Jordi Lammers, or: the secret miracle of a Utrecht Literature Festival #ILFU17

And then there turns out to be a festival theme after all. Comes all by itself. Perhaps not thought of beforehand by the management of the International Literature Festival Utrecht (ILFU), but after three days of immersion crystal clear. Writing is about what we don't talk about.

During the last festival evening, Saturday 13 May, I immersed myself for the occasion in a component that definitively distinguishes 'Utrecht' from fellow literature festivals: mini-lectures. A logical component for a city with the largest faculty of literature in the country, of course. And a golden formula. Like every part of the ILFU, short and sweet. The mini-lectures are limited to half an hour, just fifteen minutes shorter than the maximum length of the parts of the main programme. Which, by the way, is also remarkably flashy with that.

Three weeks of sex

To transition from the official festival theme 'China' to the hidden theme, the first mini-lecture was dedicated to the Dao. Or rather Dao. The Chinese doctrine/ philosophy of life/ religion/ sex method that has been evolving for several thousand years. I must admit, I only knew the Dao from that endearing little book by Benjamin Hoff: The Dao of Pooh. And of course from the heroic stories of Ad Visser who claims to be able to experience highs of three weeks and more by taking a little regular tantric breaths during the act of love.

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Flemish professor Jan De Meyer was clearly in a hurry. He mainly served us lots of historical facts and slides. That was not very 'zen', but it was instructive. Although I don't know whether I will be able to repeat everything at the next written test.

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Burning books

Then, in the smallest room in the attic of TivoliVredenburg, called the Pit, four speed lectures were mostly about evil. Appropriately set in the studio décor of the Rosa Ensemble, which on other days played live radio plays there The Danish Detective performs. It dealt first with the conceivability of absolute evil, then with the seductiveness of Hitler's Mein Kampf and then with the pros and cons of book burning. Finally, it focused on the use of incomprehensible sentences and modern poetry to make people more creative.

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For a room partly filled with high school students (flown in from the Gooi region), some great insights did come along. And so it was about what you don't may say (Godwin's Law and Hitler's Mein Kampf) and not can say (the conceivability of the Holocaust). When it came to book burnings, Professor Rosemarie Buikema even managed to mention, to her horror, that they might sometimes be necessary. Sometimes culture change apparently goes from 'ouch'. Especially with decolonisation. Art can offer a way out, though, by precisely not destroying the old but simply to be complemented by your own image. Decolonisation by appropriation, but in the 'right' direction.

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Biergarten

Rather intense all around. But also dark at times. Something that sticks a bit to the place in the building where ILFU took place on the first and the last festival day: no cheerful bar with seats to relax, too little view and a bit isolated from the world. So next year, just back in and around the Pandora Hall, as on the Friday of the festival. Then there was a private foyer, a small seating area with a view and an elated beer garden for monkey-watching the nightlife crowd in the smoking aquarium. Which is already an attraction in itself. That was a good festival atmosphere.

I concluded my festival immersion with the stories of Nelleke Noordervliet, Ingmar Heytze and Jordi Lammers, complemented by Joni Mitchell covers by Mathilde Santing. Extremely atmospheric and disarming all, but there was more. Something happened there, so close to noon, that I had missed throughout the festival: I was deeply moved. Just for a moment. And not even by Mathilde-Joni Mitchell-Santing or any of those experienced writers.

Armour

The old timers all had the professional skill of all the people who are more often on such a stage. They tell a lot, but have since built up a kind of invisible armour. With this, the pros sometimes protect themselves from too much of their own or others' emotions. That stops shared emotion, and that's what you're looking for anyway, as a spectator.

But then you haven't experienced Jordi Lammers. Still young, rather innocent, on-and-off almost post-millennial. He came up with such an open-minded and beautiful story about his troubled relationship with his brother that it touched me deeply. In all its simplicity, I got recognition there, but most of all vulnerability. The late hour helped, so did that glass of wine, but who doesn't long for that brief moment of rapport from a brother with whom dealing otherwise is always so complicated?

Chinese

So here, writing is about giving words to the ineffable, about that which you cannot actually say out loud. Without a word of Chinese, too.

No Joni Mitchell can really compete with that, no matter how perfectly performed.

Jordi Lammers, keep an eye on that man.