his hand he held thepeel, his finger picking, his mouth sucking untilthe rotten taste distorted it, and the slobber randown his chin.53

Endless descriptions of sickly, dirty people –especially children – overflowing sewer systems,rotting houses and disgusting slums fillHeijermans’s pages. His main character, Eleazar,simultaneously loathes and loves the Jewish peopleliving in the neighbourhood, yelling and screamingterrible curses at each other all day. Hisdescriptions of their physical traits are almostracist to a twenty-first-century reader, but theyare his own people and he sees their ‘big heads’and ‘short legs’ each day in the mirror. Againsthis intentions – he is very afraid of inbreeding –he falls in love with a seventeen-year-old Jewishgirl. Having been in hospital for three months andout of money as a consequence, he has to sufferthe poverty of his family. Both his brothers andhis only sister end up dying from the same lungdisease.54

At the margins of the personal story, riots anda strike occur. Eleazar fights over his supportfor and involvement in trade unions and socialistactivities with his cousin, pleading in vain forsolidarity. Symbolizing his conversion to thesocialist ‘faith’ he rips his blind aunt’s‘mezuzahs’ (metal cylinders containing articles of

53 Ibidem, pp. 28-29.54 Ibidem, pp. 14-15: ‘Hij voelde, doorsmartte het àl,snel en zeker-van-weten – het stedengezieltoog van eenoud volk dat geduld werd, zich liet dulden, te slaafschwas, t’erbarmlijk-verdorven om af te laten de geil-begeerige oogen van aardmodder, waarom hun wedgezang,hun dansrijen schaterden en waarin zij tabernakels vansittimhout met gewaden van getweernd byssusgaren gebouwdhadden. Spot, spot, spòt’!

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faith) from her doorpost in a rage.55 As inGerminal, the strike succeeds but without anyrewards for its participants. Almost all ofEleazar’s family and friends, living in the samehouse, perish in a big fire. He manages to savehis blind aunt but his little cousins die in theflames, as well as his lover Rebecca and herbrothers and sisters. Eleazar himself – justhaving reconciled himself to his Jewish backgroundand love – dies in hospital as a result of themysterious lung disease, the smoke, and grief.Things turned out as he had always known theywould: ‘All reason was lazy, useless dreaming’,and ‘words, words … all is words! We have only oneenemy. One. The worker himself’.56

During the same period, several literary writersof standing developed a, mostly rather short-livedinterest in social injustice.57 Van Deyssel, forexample, planned to write an ambitious novel onthe so-called ‘Paling-upheaval’ in the city ofAmsterdam. Also inspired by Germinal, Van Deysselattempted a grand narrative about the dramaticrioting. He thought it would make other citizensaware that the people were trapped by oppression.His fellow editor of the literary magazine De NieuweGids, Franc van der Goes, even introduced thedistinguished citizen to the radical socialistleader F. Domela Nieuwenhuis, to enlighten him onthe worker’s perspective. However, Van Deysselnever finished this project, which he started in1888.58

By the turn of the century the novel had becomea subversive genre in the Netherlands. Thenovelist and theatre critic Top Naeff, in her55 Ibidem, pp. 211, 361366.56 ‘Alle redeneering was lak, nutloos gedroom’ (ibidem,pp. 111); ‘Woorden, woorden … alles woorden! We hebbenmaar één vijand. Eén. De arbeider zelf’ (ibidem, p. 158).57 Van Bork and Laan, Twee eeuwen, pp. 79, 81.58 Ruiter and Smulders, Literatuur en moderniteit, p. 142.

