title: Het Achterhuis by: Frank, Anne published: 1960 read: 2021-10 preview

Going through a bookstore in Amsterdam, I noticed Anne Frank’s diary. I never read it. As teenager one was repeatedly irritated by the annual movie of Anne Frank’s story, always playing on May 4. It’s like watching the same performance of Hänsel and Gretel in the opera, each Christmas, but then worse. I also learned in school that, after her dad’s death, the saucy autoerogenous bits that he had suppressed were reinstated. (These weren’t in the movie, of course!)

All of that with the fact that, when I lived in Amsterdam I often passed her house – the house where Anne Frank’s family was hiding – close to the Westerkerk, but never entered. Too many tourists, too big a show?

I bought the book. The museum is now on my bucket list.

The book beautifully shows a young person – it is written by Anne from age 12 to 15 – coming of age and cognitively growing, developing a verbal and intellectual style, while coping with the world; a world which, of course, is alien to me and most of us. It shows how people can cope with and adapt to such ridiculous circumstances – seen from our protected lives – that there is only “other normal”.

I was not aware that Anne was of direct German descent, but mastered Dutch perfectly (having said that, the book was edited; I don’t know if the editors took the liberty of language correction).

The book made me, perhaps, understand people in that fragile age better. Yes, I was one, but one forgets, doesn’t one? Seen like that, it was perhaps good I waited so long to read it. Seen like anything else, not.

Of course, a recommended read. How could it not be.