An Untouched House by W. F. Hermans, translated by David Colmer
Published by Archipelago, 2018
Also available from Pushkin Press
From the publisher:
Madness abounds in the waning months of World War II, until a weary Dutch Partisan chances upon a luxurious, intact estate in an abandoned spa town. For a time, clean linens and running water replace unremitting bloodshed as the defining features of the nameless narrator’s life; then the Germans retake the village. When they reach his new front door, the Partisan quickly accepts that he must resort to any means to keep the war out. With blunt yet transfixing prose, Hermans confronts his readers with the violent absurdity of war.
From reviews:
• Felix Haas, World Literature Today
An Untouched House relates a nameless protagonist’s recollections of the last months of the war, in which he and his group of partisans wander through an unnamed strip of land, which at times falls under allied or partisan control, and at others back under German occupation. Early on, he gets ordered to search a nearby town and ends up seeking shelter in an abandoned mansion. His only objective is to maximize the chances of his own survival, with no moral regard for others. An Untouched House offers no sides to be on, no causes to fight for other than one’s own survival. It does not know borders nor perhaps the difference between war and peace, as “death comes for everyone, even without any wars. What difference does war make?” With its protagonist truly beyond good and evil, there are no reasons, no morals, no difference between victim and culprit. Survival is imperative—not out of fear, passion, or love but out of innate mechanics.
• Sam Jordison, The Guardian
More commonplace books might use this situation to extract sympathy for a plucky young chancer getting one over on the enemy. Hermans doesn’t allow this comfort; instead, he blasts our expectations in a series of increasingly awful scenes. The narrator turns out to be just as foul as the Nazis, while maintaining a gallows humour and deadpan clarity that make him a disturbingly engaging presence. This is a brutal story that’s all the more shocking because it packs its ferocious series of punches into just 80 pages. It takes an hour or two to read, but An Untouched House is the kind of book that stays with you for ever.
• Francine Prose, Harpers Magazine
Though Hermans has been compared to Vonnegut, the comparison doesn’t entirely fit. His work has none of Vonnegut’s occasional tweeness, and he’s willing to go much further toward abject nihilism. But the often-quoted line from Vonnegut’s Mother Night, “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be,” could serve as an epigraph for Hermans’s wartime novels.
• M. A. Orthofer, Complete Review
An Untouched House is a pitch-black thriller of war-time existence — one can hardly simply call it ‘life’ — at its extremes. The lulling comfort of the house, an island — mostly … — of peacefulness even as it stands practically at the front, armies battling back and forth around it, is an unreal haven; among Hermans’ most effective techniques is in how readily he allows the narrator to coldly switch to most basic instincts to preserve what is, in these circumstances, essentially a fantasy-world he has created for himself. Much of the power of the often dreamlike and surreal-seeming novel is, in fact, its crystal clear reality — horrible reality.
