I admire that young boy's courage.

(thursday I have to go and defend myself to the dean why I would want to study what I want to study, I'm nervous because I'm not the most convincing person)

Not courage. It was instinct, his only chance of survival.
A few years ago there was a documentary film about him on television.

Dens

What do you want to study?

I'm sure my instinct would've told me to keep quiet and not ask for the bread because then they might start liking me.

I want to study literature and linguistic science

Dens

Linguistics or psycholinguistics?

Alex Kurzem

Heard this -real- story about ten years ago.
Wonder how the boy grew up after 1945. Two years from now your godson will be five years old, we hope. How would his mother act under similar circumstances?

Johannes

I didn't get your advise. Can you explain?

Beste meneer Grunberg,



Ik ben Marloes van Diffelen, 19 jaar en ik studeer Nederlandse taal en cultuur aan de universiteit van Utrecht. Ik heb in de zomervakantie uw werk 'Tirza' gelezen, en nu wil het toeval dat uw boek tevens op de literatuurlijst van het vak Actuele Romans is terecht gekomen. Ik moet tijdens 1 van deze colleges een referaat houden over dit verhaal, waarbij het in de kern eigenlijk draait om de vraag: leeft Tirza nog? Ik ben zelf met behulp van tekstfragmenten bezig hierover een eigen idee te vormen, om op deze manier tot een soort hypothese te komen. Een hypothese moet naar mijn mening getoetst worden, en hoe kan dat in dit geval beter dan naar uw mening/wetenschap te vragen. Zou u mij dus alstublieft antwoord kunnen geven op de volgende vraag:



Heeft Jorgen Hofmeester de moorden op Tirza en haar vriend echt (in de werkelijkheid van de verhalenwereld) gepleegd, of is het slechts een hersenspinsel van dit hoofdpersonage?



Ik wacht een antwoord af en zou uw moeite heel erg waarderen,



met vriendelijke groet Marloes van Diffelen,

KZ

I am familiar with all those stories; I have read quite a lot about WO II. Maybe because I was brought up with tales of concentration camps, elimination, torture and the revenge.
I especially remember a relative who spend a few months in Ravensbrück. She was put there because the Germans thought she was the leader of the local partisans – in fact her sister was the commandant and she did not know about that; the sister kept silent.
As a toddler I was fascinated by her eyes, deep wild shiny eyes and she behaved weird from time to time. She was one of the adults I liked the most. She never yelled at me nor hit me. Now I know I must have recognized the horror in her eyes, the horror so many adults easily commit to the weak, the lonely or the unwanted.
Sometimes I ask myself, for example, are there differences between an Arab and a Caucasian autistic as there are differences between a normal Arab and a ditto Caucasian.

Marloes

Isn't the whole point of your exercise that you learn to voice/develop your own intepretation and defend it? One thing I loved about education outside of Holland was that our teachers said 'there's not one right answer as its the readers' intepretation. Every reader is right, as long as he/she can argue his opinions.' The challenge was to argue or intepretations, backing them up with quotes and passages, analysis of character etc. That's the fun part! Form your own hypothesis and dive into Tirza, look for proof of your own hypothesis. Do YOU think Hofmeester actually killed Tirza and why do YOU think he did?
It's more about argumentation than about who's wrong or right.

I remember my reaction on the final chapters of Tirza. I hurried back to my computer, hoping there would be a new message from Tirza on her blog altough I knew that was a desperate action.

Hypothesis

I strongly agree with Noa on the matter.

@Jan, thank you! Perhaps we should start a new university here in Holland. Grunberg for chairman. Oh wait, he's already teaching at the University of Love so I guess he won't go for the position. How about the University of Self-Sufficiency. Or Thought.

Tirza - question for all

Speaking of Tirza, by the way, did anyone ever try and send an email to her email - address in the novel? If so, what happened?

@Noa
The University of Self Sufficiency makes me think of The Great Masturbator by Salvador Dali. I do not think this is appropriate for Arnon, although he is quite a loner, I suppose, but so am I and you too?
What do you think of The University of Carnival Mirrors and Other Charming Technologies?

Noa

Tirza’s e-mail address is never mentioned in the book, only her password, and the fact that she is using yahoo. But we don’t know whether her user names is tirza@yahoo.com or tirzahofmeester@yahoo.com or tirza7yahoo.com etc.

Jan T

I don't know that university -- could you give me info.

Marloes

The answer to your question can be found in the novel "De donkere kamer van Damocles" by W.F. Hermans.

Oops, Arnon, that was stupid of me. Sorry.

I tried the mailaddress (and password) in the foundation, the short story "the youngest", and that didn't work. Unfortunately. If I remember well, the password structure was the same in both stories. Maybe the mailaddress structure is as well. I don't know.

The Youngest

Dear Marloes,
What may be interesting for your book report is to read the story 'The Youngest'. It appeared in a magazine called Magazijn (2004) and it can be seen as a study for Tirza.
In this story there seems to be no question if the character (his name is Horst Bredekamp) killed his daughter and her lover or not.
Good luck with your report.
If you are interested and you have problems finding the magazine, it is actually more of a book, you can contact me: johannes@arnongrunberg.com

University of Carnival Mirrors and Other Charming Technologies

@Arnon
As you well know, it is only a name for con University to be started by Noa, for the kind of smart people like myself. If you are interested please contact Noa.

Does this university apply talking to deans before entering? (Today is the big day)

@Dens
My advice for entering universities: infiltrate, grab the diploma and run! (do not do as I did: running before grabbing). Good luck!

Today my application to the university was rejected. I'm appealing tomorrow.

I was granted.

Dens

Congratulations young man.