Eva A Novel By Carry Van Bruggen

Eva (1927), a novel by Dutch writer Carry van Bruggen, is an experiment in depicting a woman's life from girlhood to marriage, and beyond, to sexual freedom and independence. At the same time, the narrative expresses Eva's dawning sense of self and expanding subjectivity through a stream of consciousness told by a shifting narrator. Burdened all of her life by feelings of shame, at the end of the novel Eva overcomes this legacy of her upbringing and declares that it is 'bodily desire that makes love acceptable'. Carry van Bruggen's rich and varied language conveys Eva's experience of the world. Powerful memories of an orthodox Jewish childhood pervade the novel with its fluid sense of time. As Eva puts it, 'I let these years slip through my fingers like a stream of dry, glinting sand.' Jane Fenoulhet makes this important, modernist novel accessible to English readers for the first time. While it can be described as a becoming-woman of both Eva and her creator, so can the translation be seen as the translator's own becoming, as Fenoulhet explains in the accompanying commentary, where she also describes the challenges of translating van Bruggen's dynamic, intense narrative. For Fenoulhet, translation is more a matter of personal engagement with the novel than a matter of word choice and style. In this way, the emotional and intellectual life of the main character is re-enacted through translation.

Eva (1927), a novel by Dutch writer Carry van Bruggen, is an experiment in depicting a woman’s life from girlhood to marriage, and beyond, to sexual freedom and independence. At the same time, the narrative expresses Eva’s dawning sense of self and expanding subjectivity through a stream of consciousness told by a shifting narrator. Burdened all of her life by feelings of shame, at the end of the novel Eva overcomes this legacy of her upbringing and declares that it is ‘bodily desire that makes love acceptable’. Carry van Bruggen’s rich and varied language conveys Eva’s experience of the world. Powerful memories of an orthodox Jewish childhood pervade the novel with its fluid sense of time. As Eva puts it, ‘I let these years slip through my fingers like a stream of dry, glinting sand.’ Jane Fenoulhet makes this important, modernist novel accessible to English readers for the first time. While it can be described as a becoming-woman of both Eva and her creator, so can the translation be seen as the translator’s own becoming, as Fenoulhet explains in the accompanying commentary, where she also describes the challenges of translating van Bruggen’s dynamic, intense narrative. For Fenoulhet, translation is more a matter of personal engagement with the novel than a matter of word choice and style. In this way, the emotional and intellectual life of the main character is re-enacted through translation.

Eva, a 1927 novel by Dutch writer Carry van Bruggen, is an experiment in depicting a woman’s life from girlhood to marriage, and beyond, to sexual freedom and independence. At the same time, the narrative expresses Eva’s dawning sense of self and expanding subjectivity through a stream of consciousness told by a shifting narrator. Burdened all of her life by feelings of shame, at the end of the novel Eva overcomes this legacy of her upbringing and declares that it is ‘bodily desire that makes love acceptable’. Carry van Bruggen’s rich and varied language conveys Eva’s experience of the world. Powerful memories of an orthodox Jewish childhood pervade the novel with its fluid sense of time. As Eva puts it, ‘I let these years slip through my fingers like a stream of dry, glinting sand.’ Jane Fenoulhet makes this important modernist novel accessible to English readers for the first time. While it can be described as a becoming-woman of both Eva and her creator, so can the translation be seen as the translator’s own becoming, as Fenoulhet explains in the accompanying commentary, where she also describes the challenges of translating van Bruggen’s dynamic, intense narrative. For Fenoulhet, translation is more a matter of personal engagement with the novel than a matter of word choice and style. In this way, the emotional and intellectual life of the main character is re-enacted through translation.

Eva, a 1927 novel by Dutch writer Carry van Bruggen, is an experiment in depicting a woman's life from girlhood to marriage, and beyond, to sexual freedom and independence. At the same time, the narrative expresses Eva's dawning sense of self and expanding subjectivity through a stream of consciousness told by a shifting narrator. Burdened all of her life by feelings of shame, at the end of the novel Eva overcomes this legacy of her upbringing and declares that it is 'bodily desire that makes love acceptable'

Eva, a 1927 novel by Dutch writer Carry van Bruggen, is an experiment in depicting a woman's life from girlhood to marriage, and beyond, to sexual freedom and independence. At the same time, the narrative expresses Eva's dawning sense of self and expanding subjectivity through a stream of consciousness told by a shifting narrator. Burdened all of her life by feelings of shame, at the end of the novel Eva overcomes this legacy of her upbringing and declares that it is 'bodily desire that makes love acceptable'. This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.

This volume contains a selection of essays presented at the international conference of Cultural Crises in Art and Literature, held in Groningen in November 2002, in special sessions concerning modern Dutch literature. The recent decennia have shown a gradual transition in Netherlandic Studies towards new scopes: a contextual orientation of literature and the reception of 'Theory'. The contributions to this volume touch upon the theme of cultural crises from the perspective of these frameworks, approaching topics like the interrelation of literary representation and historical and medical discourse concerning the obsession by dirt, contamination, and dust; the impact of nationalism and humanism (in the political field) on literary education; the decline of modernism, resulting in the changing position of women authors, the rise of children's literature and the reassessment of 'low' genres like melodrama. A brief outline of the development of the study of modern Dutch literature opens this volume, the presentation of a general theoretical and methodological framework for conceptualizing the notion of cultural crisis concludes it.

Eva, de roman die bij het verschijnen in 1927 veel opzien baarde en sindsdien vele malen is herdrukt, is Carry van Bruggens openhartige zelfportret, een biecht waarin via een voortdurende dialoog met haar alter ego beleden wordt dat de zin van het bestaan gelegen is in strijd met de wereld, in zelfstrijd. Eva is de geschiedenis van een bijzondere jonge vrouw die zich losmaakt uit het milieu waaruit ze afkomstig is, van het geloof waarmee ze opgroeide, die haar eigen weg in het leven zoekt.

"Making the Personal Political is an interdisciplinary account of a now forgotten success story in the history of the society and culture of the Netherlands. While Dutch women had apparently retreated into domesticity after gaining the vote in 1919, women writers were out there in the market place selling the inside story of women's lives. Eight case studies of women writers between 1919 and 1970 trace the unconscious politics of the personal in narratives of women's identity and experience through close readings of texts located in the culture of the time. Jane Fenoulhet, whose knowledge of Dutch literature and culture in the twentieth century is unparallelled in the English-speaking world, tracks the public representation of women's private project of self development to the moment when the personal is finally accepted as politically important in Dutch society."