Not since Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels, has an anonymous, or pseudonymous author, captured my attention. "The Secret Diary Of Hendrik Goren, 83/14 Years Old" is supposedly written by Hendrik Groen, but just who the hell is he? Is he real? An octogenarian? A famous Dutch comic? A woman? Someone who actually works in such an institution.
What the entire work is amounts to Ken Kesey meets J. D. Salinger. It has both authors' disdain for authority, though those figures are not as extreme as in Kesey. No one rises to the level of Nurse Ratched. The closest is Evert, Groen's friend and companion, who is almost as devious as Randall Patrick McMurphy. What happens to him, and others, is sad, because what the reader is shown is while there may be peaceful endings to those in institutionalized senior care, none of them are happy endings.
Groen matches Salinger for being a curmudegeon, albeit a humorous, and realistic, rather than idealized, one. The overall portrait of the senior care world is not much different from high school, so, baby boomers facing this eventually, look back on your high school years, and see if you are ready to repeat them. Me, I will act up, this time.
I love those two spinster sisters, the Slothouwer Sisters, the Mean Girls of the place, and how Groen and his cronies triumph over them by forming their own clique, the "Old But Not Dead Club," which goes on some inspirational jaunts, and adventurous outings. Yet the realities of Alzheimer's and other ills are poignantly brought home, leaving us still young enough to see this as our potential future both amused and wary.
I tried finding out who Groen was online. All I was able to determine is that he(?) is writing another diary. I cannot imagine where he will go from here, but on this basis, I am willing to go along with him.
A surprise literary delight, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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