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​’The Tragedy of a Human Life’

A 1963 Utrecht gay novel

 
With the increasing visibility of homosexuality in the 1960s, the number of Dutch and translated novels featuring homosexual men in leading or supporting roles also grew. A notable example is the 1963 Utrecht-based “realistic novel” Mannen die ‘anders’ zijn (Men who are ‘different’). Remarkable is the way Jan Brandts has used the 1960s setting of Utrecht to make his story as true to reality as possible.
 
 
 

Since the 1960s gay literature experienced not only significant growth but also a notable shift in tone. In earlier Dutch and international works, stories about homosexual characters often end tragically, depicting lives marked by secrecy, loneliness, troubled relationships, guilt, shame, rejection by family, friends and colleagues and suicidal thoughts. However, after 1960, a broader and more diverse range of narratives emerged, exploring homosexual feelings and experiences with greater depth and nuance.

 

Experiments

From his epistolary novel Op weg naar het einde (On the Way to the End, 1963), the famous Dutch gay writer Gerard van het Reve presented homosexuality as something self-evident which you don’t have to make much fuss about. The only one who preceded him in this in our country – as early as in 1904! – was Jacob Israël de Haan with his sensational, scandal-causing novel Pijpelijntjes.

In addition to Van het Reve, other writers in the sixties also distanced themselves from views on homosexuality as illness, deviation, perversion and sin. Young authors describe – autobiographically or otherwise – peers who are searching for their sexual and gender identity and who make use of the greater scope for experimentation that the sixties offered. Among them Ewout Vanvugt (Darwin en gezellen (Darwin and Companions) 1964), Hans Plomp (De ondertrouw. Een somber herenboek (The Marriage Banns. A Sad Gentlemen’s Book) 1968), Adriaan Venema (Van een bloedrode manchet en een kooikershondje (Of a Blood-Red Manchet and a Kooiker Dog) 1969), Astère Michel Dhondt (God in Vlaanderen (God in Flanders) 1965; Zeven geestige knaapjes (Seven Witty Boys) 1966), Carla Walschap (De Eskimo en de roos (The Eskimo and the Rose) 1964) and Andreas Burnier (Een tevreden lach  (A Satisfied Laugh) 1965; Het jongensuur (The Boys’ Hour) 1969).

 

Trivial literature

In contrast to these novels with literary presumptions several novels and non-fictional accounts were published that were rooted in het daily life and subculure of gay men. They offer the reader an insight into the homosexual subculture and the sexual adventures of the main characters. They are written in a straightforward style and mix the ‘facts’ of gay life with mostly pessimistic reflections on the social position of the homosexual. Examples include Herman, de liefde van een homofiel (Herman, the love of a homophile, 1969) and Een homofiel wordt geslagen (A homophile is beaten,  1970) by Utrecht gay author Harry Thomas, Mijn vrienden. De martelgang van een homofiel (My friends. The anguish of a homophile, 1969) by Willem de Vuyst and Zij kregen niet eens een nummer (They didn’t even get a number, 1969) by Flemish gay activist Robert van Maroey.

In De Nichten (The Fags, 1965) and De Nichten 2 (The Fags 2,  1966), Paul Monty, pseudonym of Timo Hofman, tells about his encounters as a steward on passenger ships and in the ports he visited all over the world. His third book, Zo waren zij geschapen (Thus they were created, 1966), is not autobiographical but a dramatic soap opera to which category we can also include the Utrecht novel Mannen die ‘anders’ zijn (Men who are ‘different’) by Jan Brandts.

Fitting in with the sixties, Brandts chose a boy as the main character who rebels against a generation for whom everything in life must be the way it always was. His parents expect their son Michel to take over their grocery store in the Utrecht city centre, marry a neat girl and provide for offspring. However, Michel does not know what to do with girls and often fantasizes about the boarding school sex of his youth. He longs to wear tight jeans, a loose shirt and tight-fitting briefs, just like the Teddy boys. But his mother would never approve of that. Her dominant, meddlesome and unloving character in contrast to a passive and weak father figure fits in perfectly with a then popular psychological explanatory model for male homosexuality. With such a mother, a boy would develop a fear of women and therefore focus on his own sex.

 

Café De Trechter

What is special in Mannen die ‘anders’ zijn is that it tells exactly which routes Michel takes through the city centre of Utrecht and that the café De Trechter where the turnaround in his life begins is based on the café with almost the same name (‘De Tregter’) at the same location at Oudegracht 148 (now pizzeria Ciao Tutti). De Tregter existed from 1961 to 1972. For the alternative youth of Utrecht, that was the place to be, according to Ton van den Berg in Verdwenen horeca in Utrecht (Lost bars in Utrecht):

‘De Tregter became the pub for the trendy youth and broke all kinds of taboos. The curtains remained open, there was a doorman at the door (…) smoking weed was allowed, condoms were sold, there were cocktails and there was a black man behind the bar: Jimmy Lucky (…) De Tregter was also the first pub where young women came without an escort (…) black soldiers [Americans from Soesterberg air base] were allowed in, which was not yet possible everywhere in Utrecht.’

