Adventurous Lives: Johan Fabricius and Stefan Radt. Van Oeckelen Organ, Bartholomeüskerk, Noordlaren, Groningen, The Netherlands
The other day, a sombre ceremony took me to the hamlet of Noordlaren not far to the south of Groningen. I'd biked here before to visit the grave of Johan Wigmore Fabricius (1899-1981), prolific Dutch author - some 60 novels -, adventurer, soldier of fortune, journalist. He's probably best remembered today for his novel De Scheepsjongens van Bontekoe (1924) which went through at least 21 editions and was made into a movie in 2007. There's also an English translation with the awkward title Java Ho! The Adventures of Four Boys Amid Fire, Storm, and Shipwreck. It relates the feats of three friends and a later hanger-on during an historical voyage (www.flickr.com/photos/87453322@N00/9474402316/in/photolis...) to the Far East in the heighday of the Dutch East Indies Trading Company VOC in the seventeenth century.
Comtemplating the church's handsome organ, I recalled that Fabricius had a particular liking for organ music. Several times in his works he refers to the organ, for example, as 'weeping' with the worshippers. And in a remarkable scene he describes the hatred of the Devil for organ music.
After the obsequies for Stefan Radt for which I'd traveled here, we accompanied our friend to the graveyard not far from where adventurer Fabricius also was buried. Stefan (1927-2017) was a formidable Greek scholar. Although he wasn't a traveler in Fabricius's sense, he was greatly interested in geography. His monumental, standard edition and translation (into German) of Strabo's work (63 BCE-24CE), Geographica, is a touchstone for anyone in the field. I'll miss his tales of his adventures with that text.
Adventurous Lives: Johan Fabricius and Stefan Radt. Van Oeckelen Organ, Bartholomeüskerk, Noordlaren, Groningen, The Netherlands
The other day, a sombre ceremony took me to the hamlet of Noordlaren not far to the south of Groningen. I'd biked here before to visit the grave of Johan Wigmore Fabricius (1899-1981), prolific Dutch author - some 60 novels -, adventurer, soldier of fortune, journalist. He's probably best remembered today for his novel De Scheepsjongens van Bontekoe (1924) which went through at least 21 editions and was made into a movie in 2007. There's also an English translation with the awkward title Java Ho! The Adventures of Four Boys Amid Fire, Storm, and Shipwreck. It relates the feats of three friends and a later hanger-on during an historical voyage (www.flickr.com/photos/87453322@N00/9474402316/in/photolis...) to the Far East in the heighday of the Dutch East Indies Trading Company VOC in the seventeenth century.
Comtemplating the church's handsome organ, I recalled that Fabricius had a particular liking for organ music. Several times in his works he refers to the organ, for example, as 'weeping' with the worshippers. And in a remarkable scene he describes the hatred of the Devil for organ music.
After the obsequies for Stefan Radt for which I'd traveled here, we accompanied our friend to the graveyard not far from where adventurer Fabricius also was buried. Stefan (1927-2017) was a formidable Greek scholar. Although he wasn't a traveler in Fabricius's sense, he was greatly interested in geography. His monumental, standard edition and translation (into German) of Strabo's work (63 BCE-24CE), Geographica, is a touchstone for anyone in the field. I'll miss his tales of his adventures with that text.