P.F. Thomése
Vladivostok! (Vladiwostok!)
Razor-sharp political satire
P. F.Thomése broke through internationally in 2003 with Schaduwkind (Shadow Child), the heartbreaking story of the death of his newborn daughter, Isa. The contrast with his most recent novel couldn’t be greater: Vladivostok! is political satire about power shifting to the media, which, through polls and spin-doctored news, manipulates public opinion. Thomése has used pornography as his vehicle, reinstating this genre as the critical instrument it was originally in the eighteenth century. This vision combines power and porn, both as sinister as they are banal.
The main character is Fons Nieuwenhuijs, a communications consultant who helps his childhood friend, Hans Portielje – parttime senior lecturer and Africa expert - prepare for a top position in politics. Nieuwenhuijs has to guide him into Parliament and prepare him to be a Minister. Having worked for a progressive weekly in the past, both arrivés now present themselves as thoroughly cynical alpha males who define their existence entirely in terms of their one-dimensional sexual urges.
Since Martin Amis’ Money (1985) it has been rare for so much stylistic ingenuity to have been put into blatant sexism: ‘She could silently undress and offer herself to him as an object. Take me. So easy, he could do anything with her without her obstructing him. The nice thing about her was that he had stopped seeing her as a person a long time ago. She was but wrapping for his dick, a piece of female wetness around it which always fitted.’ Both protagonists also use racist language without shame. Still, it is not Portielje’s pompous, conceited opinions which bring about his ruin after a failed television appearance. Thomése has a better fate in store for Nieuwenhuijs. He comes to realise that he can actually mean something to someone. Vladivostok! is a razorsharp, funny and controversial novel about our media-dominated democracy in which everything is superficial and power madness translates literally into pornography.
Publisher
Contact
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TEL. +31 20 535 25 35
FAX +31 20 535 25 49
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.uitgeverijcontact.nl
Publishing details
Vladiwostok! (2007, 295 pp)
Biography
P.F. Thomése (b. 1958) won the AKO Literature Prize with his first book, the short-story collection Zuidland (South Land), in 1991. He went on to publish two novels, Heldenjaren (Heroic Years, 1994) and Het zesde bedrijf (The Sixth Act, 1999), and another collection of short stories, Haagse liefde en De vieze engel (Love in The Hague and The Dirty Angel, 1994). Thomése made his international breakthrough with the memoir Schaduwkind (Shadow Child, 2003), which has meanwhile been sold to more than 15 countries. In 2005 he published Izak, followed in 2007 by Vladiwostok!
Website: www.thomese.nl
Quotes
A pre-emptive strike by an author who decided he did not want to use subtle means and veiled allusions to broadcast his message about an increasing absence of integrity.
De Groene Amsterdammer
Thomése is once more in truly great form. He writes magnificent, euphoria-inducing prose, witty, with tremendous pace to it. […] At work here is a writer who has taken the form and content of his novel to their ultimate conclusions.
Het Parool