Questions tagged [willem-elsschot]
Questions about the work of the Belgian author Willem Elsschot (pseudonym Alphonsus Josephus de Ridder, 1882–1960) or his life as a writer. Elsschot is one of the most important Flemish authors; works such as 'Kaas', 'Lijmen/Het Been' and 'Het Dwaallicht' are often required reading in schools. Use in conjunction with the tag [dutch-language].
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Is the character named Boorman supposed to be the same person across Elsschot's œuvre?
In analogy with the question Is the character named Laarmans supposed to be the same person across Elsschot's œuvre?, it is also possible to ask whether Boorman is the same character in the novels in ...
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Class dynamics in Elsschot's Cheese
In Willem Elsschot's Cheese, the protagonist Frans Laarmans is happy in his job as a shipping clerk, but is enticed to take on a more prestigious and potentially more lucrative role as a businessman ...
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The Netherlands vs Belgium in Elsschot's Cheese
Frans Laarmans, the protagonist of Willem Elsschot's Cheese, pursues and obtains a job as the Belgian sales representative for a large Dutch cheese manufacturing enterprise. Cultural and other ...
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Why is Laarmans so specific about the address of his representative in Bruges?
In Elsschot's novel Kaas / Cheese, the main character Laarmans has representatives for this cheese business in several Belgian cities. Because he doesn't hear back from them, he decides to visit his ...
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What does the expression "Mignon country" refer to in Elsschot's "Cheese"?
I'm reading Willem Elsschot's novel Cheese in a French translation by Xavier Hanotte. In chapter 3, I have found an expression that I believe it can be translated as "Mignon country" (...
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What is specifically Dutch about light bulbs?
In Willem Elsschot's Cheese, the narrator Laarmans bemoans the fact that his job involves selling full-cream edam imported from the Netherlands:
It's strange, but to me there was something revolting ...
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Inconsistency in number of cheeses per box in Elsschot's "Cheese"
In Chapter 10 of Willem Elsschot's Cheese, the narrator Laarmans takes delivery of "three hundred and seventy patent boxes" full of cheese. He decides:
I'll sell in multiples of twenty-...
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Is the character named Laarmans supposed to be the same person across Elsschot's œuvre?
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-...
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