Short Fiction Month: The Day the World Turned Upside Down - Thomas Olde Heuvelt

Thomas Olde Heuvelt is the first Dutch writer to ever win a Hugo. It is a dubious distinction as he most likely owes his award in a large part to the antics of the Sad Puppies. In a category where he was the only nominee not on the Puppy slates, voters ranked his story alone above No Award. I very much doubt it is how he had hoped to win a Hugo, but given the snub it implied to the Puppies, it probably was satisfying nonetheless.

This story appeared as a booklet under the Dutch title De Vis in de Fles (literally: The Fish in the Bottle) in 2013. The first English publication of the story originally appeared in Lightspeed and was translated by Lia Belt. Belt is the translator of various big names in fantasy (Feist, Rothfuss) into Dutch. I read it both in English and Dutch for this review. The English version is slightly edited and omits a few bits and pieces from the Dutch original. The English word count being higher is probably caused by the widespread use of compound words in the Dutch language. Personally I didn't feel the edits improved the story. They are minor, but if you can, read the Dutch edition.

One day, gravity fails and the world turns upside down. Toby is a man suffering through a breakup with his girlfriend Sophie when it happens. While recovering from his landing on the ceiling, he sees she texted him. She left her goldfish Bubble at his place and will swing by later to pick him up. Considering it a sign she is still alive, Toby rescues Bubble and sets out to find her.

The story is essentially a metaphore. In his short fiction, Olde Heuvelt likes to play with images that are physically impossible. To literally portray a figure of speech or a metaphor. He did this in his other Hugo Award nominated story, The Boy Who Cast no Shadow (2013) as well.  Tobi's breakup turns his world upside down (Dutch: zet zijn wereld op z'n kop) and the world reflects his state of mind.

Olde Heuvelt has stated he wrote the story after a breakup so there is probably a bit more of the author in Toby. It is not exactly a flattering portrayal. Toby is hurt and it turns him into a selfish bastard really. While this may not be an unusual reaction there were a few things about Toby that bothered me. We see things entirely from his point of view but at the end of the story, I still had no idea why he loved her. How she hurt him yes, but what the basis for his attraction is, beyond the physical, remains unclear. It is entirely filled with negative emotions, to the point where he completely disregards the life and feelings of others as well.

I suppose one way to interpret it, is to draw the parallel between Sophie and Bubbles. Sophie is caught in Toby's fantasy of their romance like Bubbles is caught in the bottle. Sophie however, has the means to break free. In the end, Toby lets go, again both literally and figuratively, I was again struck by the difference it implied for the fate of Bubbles and Sophie. Toby doesn't consider this. He is entirely too self-centred to do so.

The one aspect I did like about the story is Dawnie (Fiep in the Dutch version), the young girl Toby meets along the way. Olde Heuvelt perfectly captures the way children can ask the most obvious questions an adult might overlook. She is more precious than Toby appreciates.

So is it a good story? Some would say it is. It is well written at some levels. Did I like it? Not one bit to be honest. Olde Heuvelt is right in that letting go is an important part of ending a relationship and moving on. The way Toby goes about it though, is problematic in so many ways that I didn't really enjoy reading it. Olde Heuvelt's novels are generally more to my liking.

Story Details
Title: The Day the World Turned Upside Down
Author: Ian McDonald
Language: English, Dutch
Translation: Lia Belt
Originally published: English: Lightspeed Magazine, April 2014, Dutch: De Vis in de Fles, 2013
Read in: Lightspeed, Hebban
Story length: Novelette, English wordcount 10367, Dutch wordcount approximately 9900
Awards: Hugo Award winner
Available online: English: Lightspeed, Dutch: Hebban

Hex - Thomas Olde Heuvelt

Thomas Olde Heuvelt has been making quite a name for himself in the Dutch speculative fiction market. Hex is the third novel I've read by him and in terms of craftsmanship, he is well ahead of most other authors in the field. He's been trying to get into the inroads in the English language market too. Several of his shorter pieces have been translated and last year, The Boy Who Cast No Shadow even made it to the Hugo shortlist. This year he's on there again with The Ink Readers of Doi Saket. He's made attempts to get his previous novel, Harten Sara (2011) translated but so far they have not resulted in a book on the shelves. The prospects for Hex are looking even better, the translation right and television rights have been sold. Provided it survives development hell, Hex might even make it to the small screen.