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autobiography, recalls her father ripping the‘naturalist’ pages out of novels to protect histeenage daughter. This was not an unusually strictmeasure (although he was a military man).Naturalism was generally equated with por-nography.59 According to the priest and poetBernard van Meurs, the realist novel caused so-called ‘diseases of imagination’. In hisinfluential work De roman [‘The Novel’] he wrotethat the realist novel was poisonous to the soulbecause its author described earthly life in termsof flesh and dust, without observing decency andmorality. These works of fiction were in factphotographs which did not deserve a place in arespectable album.60

On the analytical level, the comparison ofrealism to photography has survived. In Fiction in theAge of Photography, Nancy Armstrong examinesnineteenth-century British literary realism ‘asfiction’s anticipation of and reaction to thesudden proliferation of transparent andreproducible images’. She argues that by means ofboth realist literature and photography, adifferentiated set of images became the basicpsychological equipment and common way ofclassifying things and people in society. Theseimages provided the foundation of modern identity

59 Naeff, Zo was het ongeveer, p. 32; Van Bork and Laan, Tweeeeuwen, p. 127.60 Sanders, Het spiegelend venster: ‘Verderfelijk voor hethart – wie zal het ontkennen? – is de lezing van denzoogenaamden realistischen roman, waarin de auteur, zonderacht te slaan op de regels der welvoegelijkheid enzedelijkheid, natuurgetrouwe beelden levert van alleswat stof en vleesch is. Men heeft de voortbrengselendier romantiek photographiën genoemd, en zij zijn het:photographiën der stoffelijke realiteit zonderbovennatuurlijk en zedelijk leven; photographiën dik-werf, waaraan men geen plaats geeft in een fatsoenlijkalbum’ (pp. 77-79).

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as well as many harmful stereotypes, but haveremained essential for framing ‘reality’. In fact,according to Armstrong, they have become reality,acquiring ‘the rhetorical force of nature andcommon sense at once’ and in this way explainingboth their force and danger or, from myperspective, their political connotation.61

French literature had inspired Dutch writers toexplore realism, and even naturalism. Describingthe seamy side of life was now a necessaryscientific activity. Jan ten Brink, Van Deysseland Frans Netscher introduced Zola’s theories.62

Homeless people, poor workers and other less-favoured persons in society began to figure innovels, as did bourgeois women suffering frommental diseases. Mostly they perished in horriblecircumstances, unable to control events. Moralcomments were abolished, allowing reality to speakfor itself.63 According to Van Deyssel, thesewriters wanted to create upheaval, to questionsafe and fundamental certitudes, in order toexpress their dissatisfaction with bourgeoissociety. Netscher was one step ahead, claimingthat by analysing terrible things it would becomepossible to fight them.64

Realist writing was personal, engaging, andpolitical. Success was equated to power, as it wasin politics. Illustrative in this respect is VanDeyssel’s rejection of Netscher for his lack offeeling and noncommittal attitude ‘Feeling speaksnowhere. The writer is constantly reasoning’.65 Inother words, Netscher’s realism was not tragic61 Armstrong, Fiction, pp. 4, 19.62 Van Bork and Laan, Twee eeuwen, pp. 118-119; Erens,Vervlogen jaren, pp. 172, 174-176.63 Anbeek, De naturalistische roman, pp. 8, 15, 21.64 Ruiter and Smulders, Literatuur en moderniteit, pp. 144-145;Van den Berg and Van Zonneveld, Nederlandse literatuur van denegentiende eeuw, p. 227; Anbeek, De naturalistische roman, p.28.

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realism. He allowed his characters simply toadjust themselves to bourgeois society withoutexplaining the underlying tragedy of their livesto the readers. His version of the strike themewas played out as a conflict about costumes andpay between the ‘danseuses’ of the Paris Opéra andits director. The performers obtained their payrise and the director stayed in charge but becamemore reasonable. Netscher’s style was ‘grey andjerky’, and he lacked the intuition to reallyanalyse life in any depth – ‘the power ofintuition, that spies on children’s laughs mostsecret, that sees minds of men revolving to itswill, at which feet women’s souls come and cry outtheir deepest tears’.66

Armstrong suggests that by causing them to seethe world in categories of image provided byphotography and literary realism, readers acquiredtheir identity from their position as observers.67

On this point I disagree. Late nineteenth-centuryDutch realism tried to pull its readers out oftheir complacency and bring them face to face withreality as its writer saw, experienced and feltit. As Armstrong argues, realism should not beperceived as the reflection of the author’srelationship to his or her time. It is ratherabout his or her interaction with a set of imagesof reality.68 However, it is important to bear inmind that the realist writers also (co-)createdthose images according to their artistic, personaland ideological opinions. As such, the realistwriter was not trapped in a web of conservatismbut was an active political force.

