Mr. Westerhof sent a follow-up to his message about the Dutch
cop-writer, A.C. Baantjer:
> > Re your message below:
> >
> > > I hope you don't mind but your text on
this
> author
> > > needed some corrections.
> >
> > Not at all. I'm grateful for the added
info.
>
> Oh, I may add a bit more in that case...
>
>
> Well, that book by "A. C. M. Baandijk" "5 x 8
grijpt
> in"(=5 x8 Intervenes) [Baantjer's first
book]
> is according to Appie Baanther himself a
failure,
> both as book and as
> product, so it will not see a reprint nor
a
> translation. To explain the
> title one has to know that in Amsterdam the
phone
> number of the police in
> emergencies was 88888, so "5 times 8" was a
nickname
> for the Amsterdam
> police almost half a century ago.
> Baantjer also used the nom de plume "Bram
Braker".
> According to some he's on
> the same level as Havank as best selling (Low)
Dutch
> language author, but
> again, I am afraid that that does not cover
the
> entire Dutch literature.
> Anyway, he's much more popular than
Havank.
>
> He joined the police in 1945 and retired in 1983.
He
> has produced over 1200
> short stories. the 9th season of the
TV-series
> Baantjer is currently in some
> stage of the production process. "Een Strop
voor
> Bobby" was published in
> 1964. Oh, Baantjer has published non-fiction
too,
> and about 1200 short
> stories.
>
> . . . as "Le Coq" is the direct
translation
> of "De Haan" from Dutch
> into French, I doubt that [Baantjer's colleague
got
> his name from the Gaboriou character], anyway if
so
> he has definitely not told Appie
> Baantjer. It's funny but you are certainly not
the
> first to make this
> connection, in 1965, before De Cock had played
the
> hero in one of Baantjer's
> published books. Two of them were finished, just
not
> published yet. A
> journalist who knew that it was exactly one
century
> after Lecoq's first
> appearance, made the connection too, just to
find
> out that Baantjer knew
> nothing at all about Gaboriau's
existence.
> De Cock has been compared with Maigret since
1966...
> [It's] a bit hard to determine [precisely
how
> successful Baantjer is]isn't it? He is
the
> most trustworthy living
> bestseller producer in the Dutch language, yes.
He
> is the most widely loved,
> adored and admired author of police/crime books.
I
> know a bit of children's
> literature in the Netherlands and I know a
late
> author in that genre, who
> might be more popular in the Netherlands. But in
his
> sort of books he is
> indeed the most popular. Of course, a
little
> overestimation by writing
> author instead of author of detectives is
acceptable
> in my view.
> Well, it is the reason I read your text on
Baantjer.
> [was because] I was looking for
> information on that series. Both writer-police
men
> were in 1971 sharing the
> same room, they were partners in some way I
guess.
> I have here some links to TWO sites with quite a
lot
> of material on
> Baantjer, most of it is in Dutch of course
but
> still...
>
> http://www.baantjer.net/
> http://www.baantjer.org/
As before, I found the added information very interesting and
am passing it on.
JIM DOHERTY
__________________________________________________ Do you
Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, more http://taxes.yahoo.com/
-- # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 02 Mar 2003 EST