Is the character named Laarmans supposed to be the same person across Elsschot's œuvre?

Question

The protagonist and first-person narrator of Elsschot's delicious Cheese (1933) is a hapless clerk named Frans Laarmans who finds himself unexpectedly tasked with selling twenty tons of imported full-cream edam all over Belgium and Luxembourg. Narrative connections between Cheese and other novels are suggested by the preface to the English translation by Paul Vincent. Regarding Soft Soap (1923), Vincent writes:

Here an earlier incarnation of the Laarmans character becomes the acolyte of the Mephistophelian advertising salesman Boorman, himself a supporting player in Chapter XVI of Cheese.

_{Vincent, Paul. "Translator's Preface." Cheese by Willem Elsschot. 1933. Trans. Paul Vincent. London: Granta, 2002. pp. v–xii. Quotation is from p. vi.}

Cheese makes clear that Laarmans has neither any prior experience with trade nor a good head for business, and Boorman appears as a consultant Laarmans approaches for advice. Boorman's address is "Villa des Roses, Brasschaet." Villa des Roses (1913) is the title of Elsschot’s first novel, which suggests a possible connection between that novel and Cheese as well.

Later in his preface, Vincent lists the various appearances of Laarmans in Elsschot’s œuvre:

The recurring figure of Laarmans had made his first appearance in the novel Soft Soap and its sequel The Leg as an idealistic Flemish militant turned apprentice business shark. As a restless paterfamilias he was to feature in Elsschot’s final masterpiece Will-o'the-Wisp, combing the Antwerp docks with a group of Afghan sailors for the address of a whore.

_{ibid., p. xi.}

The description of Laarmans as an "apprentice business shark" does not square with his evident inexperience with the business world in Cheese. Nor is there any specific indication in this novel that he and Boorman are acquainted prior to Laarmans' consulting him, although the novel is ambiguous enough on this point that it could be read either way.

So: Is the character named Laarmans supposed to be the same person across all the Elsschot novels in which he appears? Or does Elsschot recycle the name to suggest general similarities, rather than to identify Laarmans as strictly the same character throughout the novels?

Answer 1

Frans Laarmans is the protagonist (or at least a narrator) in the following novels and novellas:

• Lijmen – Het been (Soft Soap – The Leg, 1923, 1938, respectively),
• Kaas (Cheese, 1933),
• Tsjip (1934),
• Pensioen (Pension, 1937),
• De leeuwentemmer (The lion tamer, 1940),
• Het tankschip (The tank ship, 1942),
• Het dwaallicht (The will-o'-the-wisp, 1946).

In other words, Laarmans occurs in all of Elsschot's novels except his first three works, i.e. Villa des Roses, Een ontgoocheling / A disappointment and De verlossing / The salvation.

The works in which Laarmans appears can be divided into two groups: those about Laarmans's professional life (Soft Soap – The Leg and Cheese) and those about Laarmans's private life (the other ones). Among the works about Laarmans as a private person, some are more obviously autobiographical (Tsjip, Pension and The lion tamer) than the others.

There is a certain level of consistency in the presentation of Laarmans in these works. Many details about Laarmans's private life are based on Elsschot's private life, such as his wife's name ("Fine", like Elsschot's wife; officially Josephina or Joséphine), his older brother Karel, who is a doctor (just like Ellschot's brother) and the names of his children (for which Elsschot also reused the names of his children). However, Elsschot did not attempt to turn his novels and novellas into a whole that could be read as a multi-volume novel.

The events in Soft Soap start in the second half of 1922 (the date 22 September 1922 is mentioned near the start; Verzameld werk, page 279). Laarmans is single at the time of the events in this novel.

The events in The Leg take place five years later, i.e. five years later after the conclusion of the deal with Mrs. Lauwereyssen at the end of Soft Soap. (Boorman mentions a gap of five years; Verzameld werk, page 376). The story is told from a later point in time, after Laarmans has started working at the General Marine and Shipbuilding Company in Antwerp. (What he does there is not mentioned.) By this time he is married and has children. (The names of his wife or any of his children are not mentioned.)