The village of Beek, near Nijmegen close to the Dutch-German border, hides a terrible secret. To outsiders it looks like an idyllic place but once you are unfortunate enough to move there, you're stuck. A woman burnt there as a witch in the seventeenth century is holding the village hostage. Her eyes and mouth are sown shut and the villagers are under strict orders not to attempt to communicate with the witch. Doing so almost always results in death. A strict regime to keep the village safe and the witch a secret to the outside world has been put in place. It has worked reasonably well but such restriction chafe, especially for the younger generation for whom the world, thanks to modern communication devices, does not stop at the edge of the village. Their attempt to gain a little more freedom sets in motion a series of events that will change the village forever.

Beek does indeed exist. I've lived in that part of the country for almost three years but I've never visited it. Olde Heuvelt has used quite a few locations that actually exist but the characters and events are of course fictious. He gives the place quite a rough treatment in his book. Lots of small minded people, plenty of paranoia, racist tendencies and mob mentality. That's on top of the havoc wreaked by the witch of course. It makes me wonder what someone born and raised in Beek would make of it.

The witch herself, a woman named Katharina van Wyler, is not the most original element in the story. Her history is not very well known but she was accused of bringing her son who died of the plague back to life. The superstitious locals then tortured her to death. She now haunts them as a vengeful reminder of the crimes the villagers committed in the past. On several occasions she has gotten into the head of villagers and made them commit suicide. The last time this happened was in the 1960s, well before the the younger generation in the village was born. Never having experienced the horror she can unleash firsthand, they are not so certain that all the restrictions imposed on their lives are necessary.

Olde Heuvelt doesn't really explore the motivations of Katharina in the novel. Instead he creates something of a generational conflict. Having to spend your entire life in the village of Beek, which has no economy to speak of, is inconceivable. The constant need of having to keep secrets from their fellow students and friends from outside Beek weighs on them. It is only natural that they start pushing against the restrictions to find out what they can get away with. In fact, in today's world, being cut off from the the rest of the country simply isn't an option. It's an expression of the small-mindedness of the village council that they do not see the need to adapt. Rebellious youngsters and conservative village Elders are an explosive mix and Olde Heuvelt strikes the spark in a very convincing way.

One of the most interesting things in this novel is the use of language. Modern Dutch is very much influenced by English. To the extent even, that for many recent inventions, no Dutch word exists. Computer, laptop and smartphone are part of the everyday vocabulary of the Dutch. On top of that a whole set of Anglicisms has entered the language, literal translations of English expressions. It makes me cringe every time I hear someone say 'soort van', 'daar heb je een punt', 'seks hebben' (or if you really want to make a purist cringe 'sex hebben') or 'fokking'. Obviously I don't have a problem with the English language, but I don't think the fact that it is the lingua franca of our time is an excuse for not to speak your own language properly. The most recent development the use of English words to replace words that do have a translation in Dutch. Recently I heard someone use the word flabbergasted (verbijsterd) in what was otherwise a Dutch sentence. If you pay attention to it, you'll hear plenty of examples.

Whether I like it or not, it's the way a lot of people talk these days and Olde Heuvelt makes his characters do it. Especially the younger ones use a lot of Anglicisms and English words. In fact, the title of the novel is probably the most clear expression of this fusion of languages. The Dutch word for witch is 'heks', while hex (pronunciation is almost identical) has a meaning in English as well. Olde Heuvelt himself has a fine command of the Dutch language. His prose is often quite creative and likely to give a translator a few headaches. It results in a pretty sharp contrast between dialogue and exposition in the book. It makes me wonder how much of this will survive translation.