65 Netscher, Uit ons parlement; Van Deyssel, ‘Overliteratuur’, pp. 219-260, 222, 224.66 Netscher, ‘Oproer in het ballet’; Van Deyssel, ‘Overliteratuur’, pp. 231, 237-238, 247.67 Armstrong, Fiction, p. 26.68 Ibidem, pp. 131, 169.

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Non-Fictional Realism: Journalism

At the end of the nineteenth century the literaryand journalistic fields were strongly connected.One could be both a novelist and a journalist,writing for newspapers and literary magazines, andpublishing novels and non-fiction at the sametime. Journalism as an autonomous field with itsown professional routines and conventions was notfirmly established until the end of the FirstWorld War. Conrad Busken Huet, for example, afterresigning from parliament in 1862, worked as botha journalist and a novelist. He did not seejournalism as an opportunity to enrich hisliterary talent, suggesting that to be journalistrequired abandoning beauty and in-depth research.Journalists were obliged to give the best of theirabilities for twenty-four hours of fame at best.69

Nonetheless, his literary writing wascharacterized by the journalistic approach. In hisnovels Busken Huet described society and politicsas he saw them. In Lidewyde, for example, politicaland social realities recurred as motifs in hisdescriptions of the jobs of the male characters.André is a railway engineer, inviting discussionof technological change. Lidewyde’s husband Dijk,as a politician and a candidate for the SecondChamber of Parliament, allows Busken Huet to offera critical portrayal of the liberal politics ofhis time.70

The Eighties Movement’s writers and their lessfamous contemporaries were also full or part-timejournalists. Frans Netscher published his firstnaturalistic ‘sketches’ on parliamentary life inHet Vaderland and the magazine Nederland, under thepseudonym of Van den Berg. Novelist and playwrightHerman Heijermans wrote his column ‘Falklandjes’in De Telegraaf and the Algemeen Handelsblad (1894-

69 Conrad Busken Huet. Schrijversprentenboek 25, p. 22.70 Schenkeveld, Lidewyde, pp. 61-62.

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1911). Furthermore, many novels that became famousduring those years were first published as serialsin newspapers, for example, Eline Vere by Couperus inHet Vaderland.71

In the Eighties Movement’s literary magazine DeNieuwe Gids, politics maintained a prominent place.Franc van der Goes, who later became a socialist,wrote extensive political commentary and otherarticles. P.L. Tak wrote his ‘Kroniek’ column onDutch politics which he called ‘Indrukken van dendag’ [‘Impressions of the Day’]. There was alsoroom for lengthy pieces on politics by non-literary writers. For example, J. de Koo, editorin chief of the weekly De Amsterdammer, wrote alengthy article on the Amsterdam ‘Paling-upheaval’, which allowed him to elaborate hispersonal views in a way that was impossible in hisown paper.72 In contrast, De ‘Groene’ Amsterdammer(thus nicknamed for its green front page) and itsoff-shoot De Nieuwe Groene, provided space fornovelists and other writers to publish pieces onart, social issues and politics. Literary writersco-edited this weekly which employed novelistFrans Coenen, a close friend of editor in chiefHenri Wiessing; Jacob Israël de Haan, author ofthe homoerotic naturalist novel Pijpelijntjes (1894),who was given a fresh start at the weekly afterbeing fired by Het Volk; and Top Naeff, who was themagazine’s drama critic.73

De Kroniek, edited by Tak, was the third magazineto combine an interest in politics and societywith writing on art and literature. It was foundedin 1894 after the crisis at De Nieuwe Gids and the

71 Wijfjes, Journalistiek in Nederland 1850-2000, p. 64; ’t Is vol vanschatten hier, p. 115; Anbeek, De naturalistische roman, p. 39;Prick, Frans Erens, pp. 174-176.72 Van Bork and Laan, Twee eeuwen, p. 98; Ruiter andSmulders, Literatuur en moderniteit, p. 112.73 Wiessing, Bewegend portret, pp. 14, 21, 252; Naeff, Zowas het, p. 89.