At the start of Cheese, we learn that his mother has just died. He meets Mr. Van Schoonbeke at her funeral; at a later meeting, Van Schoonbeke recommends Laarmans for a job as cheese importer. The gift his colleagues bring in chapter XIII bears the date 15 February 1933. Laarmans works as a clerk at the General Marine and Shipbuilding Company in Antwerp and nothing he does as a cheese importer suggests that he once was the apprentice of a business shark. Quite the contrary, it is as if that five-year apprenticeship never happened. We also learn that his wife's name is Fine (Verzameld werk, page 461), that he has two children named Jan and Ida (Jan is 15; Ida presumably one year younger) and that he has a brother Karel who is 12 years older than him and who is a doctor (Verzameld werk, page 440).

Pension jumps back in time, since it begins at the start of World War I and ends at least 18 years later. Laarmans is married, which is a contradiction with the end of The Leg, which says that he got married after he stopped working for Boorman. He has childeren, whose names are not mentioned. There is not a single reference to his own parents, as if they had already died (whereas his mother in law is an important character), which is inconsistent with the death of Laarmans's mother in late 1932 or early 1932 in Cheese. (Laarmans's job and his employer are not mentioned in this novel.)

Tsjip and The lion tamer are about his daughter Adele (who had not been mentioned in earlier works), her marriage to a Pole named Bennek Maniewski and her son Jan, nicknamed "Tsjip" by Frans Laarmans. Laarmans now suddenly has more than two children; in addition to Adele, Jan and Ida, there is also Walter, who is a student. At the start of the novel, Jan is 16, i.e. barely older than Jan in Cheese. This makes the introduction of Adele unexpected. (Walter is a student and away from home, so that could be used to justify his absence in Cheese.) Laarmans mentions in chapter II that his in-laws are 84 and that they have just lost their pension because they have an income from letting a house and the country needs the money for defence purposes (Verzameld werk, page 487). His father in law retired just two years earlier. This is inconsistent with Pension, where Laarmans's father in law dies within months after his retirement and there is no income from letting a house.

(Timewise, it is clear from references at the start of Tsjip (the Belgian government investing in forts along the German border) and the end of The lion tamer (the risk of war may make trips to Poland difficult) that these stories are set in the 1930s, but no specific dates are mentioned.)

In The tank ship, Laarmans is a character and the narrator in the first part but merely a listener to Jack Peeters's story about the tank ship in the remainder of the text. We learn that Laarmans's wife is called Joséphine (Verzameld werk, page 664) but nothing is said about his job or his children. The story is set in september 1939, at the start of World War II.

The will-o'-the-wisp contains few details about Laarmans's private life. He has bought his newspaper at the same papershop for thirty years (Verzameld werk, page 692). He is married and has six children (Verzameld werk, page 716).

Conclusion

From a psychological point of view, I see no inconsistency in the Laarmans character in the stories focusing on his private life. It is the same character (not religious, a non-authoritarian father, and a husband who leaves all the house work to his wife), except for details about his children, his relatives and the chronology, which were apparently of little concern to Elsschot. However, Laarmans as a professional is not entirely consistent between Soft Soap – The Leg on the one hand and Cheese on the other: in the first two stories, Laarmans is (or at least becomes) more capable as a businessman than he ever is in Cheese. The events in these novels are never alluded to in the other novels and novellas.

In addition, Laarmans's financial situation is not consistent between the stories. In Tsjip and The lion tamer (and possibly in The tank ship), he has sufficient means to afford a holiday residence on the Belgian coast. This is consistent with Elsschot's biography, since he had such a holiday house built in Sint-Idesbald in 1927 (Ida De Ridder, page 35–36) but not with Laarmans's income as a clerk in Cheese.

Sources

• Ida De Ridder: Willem Elsschot, mijn vader ("Willem Elsschot, my father"). Amsterdam: Nijgh & Van Ditmar, 1994. (This is the same "Ida" as in the Laarmans novels.)
• Willem Elsschot: Verzameld werk. Fourth impression. Amsterdam: P. N. Van Kampen, 1960. (Reprint of Elsschot's collected works that was first published in 1957. Page numbers differ from the single-volume Verzameld werk published by Querido in the 1980s and 1990s and from the later editions by Athenaeum. The older edition by Van Kampen is still available in antiquarian bookshops.)