In terms of style the novel is quite different from his previous novel as well. Harten Sara is almost entirely told from a first person perspective. In Hex, the entire community is the main character and to accurately describe what is going on, Olde Heuvelt switches a lot between characters. Especially towards the end of the novel, when things really start to heat up, you have to have a firm grasp of who is who in the village to follow the story. Given the number of characters employed, it could easily have been a much longer novel. Olde Heuvelt's writing is pretty concise considering the story he is trying to tell. It does go at the expense of the depth of some of the characters. There is one suicide towards the end of the novel for instance, that shocks the village but doesn't do much for the reader because we haven't seen much of this character except his self-righteous behaviour at a council meeting. Overall, I think this is the kind of tale that is more suited to speed and a more general overview of what is happening though. Olde Heuvelt is trying to show the impact on the larger community after all.

Where Harten Sara was much more of a character study and tended towards magical realism, in Hex Olde Heuvelt returns to the dark fantasy he showed in Leerling Tovenaar Vader & Zoon (2008).  It's fast paced, horrific and absolutely thrilling. I had to force myself to put it down a couple of times to go do other things. If you have the time for a reading binge, this is the kind of book you could read in one go. Personally I enjoyed the more challenging Harten Sara a bit more, but it is a fine novel. It will be interesting to see if it manages to conquer the English language market as well.

Book Details
Title: Hex
Author: Thomas Olde Heuvelt
Publisher: Luitingh-Sijthoff
Pages: 351
Year: 2013
Language: Dutch
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-90-245-6025-7
First published: 2013

The Boy Who Cast No Shadow - Thomas Olde Heuvelt

Something remarkable happened a couple of weeks ago when the Hugo nominations were announced; a Dutchman was nominated in the Novelette category. Although, especially in the short fiction categories, a slow movement towards a more diverse and international genre can be detected in recent years, I can't remember a translated work having made the ballot before. Thomas Olde Heuvelt is well known among genre fiction readers in the Netherlands, I've read two of his novels, the most recent one of which, Harten Sara has been reviewed on Random Comments. This novel is also expected to appear in English translation but other than that is is being translated, I haven't been able to find any details on that project.

The Boy Who Cast No Shadow was first published in 2010 and has appeared in Dutch in various places under the title De jongen die geen schaduw wierp. Olde Heuvelt has stated it was written as an ode to Pop Art by Joe Hill, a story he considers the finest short story of the twenty-first century. I'm afraid I haven't read it but the link might be interesting for fans of Hill's work. I first encountered The Boy Who Cast No Shadow in Pure Fantasy magazine number 19, published sometime in 2010. After winning the Paul Harland Prijs, one of the more prestigious Dutch awards for genre fiction, Olde Heuvelt invested his prize money in a professional translation and managed to get PS Publishing interested. The English translation is part of a collection called Unfit for Eden, edited by Nick Gevers and Peter Crowther. You can download the story as the publisher's website for free at the moment.

I have my reservations about Olde Heuvelt making the short list to be honest. At first glance it sounds like a remarkable feat of a  man who is very driven to succeed as a writer. Congratulations on his nomination, which is certainly a momentous occasion in the history of Dutch genre fiction, are in order. On the other hand it is telling that a man who, to my knowledge, only has one short story out in English (a second story titled The Ink Readers of Doi Saket is scheduled to appear on Tor.com sometime in the near future) has managed to get nominated in what is essentially a popularity contest. The Hugo, supposedly the premier award in science fiction, has some credibility issues here. I guess this is an issue that comes up every year after the nominations are announced but clearly the need for a more robust membership base is still present. I haven't quite decided whether or not the very limited number of votes necessary to get on the ballot takes anything away from Olde Heuvelt's achievement or not. Of course it would have been a lot easier to make up my mind about this situation if he had submitted a story of lesser quality. Because The Boy Who Cast No Shadow is without a doubt worthy of the nomination.

