Oben ist es still

Helmer van Wonderen, Bauer reluctant, clears ship. He takes his bedridden father upstairs, clears out the living room and parents' bedroom, paints floorboards, windows, doors and walls and creates new furniture. The painting with the black sheep, the photographs of mother and the old grandfather clock come up, all the plants that can bloom on the dung heap. Since father doesn't do him the favor of simply disappearing, being swept away by a gust of wind, or at least dying, Helmer re-establishes his life below. However, he cannot dispose of his unlived dreams so easily. One day, when he receives unexpected mail, memories take hold: "Henk should have lived here. With Riet and with children. "Henk, the twin brother, is long dead. But Riet lives, and she has a son.

Gerbrand Bakker's first novel was a great success with the public in the Netherlands. Precisely in the observation of man and nature, subtle in allusion and tender bizarreness, Bakker's dry, laconic narrative style develops an irresistible pull from the first page. Unexpectedly one finds oneself with a silent farmer in the midst of dairy cows, Texel sheep, a hooded crow and two donkeys, reminded of the great questions of life and understands that comedy and tragedy, wit and melancholy, belong together inseparably above and below.