In the 1930s Gerard Walschap’s controversial, briskly paced, unsentimental narratives did much to revolutionise the Flemish novel. The Man Who Meant Well has come to enjoy the status of a classic, but it has lost none of its original vigour. Its narrative sweep and sense of drama — it was made into a BBC television serial in the early 1970s — are reminiscent of Thomas Hardy, its hard-boiled qualities remind one of Hemingway, and its exploration of lust and passion has touches of D.H. Lawrence.


The story is one of steadfast devotion and searing pain, contrasting raw emotions and physical violence with moral rectitude and consuming guilt. Already as a boy, the upright Thys Glorieus, son of desperately poor Flemish country folk, suffers at the hands of teachers and classmates because of his strong sense of justice and his inflammable temper. Having vowed to look after the simple-minded girl Lett, he keeps his word through thick and thin. While he is working as a farm labourer, Lett’s half-sister Rosa develops a passion for Thys but then he is sent away on a false charge and tries his luck in the capital. Rosa takes another lover, a schoolmaster whom she eventually marries. This proves a dreadful mistake. Rosa cannot forget Thys, and the schoolmaster was really only after the farm which she has inherited. Tensions grow, Rosa grows increasingly paranoid and kills her husband with a shotgun, managing to make it look like an accident.


In her desire to win Thys for herself now that she is free again, Rosa mistreats her vulnerable half-sister. Thys decides to marry Lett in order to protect her. To provide for his growing family Thys works himself to the bone, but he is too gullible, too much the innocent among streetwise traders and con-men, to make a success of his grocer’s shop and bakery. He is also taken in by the rich Uncle Dolf, who offers help but then exploits Lett’s artlessness to gain sexual favours. Thys loses an eye in a fistfight with Dolf and, on his return from hospital, chases Lett out of the house. She commits suicide. In the end Thys and Rosa, both chastened by adversity and guilt, their passion mellowed but not extinguished, find comfort and affection with each other. After page upon page of turbulent drama, the book closes on a note of serenity.


There are social and political dimensions to the novel as well. Thys stands both for the labouring poor of rural Flanders and for a wronged and resentful Flemish nation in a Belgian state then still largely run from Brussels by a Francophone bourgeoisie. It is also worth remembering that Walschap published his story of compassion and the defence of the weak at a time when Nazism was extolling virile strength and ruthlessness in the country next door...


It is Walschap’s uncluttered story-telling that gives the book its modern feel. The tone is wholly informal and unusually close to an oral account with its frequent shifts from past tense to a livelier present and its colloquial asides. There are occasional intrusions by a collective ‘we’, the voice of Thys’ classmates or as a bunch of villagers gossiping in the local pub. Indeed much of the attraction of this novel lies in the highly individual combination of a passionate story with the colloquial directness of its telling.

Now we’ll have to talk about Rosa. She says they’ve got to come to a decision. How can they — he’s still got to do his military service. And then he’ll have to earn money, for his parents. But what does it matter if they have to wait a bit? He loves Rosa and he’ll be faithful to her. But surely she doesn’t think he’d want to marry a rich man’s daughter in order to be boss on the farm in future? If she thinks that, she doesn’t know him yet. He wants to get married, yes, but she mustn’t have a penny of her own, she must be poor like him. Is it possible to demand such a thing of her? You see, that’s why he is saying to her: Rosa, think hard about it. Marriage goes on for ever, and Thys is only Thys. Thys will work like a horse, Thys will work to make her rich, as sure as he’s standing here, but if she asks him: Thys, what have you got to offer me now, now, he’ll have to say to her: nothing. And what he may be one day, well, that’s only guesswork.

Is it the darkness which carries him away or is it the contact with the girl’s hand which gives him this sweet illusion that tempts to confidentiality? He can’t stem the tide of his own words and begins to talk about Lett again. If he were married and hadn’t found a husband for Lett, he would take the poor girl into his home because he hasn’t sworn an oath for nothing. (p. 50-1, tr. Adrienne Dixon)