The story is a fantastic piece about a boy named Look, who, as the title suggests, casts no shadow. He has no reflection in a mirror and no pictures can be taken of him. He doesn't know what he looks like and while his condition brings him his fifteen minutes of fame, is also causes him to wonder who he is. Not being able to see his face brings on an identity crises of sorts. Until he meets a boy who has a very different problem that is. Splinter is a boy named of glass, he is so fragile that even at the age of fourteen, he is the oldest boy with this condition in his family to survive. Despite this challenge he is an eternal optimist. Splinter will change the way Look views life forever.

As in Harten Sara, Olde Heuvelt uses the unreliable narrator to make things that are clearly impossible become real. There is no doubt in Look's mind that what he experiences is real, giving the whole story a kind of surreal atmosphere. The absurd situations the boys find themselves in and the limitations Splinter in particular encounters are told by someone who is convinced all this is actually happening. It clashes with the reader's sense of disbelief in interesting ways if taken literally. As an expression of vulnerably it is very clear though. In a way Splinter is a more successful character than Look. He feels he doesn't know who he is and that he has no ambitions or goals in life. The world is full of people like that, I don't think not being able to look at yourself in the mirror in the morning is going to make much of a difference in that respect. All things considered, he handles his fame better than many other people would in his situation.

Having read the story both in the original Dutch and in the English translation I can say I like the translation a lot. It is a fairly loose translation I suppose, not following the original too literally in many places. It might be a touch too formal in some places. Olde Heuvelt uses a lot colloquialism in his writing, as one might expect in a story told from the point of view of a teenager. Some of that is quite difficult to translate directly but on the whole I think translator Laura Vroomen manages well enough. There are a few passages where she encounters more interesting problems. A reference to a commercial for instance, that is almost impossible to translate. Olde Heuvelt also uses one line of broken English in the Dutch version but in the translation it is grammatically correct. This is mostly due to the choice not to make Look too obviously Dutch. His name has been translated for instance, references to the town where he apparently lives, or, more likely, have been included because it sounds dorky in Dutch, has been removed, there's probably a few other minor things. Reading the Dutch version made me realize how much layers of meaning a text can actually have. It certainly isn't the easiest work to translate.

Will The Boy Who Cast No Shadow win a Hugo? Most likely not. To most of the voters he will be an unfamiliar name in a field of established authors. I also suspect that this kind of fantasy isn't the most popular among the Hugo voting crowd. I haven't read any of the other nominated works so I have no idea if there is any particular story that stands out in this crowd but from what I can tell, Olde Heuvelt is facing stiff competition. I don't think he'll get it but if he does, you won't hear me complain. The publication date of his fifth novel Hex is rapidly approaching. I'm looking forward to reading that.

Edited on April 28th 2013 to include the link to The Ink Readers of Doi-Saket.

Book Details
Title: The Boy Who Cast No Shadow
Author: Thomas Olde Heuvelt
Translation: Laura Vroomen
Publisher: PS Publishing
Year: 2011
Language: English
Format: e-book
First published: 2010

Harten Sara - Thomas Olde Heuvelt

I haven't read (or reviewed) any Dutch language works since November save a few short pieces in Pure Fantasy Magazine. It's past time I had a look at what is going on in the local genre fiction scene. Thomas Olde Heuvelt is considered one of the hottest writers in Dutch genre fiction. He's one of the few Dutch authors being published be one of the major publishers of Fantasy in the Netherlands. I've read his novel Leerling Tovenaar Vader & Zoon in 2008 and have been looking forward to the next one ever since. His previous novel could be considered either dark fantasy or horror, depending on your preference, Harten Sara is quite something different. I guess the core of it is a love story. The title is a bit tricky to translate. Harten (literally: hearts) refers to one of the suits in a deck of cards and Sara is the name of the main characters. Sara of Hearts I suppose. Doesn't work too well in English and to be honest I don't like it all that much in Dutch either. The novel however, works just fine.

