152:. Urbain marries Maria's sister Gabrielle, producing a daughter (the narrator's mother) in 1922, but the union lacks the affection Urbain had known with Maria Emielia. Urbain continues as a devoted artist (and especially as a copyist) into early retirement and until his death. The grandson, the narrator, visits sites in West Flanders and reviews personal archival materials, in an attempt to understand, even reconstruct, something of his grandfather's life experiences.
134:(In an interview, Hertmans asserted that the novel indeed captures the memories of his own grandfather as recorded in a pair of notebooks decades after the war. “He gave me the notebooks a few months before he died, in 1981.” The novel’s narrator left the notebooks unread, until gaining the wherewithal to face the material, and then to re-work them into a work of fiction, some thirty years later—the hundredth anniversary of the war.
141:, and was devoted to his Roman Catholic faith. His father, Franciscus Martien, worked as a fresco painter for parish churches in the Low Countries and finally, in England. Urbain, in turn, acquired an interest in drawing and painting from his father. Urbain's mother, CĂ©line Andries, endured the premature death of her husband, remarried, and saw her son Urbain off to work in a foundry and then, in 1914, off to war.
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The work of historical fiction reconstructs the life of the narrator’s grandfather, Urbain
Martien, before, during and after the First World War – as parts 1, 2 and 3 of the book. The narrator opens with a framing device, purporting to draw upon recollections in notebooks left him by the grandfather.
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At the outbreak of the Great War, the 23 year-old Urbain is sent to the front, where he becomes a disciplined soldier and decorated combat hero, and ever the dutiful . The agonies of trench warfare are described “from up close.” Injuries take Ubain to recover in
Liverpool—coincidentally the site of
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gave it a less favourable review, calling it "an important work" but negatively comparing the "somewhat flat and toneless" prose to that of W. G. Sebald and calling it "less convincing artistically".
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In the third section, Urbain returns home, falls in love with Maria Emelia Ghys, a step-sister. Before he can marry, the story takes a tragic turn, when Maria succumbs in the
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in the UK. It has been translated in twenty languages so far. By 2015, the Dutch version had sold over 200,000 copies. It was longlisted for the
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The main character, Urbain
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Penguin Random House -- War and
Turpentine, a novel by Stefan Hertmans
315:"War and Turpentine by Stefan Hertmans review: real, raw and powerful"
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265:, Slovenian, 2015, translated by Staša Pavlović, Studentska zalozba
435:"War and Turpentine by Stefan Hertmans review – a future classic"
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Croatian version, 2016, translated by Romana PereÄŤinec, Fraktura
220:, Danish, 2014, translated by Birthe Lundsgaard, People's Press
283:, Afrikaans, 2016, translated by Daniel Hugo, Protea Boekhuis
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called it a "future classic" and compared it to the works of
166:. It was also included in the list of Books of the Year from
271:, Swedish, 2015, translated by Ingrid Wikén Bonde, Norstedts
238:, French, 2015, translated by Isabelle Rosselin, Gallimard
377:"Review of "War and Turpentine" from the New York Times"
250:, German, 2015, translated by Ira Wilhelm, Hanser Verlag
289:, Hungarian, 2016, translated by MiklĂłs Fenyves, EurĂłpa
244:, Italian, 2015, translated by Laura Pignatti, Marsilio
232:, Serbian, 2014, translated by Ivana Šćepanović, Heliks
256:, Polish, 2015, translated by Alicja Oczko, Marginesy
226:, Norwegian, 2014, translated by Hedda Vormeland, Pax
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404:. The New York Times Book Review. 1 December 2016.
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101:) is a 2013 novel by Belgian author
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462:(in Dutch). Belga. 14 March 2016.
313:Battersby, Eileen (7 July 2016).
433:Mukherjee, Neil (2 July 2016).
332:Duplat, Guy (18 October 2015).
145:one of his father's paintings.
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163:The New York Times Book Review
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485:Novels set during World War I
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386:27 June
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