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quarrels at De Groene. De Kroniek, employing thewriter Coenen, the artist R.H. Roland Holst andthe composer Alphons Diepenbrock, aimed to be atruely ‘general magazine’, and was connected tothe Nineties Movement in the way that De Nieuwe Gidswas connected to the Eighties.74 Around 1900, Takbecame an SDAP party member after much soul-searching, thus starting his career as apolitician. He would become editor in chief of theSDAP party paper Het Volk and a Member ofParliament.75

Personal and professional relationships werefrequent and intense. To talk of two distinctworlds of journalism and literature would be agross generalization. In the late nineteenthcentury, both literary writers and journalistsfound their main example in Emile Zola. The Frenchwriter was fond of using journalistic anddescriptive techniques. His literature was evendescribed as ‘documenteel’ (documentary), and asalready noted, another popular description ofrealism uses the metaphor of photography.76

Naturalism, with its scientific objectives, evensuggested abandoning the novel in favour of amanifesto or report (just in theory, of course).Zola’s theoretical writings were widelypopularized by means of abstracts in newspaperssuch as Le Figaro in France and Het Vaderland in theNetherlands.77

The journalistic profession in this periodfunctioned roughly within the same framework asthe literary scene. French journalism was theirpoint of reference, just as their literarycounterparts focused on French literature. TheFrench press was traditionally quite literary in74 Thys, De Kroniek van P.L. Tak, pp. 9, 17.75 Ibidem, pp. 208-210.76 Orr, Tragic Realism, p. 87; Timmerman, Tim’s herinneringen,p. 188; Anbeek, De naturalistische roman, p. 16.77 Van Bork and Laan, Twee eeuwen, pp. 122-123.

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character. Style was important, pretensions werebig. Literary writers commonly wrote fornewspapers and magazines, not just to earn moneybut to take up what they considered to be theirrightful positions in public debate. It was indirect connection to this that the French pressobtained the reputation of being very political.78

Objective reporting was adequate for supplyinginformation, but if a political point had to bemade, or the public had to be persuaded to take aspecific point of view, literary techniques andstyle were required.

It was no coincidence then that C. Easton andM.J. Brusse in their well-known work on journalismidentified the reporter/serial-writer with theliterary journalist. This type of journalist wasunder special obligation to report on life in itsbroadest scope, revealing social evils and writingabout them compellingly.79 Their categorizationimplies that both literary writing andjournalistic reporting were never noncommittal. Inchoosing an appropriate style and selectingrelevant aspects of reality as they saw it, bothkinds of writers expressed personal opinions onsituations and suggested directions for possible,perhaps political, solutions.

The genre in journalism most characteristic ofthe years around 1900 was the eyewitness account.The founding of De ‘Groene’ Amsterdammer in 1883stimulated this practice. Social issues andsocialist politics in Amsterdam inspired itswriters to write lively and fascinating stories,capturing ‘life as it really was’ using a widerange of stylistic techniques.80 In the early 1890sCharles Boissevain, editor in chief of the Algemeen

78 Wijfjes, Journalistiek, pp. 63-64; Van der Hout,Publiciteitsleer en richtlijnen, p. 145; Haaxman jr., Haagscheschetsen, pp. 36-37.79 Easton and Brusse, De Journalist, pp. 18-19.80 Wijfjes, Journalistiek, p. 59.