Sara is a young woman living with Asperger's Syndrome. Her view on the world is radically different from ours. Like many people with Asperger's Syndrome she her social skills are underdeveloped and she shows a bit of obsessive compulsive behaviour at times. Sara tends to avoid or run away from situations that, to put it in her own words, unbalance her. Her childhood was not a particularly happy one. Her mother died at birth and her father deals with that poorly. He spends most of his time watching television and drinking beer. One day, Sara meets the young and talented illusionist Sem. It's the start of an intense and complicated love affair that will teach Sara more about her past than her father was ever willing to tell her.

Almost the entire novel is seen from Sara's point of view, a first person perspective. It's something that takes some getting used to. She has a unique perception of the world and her way of telling the story shows it. There's lots of attention to particular details, colours for instance are important to Sara but she makes lots and lots of other strange leaps and associations. Sara tells her story in a non-linear fashion, flashbacks are plentiful and certain parts of the book are a string anecdotes Sara tells us to make a certain point. Olde Heuvelt eases us into it in the earlier part of the novel but later on it gets quite complex. As a reader you need to pay attention, the author uses some fairly unorthodox methods, including a bunch of typographical tricks to have the storytelling fit the character.

Harten Sara is a story that plays out on the edge of illusion and reality. Sara sees the world in ways we cannot possibly accept as real, things that are obviously illusions to the reader are accepted as a matter of course by Sara. Her world is one where magic is not necessarily a trick, something that is reinforced by the character of Sem. As an illusionist, it's his job to try to make people believe his illusions, but at the same time he is looking for a bit of magic he has lost in his youth. Throughout the novel, Olde Heuvelt uses this to great effect in the text for all manner of literary tricks. One of the bits I like in particular, is the motif of flying as an expression of ultimate freedom and complete trust (that's what I make of it anyway).

Sara's world sounds charming in a way but for most of the novel she is deeply unhappy. The love affair between Sara and Sem is headed for disaster from the beginning. Where Sem is interested in Sara, Sara feels Beesie, Sem's alter-ego (for lack of a better word, as with many things in this novel, his true nature remains unclear) is the more interesting part of Sem's personality. It drives a wedge between then that makes both of them do some pretty drastic things. They hurt each other as only lovers can. Sometimes it crosses into the melodramatic, but quite a lot of the novel is simply emotionally extremely powerful. At one point, some ninety pages before the end of the novel, I seriously wondered if I wanted to read the rest of it. At that point they were obviously not finished hurting each other. I don't want to spoil the ending of the novel, let me just say I'm glad I finished it anyway.

Besides the love story, there's a second layer worked into the novel. Sara's father has been less than forthcoming on her past and her family. Gradually Sara uncovers some of her past. Given her limited social skills, it's not surprising that Sara sees it as a complete mystery. For the reader it is much less complicated however, especially since we get additional information though the eyes of a second point of view character. The interaction between the two is very well done, I love the tree that keeps record of Sara's life in five symbols, but in the end the mystery is not much of a mystery. I feel Olde Heuvelt made this part his story a bit more complicated than it had to be.

Harten Sara is a very intense read, aiming to evoke a wide range of emotional responses in the reader. Olde Heuvelt's unusual choice of main character and perspective opens all sorts of possibilities for some beautiful imagery, something the author exploits to fullest possible extend. It's a novel that could have a much wider appeal than just the Fantasy readers his publisher usually caters too. With this novel, Olde Heuvelt lives up to his reputation as one of the most talented writer in the genre. If fact, he may be one of the few writers who can manage to bridge to gap between fantasy and main stream fiction. It will be interesting to see where he means to take his writing next.

Book Details
Title: Harten Sara
Author: Thomas Olde Heuvelt
Publisher: Luitingh
Pages: 272
Year: 2011
Language: Dutch
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-90-245-3236-0
First published: 2011