J.J. Slauerhoff: Chinese Backgrounds of a Restless Poet
- Alex Van Egmond
- Dec 27, 2024
- 11 min read
Not every author is granted the privilege of being frequently read and admired after their death. An exception to this is the remarkable oeuvre of poet and writer J.J. Slauerhoff, or 'Slau', as his friends called him.
His books and poetry collections continue to be reprinted, and he also finds an audience abroad through translations. The allure lies in the world of longing for distant places that the restless Slauerhoff so vividly evokes.
As it turns out, this world was built on thorough documentation and research. In this article, we delve into the Chinese sources of inspiration for the poet.
Text: Alex van Egmond
Life Journey
Jan Jakob Slauerhoff was born on September 14, 1898, in Leeuwarden as the fifth of six children. His parents ran a fabric shop, and the family belonged to the middle class.
In his youth, Slauerhoff was a child of concern due to his struggles with asthmatic attacks. On the one hand, this condition brought him extra attention from his mother, but on the other, it caused loneliness at school since none of his classmates dared to help him during an attack.
Between 1916 and 1923, he studied Medicine in Amsterdam, where he came into contact with prominent literary contemporaries such as Simon Vestdijk (1898–1971) and Hendrik Marsman (1899–1940).
Meanwhile, Slauerhoff began writing poetry 'seriously', and in 1923, his first poetry collection, Archipel (Archipelago), was published. The collection was well received by a young generation of authors, who saw innovation in the unconventional way Slauerhoff used traditional verse forms and linguistic patterns.
The themes of wandering and the sea also stood out. In the first poem, we read:
This is my fate: sculpted for the prow, / To always follow the ship’s hull behind me; / My triumphal march over kneeling flow / Must be owed to the ship that carried me.
Slauerhoff frequently expressed that he sought happiness at sea, as the seafaring life was simply in his blood. For instance, his great-great-grandfather on his father’s side had a maritime background, and there were also sailors on his mother’s side.
After completing his medical exams, Slauerhoff had no interest in settling down as a general practitioner in a Dutch village or town, with all the social scrutiny and lack of freedom that entailed. Becoming a ship's doctor, however, was perfectly suited to him, as it allowed him to travel and it granted him enough freedom to dedicate himself to literature.
His poor health was the only obstacle, but, remarkably, he still managed to pass the medical examination. From 1924 onward, many voyages followed to the Mediterranean, South America, Africa, the Middle East, and, of course, Asia.
In China, Slauerhoff visited ports such as Shanghai, Hong Kong, Macau, Amoy (Xiamen), and Dairen (Dalian). This became the most productive period of his life, yielding no fewer than seven poetry collections and three story collections, including Oost-Azië (East Asia, 1928), Yoeng Poe Tsjoeng (1930), and Kau-Lung-Seu (The Spring Island, 1930).
In 1930, he married the beautiful ballet dancer Darja Collin and briefly settled in the Netherlands. Yet the sea continued to call him, and in 1932, he rejoined the Holland-West-Afrika Line.
During this time, he published the novels Het verboden rijk (The Forbidden Realm, 1932) and Het leven op aarde (Life on Earth, 1934), with much of the narrative set in Macau.
Between his travels and publishing efforts, he frequently stayed in health resorts due to his increasingly deteriorating health.
This put a significant strain on his marriage to Collin, and the couple divorced in May 1935. That same year, Slauerhoff's health rapidly declined due to neglected tuberculosis, compounded by malaria.
He ultimately succumbed to recurring tuberculosis on October 5, 1936, at the Villa Carla sanatorium in Hilversum.
Messy
The interbellum period in which Slauerhoff lived is characterized by modernism, a term for the various, often contradictory movements that gained prominence internationally.
In his poetry, Slauerhoff was inspired, among others, by the French poet Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891), who proposed that poetry is 'the disruption of all the senses'.
