Anne de Vries’ most famous book, Bartje, was published in 1935. On the occasion of the author’s fiftieth birthday, the Drenthe Society offers him a statue of Bartje. This statue will be placed on the Markt in Assen. Due to repeated vandalism, it has been given a place in the hall of the Assen town hall. The statue on the Market is a replica of the original.
Characteristic
Bartje can be counted among the regional novels. The Drenthe customs and the Drenthe dialect give every reason to do so. We can also call it a social novel. The relationship between the rich peasants and the workers: the poverty in the working class families, the arbitrariness of the peasants, the slavish attitude of the servants are highlighted in this book. Finally, we can also count Bartje among the psychological novels. We see him grow up from pork to adolescent. We are given a glimpse into his thoughts and the relationship with the other family members is purely drawn.
Place and time of action
The book Bartje is set in the province of Drente, in a small village near Assen. The village is not mentioned by name. We can deduce that it is not far from Assen from the fact that Bartje is once sent to his sister Lammechien, who has a ‘service’ in Assen. He runs that distance and is home the same day. In the second part of the book, the Bartels family lives in the “Lange Jammer”, a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of the village.
The book is set in the early 20th century.
Persons
- Bartje, the main character.
- Father Albert Bartels.
- Mother.
- the brothers and sisters: Lammechien, Gert, Arie, Jan, Riekie, Geertje, Egbert, Berend, Lubbechien, Grietien.
- Scrub brush, the farmer where father works at the beginning of the book.
- Granny Tjobbe, a friendly woman who lives in the Lange Jammer.
- Uncle Koo, the foreman of the road workers.
- Harm from black Jaante, is fond of Lammechien and eventually marries her.
- Mrs. Klaassen, owner of a grocery store.
- Pikka, the crippled rag-man.
- Sikko, son of the Groninger farmer whose father started working. Bartje is obliged to play with him.
- Kees with the clubfoot gives Sikko a good beating, much to the delight of Bartje.
- Cor, electrician dating Lammechien.
- Farmer Wapse. Bartje once steals chickens from him; later father starts working at Wapse.
- Farmer Kwaant. Bartje and Arie steal gooseberries from him.
- Hildegard, a girl who only exists in Bartje’s fantasy.
- Geesse Vlot, widow whose father marries after the death of his first wife.
Content
The fact that the four-year-old boy Bartje views reality differently than adults is already apparent from the beginning of the book: when the alarm goes off in the morning, “mother turns his ear around”. In the densely populated house of the Bartels family, only the big sister Lammechien has her own “room” of sewn together fertilizer bags. Bartje is the second Bartje, the first Bartje has passed away. Bartje likes to get up early in the morning. He then takes father away when he goes to work. People greet each other with “Hey!” “Bartje greets you like an adult. He’s just a” pork “. That means he doesn’t have to go to school yet. After he has taken his father away, he goes on his daily treasure hunt. There is always something going on, at the ditch, at the Pietereulie dude or in the meadow.
Mother tells Bartje to sort kidney beans. Bartje is told by his mother that he will get something else to eat; a leftover turnip from the previous day. When they go to eat, mother has forgotten that. Bartje refuses to pray for the brown beans: “” I don’t pray for brune beans! “Father throws him out of the door.” Suck another father and mother! “Bartje goes on the road and grows drowsy where he so soon another father and mother. Maybe Granny Tjobbe is a possibility. But he lives in the Lange Jammer and that is a shame. He joins a group of road workers who are buying. Uncle Koo, the foreman, gives him something to Food. He also gets something from the other men. Uncle Koo advises him to go back home. Lammechien takes some meat products from her service that evening and so it will be a pleasant evening.
When Bartje goes to school for the first time, his mother warns him not to let himself be “rented out”. Bartje takes the advice to heart and remains silent all morning like the grave. Teacher tells the story of the Prodigal Son. Bartje loves it; he places events in his own environment. He slowly thaws, because he likes the teacher. She speaks highly Dutch. He thinks she’s afraid of the headmaster and then declares that he thinks he’s a nasty guy too. That was wrong: the teacher gets angry and he has to stay at school. After that, however, he gets a pencil stump as a gift.
