Wim Brands Reading Club: Falling Out of Time, by David Grossman
Wim Brands, maker and host of the VPRO Boeken (Books) programme on radio and television, discusses festival guest David Grossman's novel Falling Out of time (2012) with the audience. But first, Dutch writers Sanne Terlouw and Toef Jaeger present their thoughts about the book.
Five years after the death of his son killed in war, Israeli writer David Grossman succeeds in the nearly impossible undertaking of writing about this loss in Falling Out of Time. The book's protagonist goes "there" to see his dead son. Along the way he is joined by fathers and mothers who can find no peace after the death of their child. In a long procession they pass by the Centaur, who has tried for years to put his grief about the death of his son into words. Writing, he says, is the only way to understand something. Finally he manages to find the right words, but at a high price: by finishing his memorial he has permanently lost his son.
Afterwards, you can attend the programme in which David Grossman is interviewed by Lex Bohlmeijer.