{"id":139359,"date":"2026-09-27T12:21:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T10:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cultureelpersbureau.nl\/?p=139359"},"modified":"2026-09-17T13:55:06","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T11:55:06","slug":"geestige-tweede-van-merijn-de-boer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cultureelpersbureau.nl\/en\/2026\/09\/geestige-tweede-van-merijn-de-boer\/","title":{"rendered":"A witty second from Merijn de Boer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fiction | <strong>Rolling stones<\/strong> | Merijn de Boer | Querido, \u20ac21.99 | 192 pages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ole Bakker, the protagonist of Merijn de Boer\u2019s new novel <em>Rolling stones<\/em>, is willing to be the number two so that his girlfriend can pursue her career. But that turns out to be easier said than done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018If I were asked, \u201cWhat do you want to achieve in life?\u201d, I would answer, truthfully and with satisfaction: \u201cNothing.\u201d Ole Bakker, the first-person narrator of <em>Rolling stones<\/em>, decides at an early age that he wants to organise his life in such a way that he can spend most of his time reading, watching films, playing table tennis and spending time with friends. In Amsterdam, he manages this perfectly well, with simple jobs that don\u2019t demand too much time or energy. It\u2019s at one of these jobs that he meets Dani\u00eblle, and they fall head over heels in love. Now he is absolutely certain that he wants to follow the example of a romantic character from a Turgenev novel, who believes that the purpose of life is to make yourself second best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When Daantje gets a job in Tunisia, everything seems to be going swimmingly: she can build a career, and as an expat husband, all he has to do is run the household, do the shopping and cook; he has the rest of the day to himself. The other Dutch diplomats\u2019 husbands that Ole meets all seem to have settled into their roles perfectly and are happy to share their best household tips with Ole at their weekly pizza lunch and partners\u2019 get-together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As strong as, for example, the award-winning <em>The Solidarity Group<\/em> (2020) is <em>Rolling stones<\/em> No, but the new novel by Merijn de Boer \u2013 who himself lived in New York, Jerusalem and Tunis as a diplomat\u2019s husband \u2013 is certainly witty. Take, for instance, the endless conversations his characters have about cleaning products, kitchen roll, loading the dishwasher and other utterly tedious domestic matters. And their coquettish little phrase: \u2018Nothing beats a Dutch boterham\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But whilst they, like \u2018rolling stones\u2019, have shaken off the \u2018moss\u2019 of the past \u2013 their old lives \u2013 Ole is increasingly overcome by homesickness for Amsterdam and a life with a little more substance.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fictie | Rollende stenen | Merijn de Boer | Querido, \u20ac 21,99 | 192 blz. Ole Bakker, de hoofdpersoon van Merijn de Boers nieuwe roman Rollende stenen, wil grootmoedig de nummer 2 zijn, zodat zijn vriendin carri\u00e8re kan maken. Maar dat blijkt makkelijker gezegd dan gedaan. \u2018Als mij werd gevraagd : \u201cWat wil je bereiken [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":330,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"federated","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[16518,4763,11687],"tags":[15632,58],"class_list":["post-139359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-literatuur-2","category-donatie-gevraagd","tag-expat","tag-recensie"],"featured_image_url":[],"post_author":"Vivian de Gier","assigned_categories":"featured, LITERAIR, WAARDEER &amp; DONEER!","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":137614,"url":"https:\/\/cultureelpersbureau.nl\/en\/2026\/09\/mijn-hart-in-vijftig-stukken-el-corazon-de-ester\/","url_meta":{"origin":139359,"position":0},"title":"My Heart in Fifty Pieces: El coraz\u00f3n de Ester","author":"Alessia De Santis","date":"7 September 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"In *El coraz\u00f3n de Ester*, which had its Italian national premiere at the Teatro Vittoria as part of Short Theatre 2026, the Spanish artist Alberto Cort\u00e9s takes on the role of Ester, a 19th-century woman who slowly fades away as she surrenders herself to her lovers. There are only fifty performances\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;FAITS DIVERS&quot;","block_context":{"text":"FAITS DIVERS","link":"https:\/\/cultureelpersbureau.nl\/en\/genre\/faits-divers\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":140332,"url":"https:\/\/cultureelpersbureau.nl\/en\/2026\/09\/straks-moeten-we-nog-bewijzen-dat-we-mensen-zijn-een-dialoog-over-journalistiek-en-ai\/","url_meta":{"origin":139359,"position":1},"title":"Soon we\u2019ll have to prove we\u2019re human: a dialogue on journalism and AI","author":"Guido van Nispen","date":"25 September 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"We read a novel, appreciate an opinion piece and rely on our own judgement, until an AI detector attaches a suspicious percentage to it. The work hasn\u2019t changed, but our perspective has. What will happen when the machine ultimately determines what we, as humans, still trust?","rel":"","context":"In &quot;LITERAIR&quot;","block_context":{"text":"LITERAIR","link":"https:\/\/cultureelpersbureau.nl\/en\/genre\/literatuur-2\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":137595,"url":"https:\/\/cultureelpersbureau.nl\/en\/2026\/09\/na-het-paradisodebat-we-moeten-anders-gaan-denken-over-auteursrecht\/","url_meta":{"origin":139359,"position":2},"title":"Following the #Paradiso debate: We need to start thinking differently about copyright","author":"Nan van Houte","date":"6 September 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019ve just left Paradiso, where this year\u2019s annual Kunsten\u201992 debate was devoted to AI. What struck me was that, apart from the question or comment from the balcony at Paradiso \u2013 which, unfortunately, was impossible to hear without amplification \u2013 no attention was paid to the extremely interesting observations and recommendations made by Payal Arora, Professor of Inclusive\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;ACTUEEL&quot;","block_context":{"text":"ACTUEEL","link":"https:\/\/cultureelpersbureau.nl\/en\/genre\/nieuws\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3yKke-AfJ","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cultureelpersbureau.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cultureelpersbureau.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cultureelpersbureau.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cultureelpersbureau.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/330"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cultureelpersbureau.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139359"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cultureelpersbureau.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":139363,"href":"https:\/\/cultureelpersbureau.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139359\/revisions\/139363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cultureelpersbureau.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cultureelpersbureau.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cultureelpersbureau.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}