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Handelsblad, sent his young reporter S.F. van Ossinto the slums of London disguised as a homelessperson. The most famous reporter of his time wasBrusse, who researched his eyewitness accounts forthe Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant dressed as a sailorand speaking self-taught slang. Brusse’s drive wasa deeply-felt need for social engagement, and apersonal commitment to society’s most vulnerable.He never became a SDAP party member but wrote someof his articles at the request of the tradeunions.81

Inspiration for undercover work by journalistscame from Great Britain. In the preceding decadesof the nineteenth century, ‘slumming’ was apopular activity in London, practiced byjournalists, social activists, politicians andtourists alike. Well-to-do citizens could visitthe slums of the East End on an afternoon bustrip, while other chooses to live there for yearsin order to learn about ‘real life’. Henry ScottHolland, one of the most influential spokesmen ofOxford House in East London, presented the slumsas a place of ‘heightened actuality’ – ‘you mustsee actual living, actual dying, actual sinning,real good hearty vice, naked sin: drunkenness,murder, revelling and suchlike’. Living in theslums was an opportunity to challenge existingbourgeois society and politics. As Seth Kovenwrites in Slumming, ‘[s]lums were anarchic, distantoutposts of empire peopled by violent andprimitive races; but they were also convenientlyclose . . .’. They provided bourgeois citizens‘with an actual and imagined location where, withthe approval of society, they could challengeprevailing norms about class and gender relationsand sexuality’. In analysing the activities andpublications of these citizens, Koven sees a realconcern for questions of poverty and injustice,sexuality and ‘strangeness’ in race.82

81 Ibidem, pp. 66-69.

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Both activists and journalists used publicationsto attract attention to the poverty and injusticethey saw, as well as to their own activities inthe slums. Improving and exploiting thecircumstances of the poor often went hand in hand.One of the first journalists to disguise himselfas a homeless tramp, was James Greenwood in 1866,who was sent into the slums – to be exact into aworkhouse – because his brother Frederick, editorof the Pall Mall Gazette, thought he could thustransform a public health story into ‘a mediasensation’. There was some debate about theundercover methods that the ‘slumming’ journalistsused to gather information. Their personal,authentic experiences replaced statistics andsociology, blurring ‘the line between participantand observer, social facts and individualfancies’. Slummers were confronted with the sametraditional concerns about realist literarywriting and photography the implication of athreat to morality in the tension created by thedesire for ‘realness’ and the possibilities offalsification, or in other words, in theirattempts to narrow the gap between representationand reality. Where and how was the truth to befound?83

In investigating the slums, activism andjournalism shared their methods. The missionaryThomas John Bernardo disguised himself to inspectlodging houses and called himself the ‘AmateurTramp’, a reference to Greenwood’s nom de plume, the‘Amateur Casual’.84 Journalists such as W.T. Steadwere explicit social activists themselves. Aseditor in chief of the Pall Mall Gazette he supportedgroups fighting white slavery and childprostitution, and wanted Parliament to raise theage of consent for females to sixteen. In the

82 Koven, Slumming, pp. 4-5, 253-254.83 Ibidem, pp. 5, 13, 25-26, 91, 122.84 Ibidem, p. 88.

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summer of 1885 he personally investigated juvenileprostitution in London and published the resultsin a series of sensational articles. ‘The MaidenTribute of Modern Babylon’ caused huge agitation,especially concerning Stead’s allusion to ‘Princesof Blood and prominent public men’ as the worstoffenders of sexual morality. As a result of theseactivities Stead was sentenced to three monthsimprisonment.85

The British influence on journalistic practicedid not imply a break with the French naturalistinspiration. The style and writing of the Londonslummers had the same French literary mark. JamesGreenwood was a novelist interested in the ‘savagelife’ inside and outside the Empire. Womenactivists in particular regarded novels onslumming as their inspiration: ‘[t]hey saw novelsas a way to prompt middle-class girl and womenreaders to feel obligations to the poor and act onthem’. Many slummers wrote both novels andjournalistic reports. The ‘American girl inLondon’, the female journalist and slummerElizabeth Banks, actually mentioned Frenchnaturalism explicitly as her source ofinspiration.86

