This collection of stories gathers all known output of Dutch early 20th century writer Nescio, who is exceedingly famous and popular in his home country. Nescio was the pseudonym of JHF Grönloh, a businessman with writerly ambition, and most of his stories deal with being young and having creative ambition and then having to give up those thoughts. Grönloh wrote in secret, and became known first after his passing, much like the Swiss writer Robert Walser, somewhat of a kindred soul to Grönloh. I enjoyed reading his depiction of being young in Amsterdam at the turn of the last century. How he manages to capture the fleeting moments of the everyday, that are full of meaning yet so ephemeral, is quite a gift. The allusions to sexual desire, dressed up in codewords, appear cutesy to a contemporary reader, but they were probably scandalous at the time of writing. One note on the translation of this NYRB classics edition is that a lot of the time the translator has chosen specifically American words that sound quite unnatural in the low countries of the 1910s. The first story, the Freeloader, repeatedly refers to the titular character as a “guy”, which has an odd ring to it.
Kinship of all Species 