Customer Reviews
what it was like to be a Beatnik - By: R. P. Hobday, 07 Jun 2008 
Jan Cremer was one of the original Beatniks,in tune with people like Jack Kerouac.
At the time - & this was before the hippies stopped the warin Vietnam -- the 'beat' culture represented a negative stance rather than a positive one. Remember,in the years after the second world war most of us were brought upin the ethos of 'serving ones country'. Anyone who disagreed was labeled a coward or an appeaser etc.
Parents worked hard to serve their country. Quite rightly. But their children grew up wanting something different.
The beat movement was animated by a strong feeling of cultural & emotional displacement, dissatisfaction, & yearning. That is the era Jan Cremer wrote about. He anticipated the 'anti war' hippy generation by many years.
The 'Beat movement' was not about juvenile delinquents. Characters didn't gang up but were solitary people who wanted their own lives. Unlike their parents, they did not want to spend their lives working for their country, especially if their 'country' wanted a population permanently subservient to the waging of war.
Later, the hippies then made the jump to 'We don't want to wage any war'.
I Jan Cremer is a fantastic connection between the Beatniks & the Hippies.
It's also got lots of sex & escapes. Great reading, especially if you are under 20..
Controversial, impressive but dated - By: M. Shankland, 11 Dec 2005 'I Jan Cremer' must be the most successful piece of Dutch fictionin terms of sales & controversy. Originally publishedin 1964, it made its young author, an avant garde artist who developed his own style of abstract painting, internationally famous. In 1972 Jan Cremer was to claim that his work had been translated into 12 languages, & publishedin 30 countries, & that he'd sold 12 million books.And a huge slice of this success must be due to this first piece of fiction, whose initial print run of 5,000 copies sold outin a weekend,but went on to sell millions.
The novel is very self referential, the writer fuses auto-biography with the skillful unravelling of fantasy identities. Jan Cremer was bornin Enschedein The Netherlands, near the German border, on 20th April 1940. His father, a world travel writer & qualified engineer, had disappeared, leaving his Hungarian born wife, newly arrivedin The Netherlands, to care for a child during the Nazi occupation, which is where 'I Jan Cremer' begins. Cremer's father re-appears but dies soon after. The lead character, as a child, sees great turmoil, hardship & suffering. When after 1945 The Netherlands becomes stable & more prosperous, he can not adjust & is placedin various institutions for juvenile delinquents. As a young man he becomes a smuggler, a marine, a beatnik artistin Ibiza, a merchant seaman, a criminal, an art student with a bursaryin Paris,an amateur actor,complete with a series of love affairs.The novel reflects a sense of splintered identity, there is an endearing mixture of humour, brutality, rebellion, toldin a large number of short chapters which seem to swerve between identities.
Cremer declared war on double standards, challenged authority & taboos at any given opportunity; 'I Jan Cremer' depicts explicit love-making, hash smoking, bar brawls,a chapter on the author's bowel movements, the plight of an outsiderin 1950's & 1960's Netherlands-outrageous for 1964. 'I Jan Cremer' has not aged so well, & is not currentlyin printin English. Jan Cremer never repeated the success of the novel. Yet to me it is a vital piece of post 1945 European fiction,it brims with energetic confrontation,both with the society that the author challenges & with the reader.
