Don’t seal it off from everything! The same applies to art. Hamlet is still being performed because the play is still ambiguous. If there were ever a successful attempt to pin it down definitively, it would be over. The same holds true for vision and for people; they need to be clear and unclear at the same time. The leader is a visionary, but what did he say exactly? That’s the key.’
Interview: Koos de Wilt
I’m primarily literary. As a child, I lived and breathed the Kameleon and Arendsoog series obsessively; I went to the library first thing in the morning, and came back in the afternoon to borrow new books. Books are for browsing and for turning into collages, creating connections between unconnected elements. I did that back at college and I do it now at De Baak. Others perceive it as a strikingly broad scope that offers meaning and significance, but for me it’s more about warding off boredom; it keeps me off the streets. My journalistic outlook on life seeks out depth within that broad scope. I love leaps from one point to the next. Give me private domains, journals, columns and essays. I love aphorisms, sayings, highlights of a novel. Biographies also offer that scope, providing insights – more so than monographs that delve into a single topic. Maybe I’m an immature reader looking for my own reflection. I have to be able to see myself in the story. It’s always about neurotic characters in the role of the protagonist. Saul Bellows or A.F.Th. van der Heijden write novels colored by an autobiographical undertone, rather than books based entirely on imagination, as Marquez did in 100 Years of Solitude. That’s too fantastical for me. What I read should say something about me.
