OUDE MEESTERS (OLD MASTERS)
Brothers Sieger and Edmund van Zeeland really belong in a different era.
Edmund should have been born a century and a half ago, when it was still possible to conquer a continent or discover the source of the Nile all on your own. Instead he travels aimlessly, from cruise ship to five-star hotel, in search of meaning. It is only his newly established friendship with his brother’s runaway wife, Sarie, that pushes him to leave his bubble.
Sieger lives in his own world, one in which journalists can be trusted, and gentlemen still behave like gentlemen. However, just as his newspaper begins its umpteenth restyling, he is the only witness to an attack on a Russian politician – a scoop so career-defining that he decides to keep it to himself. Even though this means that he will have all of Europe’s security services and conspiracy theorists after him.
OUDE MEESTERS is both a family drama and a satire, a thriller and a romance. It is a sweeping, international story about supremacy and compassion, knowledge and ignorance, gaining confidence and losing it, and the privilege of men who assume that the world is theirs – and the women who disagree.
OUDE MEESTERS was chosen by the Dutch Literary Foundation as one of ten must-read books from the Netherlands in 2018
‘The brothers build up a personal past, their own edifice of memories. That makes Old Masters not merely a nostalgic spectacle, but a deeply human novel. Life itself, here and now – that will have to be enough, as the brothers learn from harsh experience. Fleeing into the past won’t work anymore, and in fact it never did.’
Het Parool
‘Again, Joost de Vries has woven a series of coincidences into an ingenious, glittering web. Old Masters reminds me strongly of Anthony Burgess’s Earthly Powers […] because both offer a brilliant display of highbrow entertainment.’
Trouw
‘Joost de Vries is without doubt the smartest writer in the class, a know-it-all, but one of those who can get away with it. His new novel, Oude Meesters, is brilliant’
De Standaard
‘Oude Meesters is a cleverly constructed novel, alternatively playful, nostalgic and funny. A book that reads like a thriller but could equally be described as a family drama’
Cutting Edge
‘It’s up to de Vries to deflate the egos of the brothers, to burst their short-sighted bubble. He does so with panache. The boys sparkle with eloquence and wit, and have wonderful, crazy adventures complete with a movie star and an infamous Russian politician… He [de Vries] is in complete control of his story, which effortlessly flits between Edmund and Sieger, Cuba and Ukraine, a film set and a newspaper office.’
De Volkskrant