The literary orientation is clearly visible inBrusse’s journalistic works. He wrote many of hisarticles under the title of ‘Onder de Menschen’[‘Among the People’]. Furthermore, he was thereporter specifically in charge of the mainfeature. At first sight, the reader of hiscollected works discovers a confusing combinationof themes, styles and genres. The reporter, livingin the big harbour-town of Rotterdam, not onlyvisited disaster areas, SDAP party meetings andslums, but also reported on ‘spring days’, sunnybucolic idylls where nothing happened, and his own

85 Baylen, ‘Politics and the New Journalism’, pp. 107-142, 123-125.86 Koven, Slumming, pp. 60-61, 205.

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state of mind. Brusse reported, analysed,described and commented on news and life ingeneral in an all-embracing manner. It seems thathis newspaper gave him carte blanche to writeabout whatever he wanted in his own way.

Brusse was praised for his love of the truth andhis non-literary style.87 However, his articlesreveal experimentation with form and style,through a mass of metaphors, plot, scenery andcareful character research. Even as a journalisthe was clearly a writer very conscious of hiscraft. Sometimes he allows the scenes to speak forthemselves, at other times he introduces himselfas a writer providing analysis or his point ofview. A long interview with Herman Heijermans theyounger is constructed as a personal letter to theinterviewee. He even includes accounts of hisworking methods in his stories, explaining hownotes made during a hunting expedition turned into‘a grubby lump of paper pulp made solid’, ordescribing ‘a booklet, dug out of the remains of afire’, or including technical problems with mailor the telegraph.88

Brusse is a writer with a social objective.Visiting the Rotterdam slums with two sisters fromthe Salvation Army he writes, ‘People of substancedo not know of this. That is why it is myobligation to tell them about it. This must notcontinue to exist in the heart of our prosperouscity. They would not tolerate this, the well-to-do, if they knew just how terrible things arethere’.89 This sense of obligation was shared by

87 Brusse, Vijf en twintig jaar onder de menschen, p. xii.88 Ibidem, pp. 37-38; Brusse, Onder de menschen, p. 81.89 Brusse, Vijf en twintig jaar, ‘Maar de betergestelden wetendat niet. Daarom moet ik er hun noodzakelijk vanvertellen. Want dat mag toch zoo niet blijven in ’t hartvan onze welvarende stad. Dat dulden zij niet, debetergestelden, zoodra zij maar weten, hoe ontzettend ’tdaar is’ (p. 82).

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the authors of the booklet Arm Rotterdam [‘PoorRotterdam’], by L. Schotting, a journalist, and H.Spiekman, a member of Rotterdam City Council. Theydescribed the slums with the objective of makingthe social evils in these neighbourhoods known tothe public, not criticizing their lack ofknowledge but their lack of love for their fellowcitizens.90 They described the streets in detail,including the houses, mentioning specificaddresses, and used headlines, images and designsto make this horrible reality truly visible.

Brusse is aware of the paradox of his position.Visiting the slums with the Salvation Army sistershe refers to Arm Rotterdam. He makes us aware thatthe publication guided the sisters to this placeto do their good works, but the comments of womenliving in these streets suggest a less moralpurpose, claiming the booklet’s first aim is toentertain those better off, without offering themany help.91 As with the novelists mentioned above,Brusse is no radical. In a lengthy article hedescribes the pitiful condition of Javaneselabourers who worked until they were sick or dyingin the West Indies. However, he also mentions thelazy and spendthrift ‘eigen-aard’ of the Javanesepeople ‘in general’. Furthermore, he has his owngeneral concerns about the psychologie des foules.92