Only through disruption could a new reality be created, with a new language and new imagery. Rimbaud was thus a precursor to symbolism, which in turn was a reaction against the movement of realism.
Like Rimbaud, Slauerhoff experimented with verse and language, leading a wandering, bohemian life. Slauerhoff rebelled against the bourgeoisie, who looked down on him due to his working-class background, but at the same time, he criticized the pretentious, provincial atmosphere of his hometown, Leeuwarden.
Above all, the work and life of Slauerhoff can be considered romantic. A key feature is dissatisfaction with the here and now, and an escape into the past and into dream worlds. In his acclaimed Slauerhoff. Een biografie (Slauerhoff: A Biography), Wim Hazeu mentions the love of islands, or so-called 'nesophilia', in Slauerhoff's life and work.
It is true that many of his poems and collections have titles that reference islands. Hazeu argues that the island symbolizes solitude, safety, unattainability, longing, homesickness, and nostalgia.
These romantic traits are clearly evident in Slauerhoff, who could find no sense of belonging anywhere except in his poetry, as expressed in the famous lines:
Nowhere but in my poems can I dwell, / Nowhere else could I a shelter find. (Translation: 2007, Paul Vincent)
Ultimately, even that offered no solace, as on his deathbed in Villa Carla, he remarked irritably:
‘That must be the irony of fate: I am unfit for the jungle and yet am increasingly forced to be where there is comfort, care, and orderliness. In short, the complete opposite of what I desire’.
From this quote, one might conclude that Slauerhoff thrived on disorder and anarchy.
It is true that older-generation literary critics described him as a 'messy' poet and writer, due to the liberties he took with rhythm and verse forms in his poetry, as well as with the narrative structure of his novels.
His restless nature, travels, and refusal to conform to social conventions further reinforce this impression. Additionally, it is well known that the ship cabins where Slauerhoff wrote most of his works were chaotic — 'a jumble of everything', according to a crew member.
Slauerhoff's handwriting is also notoriously infamous, with the poet himself admitting at times that even he could not read it back. Bibliographer Kees Lekkerkerker (1910–2006) experienced this firsthand. He acquired Slauerhoff's archive, which had been stored in, among other places, ship trunks, and with great patience and dedication, he succeeded in deciphering the manuscripts.
The result was Het China van Slauerhoff (Slauerhoff's China, 1985), which included notes and drafts for the novels Het verboden rijk (The Forbidden Realm) and Het leven op aarde (Life on Earth). From this meticulous study, a different Slauerhoff emerged: a writer who prepared thoroughly and worked out his narrative structures with precision.
The Far East
Slauerhoff's wanderlust was kindled early on. In addition to his admiration for the aforementioned vagabond Arthur Rimbaud, during his student years, Slauerhoff eagerly read the stories of the Swiss writer Blaise Cendrars (1887–1961), a poet and novelist who, at the age of fifteen, traveled to China, Siberia, and Persia.
In Archipel and Eldorado (1928), Slauerhoff vividly depicts a longing for dream(-like) lands but also identifies with historical figures, such as the Portuguese poet Luís de Camões (1524/5–1580) and the great conqueror Genghis Khan.
Camões, the exile who wrote his epic The Lusiads in Macau, proved to be a lifelong obsession for Slauerhoff. Many of his poems are dedicated to Camões, and in Het verboden rijk (The Forbidden Realm) and Het leven op aarde (Life on Earth), he plays a prominent role as a demon from the past who takes control of the mind of a purposeless radio operator.
In the radio operator, one can recognize aspects of Slauerhoff himself. The merging of a Portuguese poet and a radio operator living centuries later has been interpreted as the reincarnation of Camões in Slauerhoff.
Slauerhoff never explicitly clarified his views on the matter, but it is well known that he was fascinated by the idea of reincarnation. In his identification with figures from the past, he went so far as to feel a sense of shared fate with Rimbaud, Camões, Genghis Khan, and others.
