Scan barcode
A review by annauq
The Cut Out Girl: A Story of War and Family, Lost and Found by Bart van Es
3.0
Hmmm. I feel like this was trying to be a whole bunch of things at the same time and ended up kinda failing on a lot of them as a result. First off, we’ve got the author trying to understand the connection he has to a country he is from but hasn’t grown up in or lived in. And boy, do I understand this. I too am from the Netherlands & have never spent more than 2 weeks there consecutively. But then he chooses this bizarre angle to unpack his own identity from: a Jewish girl/woman his grandparents sheltered, fostered, and later cut out of their lives. He’s constantly relating his own experiences and that of his family as voluntary emigrants with the profound trauma of a holocaust survivor; and I fail to see the supposed incredibly profound connection there. Rape, sexual assault and a suicide attempt get mentioned alongside his troubled teenage daughter, and his lonely walk through the Dutch countryside. All this is presumably meant to illustrate how connected everything is, how everyone has their own demons to fight. It’s a little odd.
Then there is the Dutch history angle. A wealth of information , place names, villages and dates are thrown around the page, and again I get a sense of faux-significance: a few solid statements about Dutch history and politics, but nothing particularly groundbreaking or indeed, new.
And lastly we have Lien herself, the person the book is meant to be about. Her story is told through narrated, polished recollection that doesn’t always give her room to shine. The horrific emotional trauma she endured is jarringly juxtaposed with the author’s bizarre, detailed retelling of his uncle’s penthouse or car ownership. Every time Lien’s story starts to pick up steam, the author forcefully reinserts himself into it all with a bland remark about the state of Dutch society. Ugh,
In short: interesting points here and there, but too much focus on the author and not enough on the person he’s supposedly trying to understand.
Then there is the Dutch history angle. A wealth of information , place names, villages and dates are thrown around the page, and again I get a sense of faux-significance: a few solid statements about Dutch history and politics, but nothing particularly groundbreaking or indeed, new.
And lastly we have Lien herself, the person the book is meant to be about. Her story is told through narrated, polished recollection that doesn’t always give her room to shine. The horrific emotional trauma she endured is jarringly juxtaposed with the author’s bizarre, detailed retelling of his uncle’s penthouse or car ownership. Every time Lien’s story starts to pick up steam, the author forcefully reinserts himself into it all with a bland remark about the state of Dutch society. Ugh,
In short: interesting points here and there, but too much focus on the author and not enough on the person he’s supposedly trying to understand.