Brusse tries to cover as many aspects of realityas possible. Socially relevant reality can be madevisible anywhere, he seems to suggest, often inunexpected places. In a three part article aboutdance, he writes, ‘anyway, in these touchyelection days I prefer to write about dancing,rather than about the antithesis and higherpolitics, if I am permitted to do so’.93 He ‘sighs’90 Schotting and Spiekman, Arm Rotterdam, p. iii.91 Brusse, Vijf en twintig jaar, pp. 97-98.92 Brusse, Onder de menschen, p. 7; Brusse, Vijf en twintig jaar,p. 229.93 Brusse, Onder de menschen, ‘Hoe ’t zij, in ieder geval

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at the manner people consumed reports during theFirst World War – ‘during tea, with feet on thestove’. Cosy and warm in the living room, war wasa strange story, a kind of amusement in ‘ourmodern, enlightened times … our civilized personalbeing … our atmosphere of resigned peace’.94

However, Brusse’s reality is always personal. Heprefers to interview famous people with whom hehas a personal connection. In his report of anSDAP party meeting he writes about the way itaffects ‘a marginally idealistic person, who fromthe founding of this party has occasionallyattended only the most important conferences’.95

Moreover, he observes reality with the eyes of anovelist. This is not strange coming from a manwhose alter ego is a painter, and who describeshis articles as substitutes for the novels he willnot write. He claims they could fill many shelves,‘the one even more fantastic than the otherbecause of its life-like humour and tragedy’.Eventually, Brusse did write some novels but hewould never abandon his career as a journalist.96

Conclusion

The essence of realism and naturalism lay inpolitics – it was not just an experiment inliterary form but an attempt to make reality atheme in literature. Furthermore, reality was notjust décor or even the subject of realist-naturalist writing, not a given state but anurgent problem. What should be perceived as real,how could it be represented, and for which

schrijf ik in deze kribbige verkiezingsdagen liever overdansen dan over de antithese en de hoogere politiek, metverlof’, p. 65.94 Ibidem, pp. 132-133.95 Ibidem, p. 151.96 Brusse, Vijf en twintig jaar, p. 11; idem, Onder de menschen,p. 180.

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purpose? In realism, real art and real lifepresuppose each other. A lack of literary talentand a lack of personal commitment are one and thesame in this context.

At first sight it seems strange that literarywriters used journalistic techniques, whilejournalists used literary techniques to composetheir politically engaged stories on the realitythat they saw. The confusion disappears, however,when both genres, though belonging to distinctdisciplines, are seen as two sides of the samecoin – this coin being realism as aninterdisciplinary style and form allowing itsadherents to express their personal, engaged,political relationship with society and morality.In addition to designs and graphics, journalistsneeded literary forms and genres which had thecapacity to make reality visible through thedescriptions of the nuances of life in the slums,and to build a ‘real’ new world by constructingtheir own characters and plots. Literary authorsused realist details to represent the complexityof society, along with an analysis of the psychesof the people living within its moral terrain.

Realist writers were supposed to reflect realityin both content and style, as it was precisely theform that made their writings powerful andpolitical. Realism is a category of form, just asBarthes’ myth is – because it is the form thatconnects the reality experienced by writers to theimagination and experience of the bourgeoispublic. Myths are not necessarily conservative,although they often are, and within a postmoderncontext, progressive myths are possible, withrealism being one of them. By ‘naturalizing’differences, realism enabled their integrationinto the lives of its readers. Dramatization hadthe capacity to enlarge the gaps in society butsimultaneously – and I should say to a greaterextent – it closed them, as at the emotional andpersonal level people grew closer to each other.

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Authors of realism, novelists and journalistsalike, were judged to have been successful if theymanaged to appeal to the public with personal,engaging stories that were full of passion. Thatis why this type of literary writing can shedlight upon the essence and character of thepolitical. The realist tales presented analternative world, mixing fascination with theexoticism of living in slums, being a woman, orvisiting the colonies, with views on the struggleagainst poverty and social injustice. In inventingtheir plots, realist writers made use of apowerful personal tool, integrating ideologicalopinions into a naturally evolving story, and bythese means making them imaginable and acceptableto a rapidly growing audience.

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