critics' viewpoints

Nico de Beer’s third novel is set in the world he knows best: education.
The main character, Paul Wildackers, is a retired teacher of English looking back on his life. He relives his days at work in a school where the drop-outs end up. This entails all sorts of social problems, like teenage motherhood, gambling, use of drugs and integration.
Years ago a colleague was murdered at his school. Paul has traumatic memories of those days. He thinks he should have prevented the crime, if only he had acted more accurately. Thirty years later he meets a young woman, whom he tries to help out in her personal problems. Then the story unfolds that is to give the book its special intrigue.
The author of ‘De laatste schakel’ excels in the detailed coverage of the characters that play a part in his book. He presents them as humans of flesh and blood and elaborates on the decisions they take. In this way he gives a clear picture of the school the underprivileged attend. Anyone who is a teacher or who has children at one of the present-day mammoth schools will definitely recognize plenty.
What is also admirable in the book is the author’s oft poetical style. It would be a shame if one was to read the book in a hurry. It is better to take your time and see the abundance: analyses on life and work, contemplating about aging, thoughts about social problems.
Nico de Beer has not written this novel to warn about mishaps in society and education, but nonetheless the book will be an eye-opener concerning the part of our society that threatens to slip out of our view. It may be clear: the author knows his material from first hand. He passes on his knowledge, but at the same time shows a great compassion for the deprived youths who are doomed to spend their lives on the lower half of the social ladder.
It is downright remarkable to tell a story set against this background and that makes De laatste schakel quite different from most of the books that appear on the market today.

Kees van Kemenade

The final link: criticism on school system

In The final link, Nico de Beer’s third novel, main character Paul Wildackers describes experiences of his teaching career on which he looks back as an old man, filled with feelings of guilt and regret. He was the final link that might have prevented disaster from happening at his school back in the days when he was 46.
The contemporary school life the author draws the reader into, is quite recognisable for those who are employed at schools for teenage dropouts and at the same time outright shocking to those who have the luxury of working at schools with well-behaved, privileged youths. Paul Wildackers, the lonesome idealist, cannot seem to keep Nico de Beer off his back all of the time. The latter’s unconcealed criticism of today’s overstrained world of education spatters out of the novel.
‘ Over the last few decades schools have changed into office-like structures with occasional lecturing. Red tape has squeezed its way into education and there is no stopping it.’ Also: ‘Here the only way to survive as a teacher was to have successfully engaged in the foreign legion. Education here was more taking care of people, working beyond the point of shame.’
But De Beer also expresses his love for the student: ‘At my school I had found my own little spot in a team that was characterised by a deep love for our profession, a passion to get the most out of the students and a warm interest in all those who walked our corridors.’
De Beer underlines his love for his youthful pupils by referring to the Italian cinematic work of art: La Meglio Gioventu (The best of our Youth).
Extremely striking is the sweltering relationship between Paul Wildackers and his young colleague Renate Snijders. (‘She was young and beautiful, with the unique addition that she did not seem to realise this. For her the ships still disappeared beyond the horizon.’)
School dramas the world over come to mind when reading De Beer’s novel. Also the dwindling school system, the greediness of the media after the incident has occurred, the victim’s fate and the background of the suspect.
De Beer has managed to write a topical novel worth reading, in which especially the dialogues stand out. But he also surprises with accurate descriptions: ‘The sight of youngsters lazily strolling into the classroom made me think of a flock of wild gnus about to wade an African river. Anxiously seeking a spot on the banks where they feel safe and then hurling their bodies into the water, unaware of the dangers ahead.’
If the author manages to separate fiction and reality more in his future novels, there is a lot of beauty ahead for his readers.

Brabants Dagblad, 3 April 2007

Nico de Beer: The final link

Paul Wildackers looks back upon his life. Now he lives alone in a seniors’ home and hardly ever gets out of his appartment, save the times he wants to escape the cleaning lady. On one of his forced outings he befriends a young woman in her forties. He would not mind meeting her again, but unfortunately the way he does is not what he had expected it to be: he sees her being carried out of her office on a stretcher. He cannot stop thinking of her, and maybe even more so since he is busy writing the story that has been bothering him for decades now. About the death of a young female colleague. A story which has haunted him and aroused feelings of guilt.
Back in his working days at his school – he is 46 at the time – he meets a new teacher, named Renate Snijders. They are working at a school for drop-outs and in their work they encounter all the contemporary problems the society is facing today: children from broken homes, drugs, teenage motherhood, gambling, integration. He starts to bond with her, a relationship that is to be restricted to their working life. Paul is happily married and does not let his feelings for Reante interfere with his private life. Renate and Paul get to know one another better during a teachers’ exchange programme with a school in the US.

Nico de Beer gives his principal character a critical attitude towards education in general. In this way there is not only the personal tale of Paul and Renate, but also criticism about e.g. mammoth schools. Not only Paul’s students are deprived of success, it seems, also in the US Renate and Paul are confronted with the backside of the American Dream. Something they were not supposed to talk about.
The book inspires you to some contemplation, about your own choices, your own chances, about the question whether life is worth living.

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