Another little one is born in the Bartels family, Berend. Bartje no longer believes in the stork, because he now knows the truth: an angel is coming to bring the little children. A year later, a sister joins: Lubbechien. The children actually all have something special: Lammechien is a vain person and a boy madman, Arie stutters and especially has trouble with the ‘k’, Gert has red hair, Lubbechien just doesn’t want to grow and Rieke has “very” on the head.
The farm and the workers’ houses of farmer Boender are sold to a wealthy Groningen farmer. Father can work for him. Bartje is forced to play with Sikko, the son of the Groninger farmer. That’s a show-off and just as harsh and cruel as his father. “I am a whole guy and he is nothing inside”. He brags about the expensive piano they have at home, but which no one can play on. Bartje makes him berate Kees with his clubfoot. That comes to Sikko a beating from Kees. When Pikka passes by later, Bartje and a few brothers have him berate the rag man. That does not end well for Sikko either. The entire farming family comes to Bartels in the evening to demand that father give Bartje a punishment. Father refuses and it turns into a scuffle with the peasant family. Father feels strong because Cor the electrician, Lammechien’s new suitor, has promised him a job at the city’s dairy. However, the job is canceled and father loses his job at the farmer. They have to leave the house and end up in the Lasnge Jammer.
Father gets more and more moody because he doesn’t get a job. Bartje finds it unpleasant in the poor neighborhood and still remembers the punishment with the ‘klabatse’, a stick with seven dried up belts that father used to take from military service. Mother is expecting another baby and Lammechien has left home. Arie practices with a stone on his tongue (like Demosthenes at the time) to get rid of stuttering. Gert beats mother because he has to go shopping and does not feel like it. Bartje flies over to his brother. Bartje steals two lost Barnevelders from farmer Wapse. He slaughters them and then they go to the ‘lady’ of Lammechien in Assen. Lammechien is now dating a soldier.
Farmer Wapse comes to visit. Mother and Bartje are shocked, because they immediately think of the chicken theft. Farmer Wapse did not even notice this. As chairman of the school board of the Reformed school, he comes to ask if the Bartels children come to the Reformed school. Now they are in the reformed school. A teacher can then remain in service and they are eventually reformed at Bartels. In return, father Bartels can come and work for farmer Wapse.
The joy is back in the family. Five children attend the Reformed school and they also attend church services more often. They can leave the Lange Jammer. Shortly afterwards, mother gets another baby: Grietien. Father is not present at the birth, because a cow has to calve at farmer Wapse’s at the same time, so that he cannot be missed.
In the evening Arie beat up the master on the moor who always called him “Moses” because he was “heavy-tongued”. As a result, Arie has acquired a kind of self-assurance that is not positive. He proposes that Bartje steal gooseberries from farmer Kwaant. Bartje tears his pants on the barbed wire. He confesses everything at home, but hides Arie’s share. Father gives up Bartje with the klabatse, while Lammechien’s new suitor, the sergeant, looks on mockingly. That evening Bartje picks up the Klabatse and burns it on the heath.
Mother becomes very ill after the birth of a dead child, who could have been the twelfth. One morning they all have to come, because mother is going to die. They sing another verse for her: “Let me sleep for you, Lord, then I will sleep so well.” She still calls Bartje “my young”. Then she dies.
After mother’s death, Lammechien returns to do the housework. Arie is arrested by the constable; he broke into wife Klaassen’s house. Bartje loses himself in daydreams about a fantasized girl, whom he calls Hildegard. A year and six weeks after mother’s death, father marries widow Geesse Vlot. She comes to live with them in their house with her four little boys. That is now packed. Mother Geesse knows how to tackle things. Father has nothing more to say. Since that time it has been called “Albert Slipper”.
Lammechien, who started working in Utrecht after Geesse’s arrival, comes home one evening. She is pregnant, but does not know from whom. Mother Geesse is not making any problems; where so many mouths have to be filled, one can still be added. Harm from black Jaante has been in prison for three months for attacking Lammechien’s former suitor, the sergeant, with a knife. He wants to marry Lammechien, despite her pregnancy. She agrees.
Bartje can earn fifty guilders a year from a farmer further down the road. He leaves the parental home. He says goodbye to his brothers and sisters. He does not greet his father. When he leaves, he sees father working in the fields far away.
The future beckons.