By joining the Java-China-Japan Line, Slauerhoff was able to visit the Far East between 1925 and 1927 to get closer to some of his historical kindred spirits. In this context, the Chinese poet and official Bai Juyi (Po Chü-i, 772–846) must be mentioned.
During his time, Bai Juyi’s poetry was read by everyone—from high-ranking officials to common folk, and from the young to the old. His works remained popular in later centuries, and it was thanks to the translations of British sinologist Arthur Waley (1889–1966) that Bai Juyi became one of the first Chinese poets known in the West.
Around 1927, Slauerhoff purchased Waley's A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1918) in Hong Kong. He became so captivated by the collection that he translated several poems and later included them in his anthology Yoeng Poe Tsjoeng, the cover of which prominently features three Chinese characters: '用不中' (translation: 'of no use').
In this poetry collection, Slauerhoff engages in a literary game by presenting seemingly authentic Chinese poems, with a 'preference for the bitterness of life', For 'Eastern enthusiasts', the collection was of no use.
In reality, Slauerhoff took many liberties with his translations.
According to sinologist Wilt Idema, who provided the Dutch translation of Bai Juyi in 2001, Slauerhoff shaped the Chinese poet/official to his own liking through selection and distortion, thereby creating an idealized image in the style of Rimbaud.
Moreover, he added poems from fictional Chinese writers that he himself had written. This approach to the Far East was typical of Slauerhoff. The political tensions of the time, the street life, the smells and the colors—these were all merely backdrops for his travel stories, novels, and poems.
Once, when he happened to be at a gathering of Sun Yat-sen supporters, he showed more interest in the robes and the children with lollipops made from candied cherries. Nevertheless, Slauerhoff cannot be accused of disinterest in Chinese culture and history.
In his cabin, he devoured Chinese works, including, for instance, the scholarly Mission archéologique en Chine (1924) by Victor Segalen. Whenever he was in port, he collected travel guides. Additionally, he carefully observed his surroundings and spent much time in the local library.
Contacts
It is remarkable that between 1925 and 1927, Slauerhoff actually spent just 130 days on the mainland of China. The impressions he recorded in diary entries, letters, and travel accounts were sufficient for his numerous publications on the Chinese theme.
After his return to the Netherlands, he remained connected to China by reading everything he could find. For example, he read the translation of La Terre Chinoise by Pearl S. Buck, later published as The Good Earth (1931), and also tackled the monumental Chinese 12th-century novel The Three Kingdoms in its German translation.
Slauerhoff also sought contact with like-minded experts on China. In particular, he became good friends with Johan W. Schotman (1892–1976), partly because Schotman had also worked as a doctor in China and published about the country. Schotman was a jack of trades, who was bilingual, wrote poetry and prose, and became later a psychiatrist, furthermore mastering painting at the age of fifty.
The two maintained a lively correspondence on literature and health. Schotman served as a sounding board for Slauerhoff, and vice versa. By the way, the exuberantly translated verses from Yoeng poe Tsjoeng raised eyebrows, as Schotman, who was fluent in Chinese both spoken and written, was very particular about the aesthetic perfection of classical Chinese poetry.
The verses were 'irregular and stiff', and the translations were so liberal 'that the original was almost lost', Schotman wrote in a letter.
Nonetheless, Schotman could appreciate the way Slauerhoff had captured 'the melancholic atmosphere of eternity' that Chinese poetry possessed. Slauerhoff made contact with other China experts when, around 1929, he became a member of the De Chineesch-Nederlandsche Vereeniging (The Chinese-Dutch Association).
The association, which can be seen as a precursor to the current Vereniging Nederland China (VNC), was founded in 1922 and had branches in both Amsterdam and Beijing.