In De Trechter Michel meets such an independent girl, the free-spirited and drug-dealing Marion who draws him into another world and realizes before Michel himself does that he is into men. What follows is a story full of dramatic developments. Michel gets into a relationship with the rich, married businessman Charles Brummelkamp who gives him a managerial position in his company, whereupon the employee to whom that position was initially promised blackmails Brummelkamp, ​​which in the end leads to his suicide. Michel ultimately survives all the tragedies, but with the realization that he will always remain ‘a complete outcast’.

 

Confusing pseudonym

Men who are ‘different’ has the subtitle Original realistic novel. ‘Original’ here means ‘not translated’ and ‘realistic’ stands for something like ‘describing the raw reality in a direct style without literary aspirations’. For those who understood, ‘realistic’ also meant ‘erotic’ or ‘pornographic’ and such novels were not bought in a regular bookstore but in a sex shop or via a mail order company.

For a long time it was unclear who was hiding behind the pseudonym Jan Brandts. It was not until 2016 that Anna Bakkum revealed that the novel was her creation. She was one of the authors who in the fifties and sixties wrote so-called ‘realistic novels’ for publisher Orion in Amsterdam. Orion was one of the three publisher names used by owner Cornelis Johannes Edelman. He was, according to Bakkum

‘(…) the boss, the man who arranged everything: what had to be written, who would do it, the titles and possibly the plot. The only thing he did not interfere with, was the completion and elaboration, although he intervened occasionally if he thought it would be better that way.’

Edelman also handed out the pseudonyms and caused later confusion by giving the same pseudonym, such as Jan Brandts, to multiple authors. The confusion was even greater in this case because another author – Anthoon Koejemans, journalist, politician and later editor-in-chief of the communist newspaper De Waarheid (The Truth) – had already used the same pseudonym for Rendez-vous op ‘t Tulpplein, a realistic novel from 1947, with another publisher. The result was that Mannen die ‘anders’ zijn was mistakenly attributed to him until 2016.

 

‘Tell me how it was’

According to Anna Bakkum, everything she wrote had to remain decent:

‘It was about stories without any pretension for a target group I didn’t know (…) With a few extras, yes, but no improper words, no sadomasochism, sodomy or other aberrations. Just everyday stuff and then delivered in neat doses. A manuscript with too much explicit stuff was returned. Orion took no risks and those who expected porn (…) didn’t get their money’s worth.’

What the reader did get in this novel is a description of homosexuality that was quite unique for that time. When Michel and Charles have sex we read:

‘a lust that he [= Charles] had never experienced so intensely before; he was nothing but lust and body (…) Michel had never known such ecstasy either (…) He had thought he had already reached the highest level of pleasure (…) but he appeared to be able to be goaded even more… until his body could no longer bear the tension and exploded in an almost breathtaking event (…) Charles took him tenderly in his arms. “Tell me what it was like,” he said compellingly. “It was like never before,” Michel murmured. “Better than a woman could? Tell me…” “Better… much better…” “That’s because I’m a man,” Charles said.’

What exactly the men did with each other is up to the reader to figure out, perhaps Anna Bakkum had no idea either. It would take another ten years or so before Gerard van het Reve and other writers simply called things by their name.

 

Maurice van Lieshout

 
 

Sources

 

Bakkum, Anna, ‘De aliassen van Edelman’, De Utrechtse Boekhouder. Tijdschrift voor Utrechts literair erfgoed 6 (2016) nr.1, 13-14.

Boer, Arjan den, en Ton van den Berg, Verdwenen horeca in Utrecht. Gezelligheid tot sluitingstijd (Utrecht 2022) 50-53.

Brandts, Jan [pseudonym of Anna Bakkum], Mannen die ‘anders’ zijn. Oorspronkelijke realistische roman (Amsterdam 1963).

Hekma, Gert, ‘Dutch gay novels of the 1950s and 1960s’, in: Bradford K. Mudge, The Cambridge Companion to Erotic Literature (Cambridge 2017) 238-254; online: https://gerthekma.nl/docs/dutch-gay-novels-of-the-50s-and-60s.html

 

Illustrations

 

Cover of Mannen die ‘anders’ zijn. Oorspronkelijke realistische roman (Men who are ‘different’. Original realistic novel) by Jan Brandts published in 1963 by publisher Orion in Amsterdam.

Hippies on the sidewalk at ‘Drinkwinkel De Tregter’, Oudegracht 48, ca. 1970. Photo E.D. de Vrije, collection Het Utrechts Archief

Flyer, probably distributed in other novels by Publisher Orion and the two other publishing companies of Cornelis Edelman.

Cover of Zij kregen niet eens een nummer  (They didn’t even get a number), written by Robert van Maroey, published in 1969 by Publisher De Steenbok in Ghent.

The latest update of this story: December 3, 2024