Review: Manja of de zeven lagen der ziltheid by Dimitri Leue

Kim — Mon, 16 Jan 2023 15:00:00 +0000

In Manja of de zeven lagen der ziltheid, Dimitri Leue takes you on an artistic exploration through the museum and one’s self.

Please note that Manja of de zeven lagen der ziltheid (Manja or the seven layers of saltiness) is written in Dutch by a Belgian author. There is no English translation and there might never be one. I translated my review from Dutch to English because I think this is an interesting book that deserves to be known beyond the Dutch-speaking world and especially to visitors of the KMSKA in Antwerp, Belgium.

Location: KMSKA museum in Antwerp

Manja of de zeven lagen der ziltheid synopsis

A restorer in a museum, while restoring paintings, finds himself forced to take a look at his own life as well. To courageously remove layer after layer and thereby get closer to the urge and the dream, finally getting away from the endless longing.

Book review

 5/5

The mysterious and inscrutable looks of people in works of art; what might they be thinking?

Dimitri Leue swaps the viewer with the viewed. He reduces the distance between the person in the canvas and the viewer through a game of seduction. Who is surprised by whom? Does your object marvel at the fact that you are watching it when he or she catches your gaze? For other visitors, you yourself could be the object in the artwork known as people watching.

She was my preview. I her afterimage

The drawings and the text go well together. The author has a smooth writing style where the short sentences are rendered so that there are few words per line. The images are louder than the words. This appeals to me because it is different from most books I read. You fly through the pages and elineveer’s beautiful illustrations take your understanding to another level. The text is like the thoughts you might have when walking around a museum, except my own thoughts would be quite different. You are looking through the eyes of a restorer who looks at some works longer than most of us.

Manja of de zeven lagen der ziltheid brings the works in the museum to life; a book like this should exist for every museum to improve your visiting experience. In case you don’t know all the artworks, like me, you can look them up via the list in the back of the book. Then you will see more in the merging of Gustave Courbet’s Rochers près d’Ornans and L’Origine du Monde than just a drawing of a vagina combined with the earth lying flat on its back, with the mountain range spread open and water flowing out.

What was, still is. But more is on its way

The scientist opposes the artist, the male energy faces the female energy. The obsession with the female body in the first layers finds a home in a story about gender diversity. The later layers take you from the physical to the psychological. The thoughts of philosophers, the painters and the painted, as well as us and the people we see are placed directly opposite each other without one knowing what the other is thinking.

Who watches, wants to be seen

Manja of de zeven lagen der ziltheid is a book that first provokes me, and then makes me think. What does the person I see in front of me think or what do those I don’t see think? While reading the first layers, I wondered how long I will accept reading about human bodies, but after I finish the book, my opinion of the first layers changes. This is a book about self-love and being yourself. Highly recommended! But not for everyone because of the format of the book, the limited but present naming of body parts and a dose of negative thoughts in a journey in which the narrator explores the self.

Interested?

Buy (the Dutch version of) Manja of de zeven lagen der ziltheid via Bol.com of Amazon NL.

Book details

Title: Manja of de zeven lagen der ziltheid
Author: Dimitri Leue
Illustrations: elineveer
Language: Dutch
Publisher: Standaard Uitgeverij
Pages: 144
ISBN (13):9789022339374
Publication date: 13 September 2022

About the author and illustrator

Dimitri Leue (born 1974) is an actor, director and writer. In 2016, he made his debut with Het Lortchersyndroom. The book was nominated for De Bronzen Uil. February 2022 saw the publication of Wij is niets, a story about sins, love and the lightness of life.

Eline van Eerdenbrugh (1980) graduated as a Master of Fine Arts from the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. Besides creating her own work and illustrations as elineveer, she teaches drawing to adults and children at the Academy of Fine Arts of Heist-op-den-Berg. This is her debut as a book illustrator.

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