Through the association, Slauerhoff got to know great China experts such as J.J.L. Duyvendak (1889–1954), Jim G. Drabbe (1897–1989), and Robert van Gulik (1910–1967). From Duyvendak, who greatly contributed to the founding of the Sinological Institute in Leiden, Slauerhoff read works such as China tegen de Westerkim (1926), which connects Chinese culture from both the past and present.
Starting in 1926, the association also published a quarterly journal with the unoriginal title China. The editorial board was led by banker Drabbe, who had worked in Beijing during the 1920s and, like Slauerhoff, was fascinated by China. The two got along well.
In the fourth volume, Slauerhoff published six poems in the journal. Last but not least, there was the diplomat, sinologist, and writer Van Gulik. He taught at Leiden University and was willing to give the poet private tutoring to teach him the intricacies of the Chinese language.
When Slauerhoff worked as a visiting doctor at the Leiden University Medical Center in The Netherlands, he was able to combine his work with his studies. However, he found it difficult to master the characters, let alone directly translate poems from a Chinese source.
His private tutor Van Gulik once made a sarcastic remark about his pupil when Slauerhoff was praised on the street for his beautiful translations from Chinese in Yoeng Poe Tsjoeng and Oost-Azië (East Asia, 1928). Van Gulik, who overheard this, mockingly exclaimed:
'He doesn't know jack about it; he can't even distinguish one character from another!'
Nevertheless, Slauerhoff was not discouraged by his condescending teacher and continued his studies. For example, a notebook with calligraphed characters, kept in one of the ship’s chests, stands as tangible evidence of Slauerhoff's efforts.
In 1935, Van Gulik became too busy due to his diplomatic assignment to Japan, which led to the cessation of their private lessons. On the evening of his departure, he and Slauerhoff exchanged memories and they talked about literature.
Van Gulik also wrote poetry and asked Slauerhoff to give his honest opinion. He found it reasonable, but felt that the 'melodic and perfumed nonsense' could be left out. Van Gulik then gave up his poetry career.
Truth and Fiction
Nowadays, it has become clearer that Slauerhoff conducted extensive research and was constantly documenting during his stays in distant ports. It is also evident that he was highly selective in his novels and poems, sometimes taking liberties with the truth.
The most obvious explanation might be to attribute this to his romantic nature, but it runs deeper. Correspondence between Slauerhoff and his friends shows that he missed China.
He even referred to the place as one of the most civilized countries in the world, contrasting it with his homeland. For Slauerhoff, Dutch civilization was 'like rye bread: substantial, solid, but not graceful.'
In China, although he was only there briefly, he found a country where adventure was still possible, something he could not find in the Netherlands, where social control was too strong and space was too limited.
He even once had plans with his friend Schotman to start a medical practice together in China, but their friendship soured in 1931 due to disagreements over the compilation of Schotman’s anthology of Chinese poetry.
The plan had little life in it anyway, considering Slauerhoff’s poor health and the turbulent developments in China at the time.
Schotman once described China as 'a primitive, barbaric medieval country with the most miserable poverty and the greatest luxury. A revolution was inevitable'.
Slauerhoff also encountered scenes of poverty and political tensions. Notably, in Shanghai, he once lay flat on the ground as bullets flew during a gunfight between Kuomintang supporters and communists.
Additionally, in letters, Slauerhoff unflatterly describes the cities of China as 'foul-smelling labyrinths' and streets filled with 'squirming crowds'. Yet, he overwhelmingly portrayed the Far East in his prose and poetry with lyrical words.
In doing so, he created an exotic world far removed from Dutch provincialism and the smell of Brussels sprouts. Of course, Slauerhoff was above all a poet, not a researcher, so he could afford these liberties, but his hatred for his homeland remains striking.
Friends of the poet have asked themselves the same question, and a few tentatively concluded that Slauerhoff's discontent may have stemmed from his inability to make compromises, preventing him from settling: neither in his sickly body nor in any particular place on Earth.
This statement characterizes Slauerhoff as a person and his work: elusive and always on the move.
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