In his novel Magdalena Maarten ‘t Hart looks back on his youth in Maassluis. Central to this is his mother Magdalena, whom he kept out of sight as much as possible in his earlier work. Now that his mother passed away in 2012, ‘t Hart can still open a book about her. In Magdalena he does not so much examine his mother, but describes how he experienced his life with her. Magdalena is a portrait of a caring, sternly religious mother with bizarre traits.
Content
- General information
- Summary
- Floor
- About the author
General information
- Title: Magdalena
- Author: Maarten ‘t Hart
- Date of birth: November 25, 1944
- First edition: February 2015
- Publisher: Publisher De Arbeiderspers
- Number of pages: 252
- ISBN: 978 90 295 3855 8
Summary
Magdalena van der Giessen was born in 1920 in Poeldijk, municipality of Monster. When she was six she moved to the Herenlaan in Maasland and also went to primary school in Maasland. When she was 12 and left school, she had to take care of her six brothers and two sisters at home. Her childhood was colored by a strict religious upbringing.
In 1941 she married Pau ‘t Hart and moved to the Patijnestraat in Maassluis. They were both very religious and were affiliated with the Christian Reformed Church in Maassluis. Maarten ‘t Hart loved his mother a lot as a child, she was patient, gentle and was always there for him. Yet he regularly ran into her. His mother thought it was not necessary for Maarten to continue studying at the Groen van Prinstererlyceum in Vlaardingen. And later she blamed her son for his pagan lifestyle and his criticism of scriptures from the Bible. She was also afflicted with a strange delusion. For a lifetime she wrongly accused Maarten’s father of adultery, which made the life of Pau ‘t Hart quite difficult. After Pau ‘t Hart died in 1973, she was alone for eleven years.
After this she came into contact with Jaap Lock, a great-nephew and a former childhood sweetheart. She married ‘uncle’ Jaap in 1985 and went to live with him in the town of Zorgvlied in Drenthe. Until that time she lived in a single-family house in the Prins Mauritsstraat in Maassluis. Jaap also had to deal with the delusions of his wife: he would only have an eye for ‘all kinds of bitches’. Pretty soon Uncle Jaap deteriorated. To be close to her children, Magdalena moved with Jaap to ‘s-Prinsensingel in Maasland. Once moved to Maasland, Jaap began to suffer from dementia and after a few years he had to be admitted to a home. After Jaap died in 1993, Magdalena lived on ‘s-Prinsensingel until her death.
In the last years of her life she deteriorated considerably. She started to suffer from dementia, but she was still reasonably well sane. In the end she could hardly take care of herself and received a lot of help from Maarten and his brother and sister. She did not want to go to a nursing home, and she died at home in 2012 at the age of 92.
Floor
The time in which it takes place
In this book ‘t Hart describes how he experienced his life with his mother. This starts in 1948 when he is four years old and starts kindergarten, and ends in 2012 with the death of his mother.
Decor
The events mainly took place in Maasland and Maassluis, two small places north of Vlaardingen and west of Schiedam. When she was married to Jaap, Magdalena lived for a number of years in the town of Zorgvlied in Drenthe.
Persons
The main characters are of course Magdalena and her son Maarten. Jaap, with whom Magdalena was married for a number of years, also played an important role for some time. Maarten’s father, Pau ‘t Hart, was employed as a grave-maker at the municipality of Maassluis until his death in 1973. He, too, was strict, but less patient and meek than Magdalena, and he hit it off regularly. Later in the story, Maarten’s younger sister and brother, Leny and Arie, also appear. In the last years of her life, Magdalena was regularly visited and cared for by them.
The faith regularly sowed discord in the family of Maarten, among others by a number of fundamentalist uncles. Two brothers of Magdalena, Cor and Jaap, had joined the Pentecostal church, to the great chagrin of Magdalena. And Nico, a brother of Pau, accused Magdalena of ever preventing his brother from going along with the ‘liberation’ and remaining loyal to the Reformed Church. This would also have contributed to the apostasy of her son Maarten.
About the author
Maarten ‘t Hart (1944) published more than thirty books with De Arbeiderspers. His most recent books are The deaf ears diet (2007), Engagement time (2009), Business trips from a home stayer (2011) and The green force majeure (2012). Its classic A flight of whimbrels was central during Nederland Leest 2014.