''Van Loon's Lives'' is a book by the
Dutch-American
Dutch Americans ( nl, Nederlandse Amerikanen) are Americans of Dutch descent whose ancestors came from the Netherlands in the recent or distant past. Dutch settlement in the Americas started in 1613 with New Amsterdam, which was exchanged with ...
writer
Hendrik Willem van Loon
Hendrik Willem van Loon (January 14, 1882 – March 11, 1944) was a Dutch-American historian, journalist, and children's book author.
Life
He was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands, the son of Hendrik Willem van Loon and Elisabeth Johanna Hanken. ...
published in 1942. Its full title, deliberately written in a manner already archaic at the time of writing, is ''Van Loon's Lives: Being a true and faithful account of a number of highly interesting meetings with certain historical personages, from
Confucius
Confucius ( ; zh, s=, p=Kǒng Fūzǐ, "Master Kǒng"; or commonly zh, s=, p=Kǒngzǐ, labels=no; – ) was a Chinese philosopher and politician of the Spring and Autumn period who is traditionally considered the paragon of Chinese sages. C ...
and
Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
to
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his ...
and
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 18 ...
, about whom we had always felt a great deal of curiosity and who came to us as dinner guests in a bygone year''.
[Simon and Schuster, 1942.]
Loosely based on the classical ''
Plutarch's Lives
Plutarch's ''Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans'', commonly called ''Parallel Lives'' or ''Plutarch's Lives'', is a series of 48 biographies of famous men, arranged in pairs to illuminate their common moral virtues or failings, probably writt ...
'', it recounts the biographies of various famous historical characters, and like Plutarch often pairing together characters from different times and places whose life, careers or personalities seemed to Van Loon to bear a similarity to each other (e.g.
William the Silent
William the Silent (24 April 153310 July 1584), also known as William the Taciturn (translated from nl, Willem de Zwijger), or, more commonly in the Netherlands, William of Orange ( nl, Willem van Oranje), was the main leader of the Dutch Re ...
and
George Washington
George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of th ...
who led the Wars of Independence of their respective countries; the philosophers
Descartes and
Emerson;
Empress Theodora
Theodora is a given name of Greek origin, meaning "God's gift".
Theodora may also refer to:
Historical figures known as Theodora
Byzantine empresses
* Theodora (wife of Justinian I) ( 500 – 548), saint by the Orthodox Church
* Theodora of ...
of Byzantium and Queen
Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen".
El ...
of England;
Torquemada and
Robespierre
Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre (; 6 May 1758 – 28 July 1794) was a French lawyer and statesman who became one of the best-known, influential and controversial figures of the French Revolution. As a member of the Esta ...
, of both of whom Van Loon had less than a flattering view...).
In the book the author imagines he is living in his summer home in the town of
Veere
Veere (; zea, label=Zeelandic, Ter Veere) is a municipality with a population of 22,000 and a town with a population of 1,500 in the southwestern Netherlands, in the region of Walcheren in the province of Zeeland.
History
The name ''Veere'' ...
on the island of Walcheren in the Dutch province of
Zealand
Zealand ( da, Sjælland ) at 7,031 km2 is the largest and most populous island in Denmark proper (thus excluding Greenland and Disko Island, which are larger in size). Zealand had a population of 2,319,705 on 1 January 2020.
It is the 1 ...
. He has the ability to summon the famous (and sometimes infamous) great men and women of history to come to dinner. The summoning is done in the prosaic way of leaving under a specific stone a note with the names of the persons they wish to meet that weekend, who duly make their appearance. This magical aspect places the book within the category of
contemporary fantasy
Contemporary fantasy, also known as modern fantasy, is a subgenre of fantasy, set in the present day or, more accurately, the time period of the maker. It is perhaps most popular for its subgenre, urban fantasy.
Strictly, supernatural fiction ca ...
, though the term did not yet exist at the time it was published.
Chapters in the book typically start with Van Loon describing the lives of the people invited that week, with many digressions and idiosyncratic comments, opinions and comparisons with actual 20th century events - particularly with the doings of Hitler and Nazi Germany in general and the
Nazi occupation of the Netherlands
Despite Dutch neutrality, Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands on 10 May 1940 as part of Fall Gelb (Case Yellow). On 15 May 1940, one day after the bombing of Rotterdam, the Dutch forces surrendered. The Dutch government and the royal family re ...
in particular, which was clearly very much on Van Loon's mind. This is followed by these people appearing in the 1930s provincial Netherlands and their interaction with modern people, in some cases consisting of polite and intellectually stimulating conversations, in other cases leading to humorous or hilarious results. (For example, the Archbishop of
Bithynia
Bithynia (; Koine Greek: , ''Bithynía'') was an ancient region, kingdom and Roman province in the northwest of Asia Minor (present-day Turkey), adjoining the Sea of Marmara, the Bosporus, and the Black Sea. It bordered Mysia to the southwest, Pa ...
and Archbishop of
Cyrenaica
Cyrenaica ( ) or Kyrenaika ( ar, برقة, Barqah, grc-koi, Κυρηναϊκή παρχίαKurēnaïkḗ parkhíā}, after the city of Cyrene), is the eastern region of Libya. Cyrenaica includes all of the eastern part of Libya between ...
, who were staunch theological foes during the 4th century
Council of Nicea, wildly assault each other as soon as they are resurrected in the 20th century and run out into the streets of Veere, shouting abuse. A local policeman locks them up in separate cells, but by the next morning they had mysteriously disappeared...)
The book was written at the time when Veere, like the rest of the Netherlands, lay under Nazi occupation. Despite its light-hearted tone, the book clearly indicates the longing of the writer for his homeland whose liberation he was doomed never to see, having died in 1944. This is especially indicated in the book's dedication to the exiled
Queen Juliana
Juliana (; Juliana Louise Emma Marie Wilhelmina; 30 April 1909 – 20 March 2004) was Queen of the Netherlands from 1948 until her abdication in 1980.
Juliana was the only child of Queen Wilhelmina and Prince Henry of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Sh ...
. Also, the book's plot is set in the late 1930s with the clouds of impending war clearly visible, and in its end the protagonists must flee the German invasion, bringing to an end their meetings with the people from the past.
References
{{Reflist
American biographies
Dutch biographies
1942 books
Contemporary fantasy novels
Dutch fantasy novels
Dutch historical novels
Novels set in the Netherlands
Cultural depictions of William the Silent
Cultural depictions of George Washington
Cultural depictions of Voltaire
Cultural depictions of Tomás de Torquemada
Cultural depictions of René Descartes
Cultural depictions of Theodora I
Cultural depictions of Elizabeth I
Cultural depictions of Maximilien Robespierre
Cultural depictions of Thomas Jefferson
Cultural depictions of Confucius
Cultural depictions of Plato