Flanders: big hearts and other giants

Flanders — the region that spreads across nothern France, Belgium, and a bit of the Netherlands — is, globally speaking, a very small package. But when you open it up, out springs so much diversity, so much zest, so many complications, that you are forced to realize it's far bigger on the inside than on the outside.

I've already written about our adventures in Lille and Ghent (or whichever spelling you prefer), which are in French Flanders and Belgian Flanders respectively. On Friday we went to Cassel, a town built on a 600-foot hill that would be little more than a pimple on the landscape anywhere else. In Flanders, it's a veritable Olympus. Here's a photo of the view from the top. The photo is not so special in itself, but see how straight the road is. That one little kink closer to the hill just begs for explanation, compared to the laser straightness of the rest of the road. Alas! No explanation is immediately forthcoming.



The utter flatness all around explains both the historic importance of Cassel (it's been fought over since Roman times) and the ease with which the region has been overrun again and again. While there's nowhere for an approaching enemy to hide, there's also no way to stop them approaching except for long and bitter wars of attrition. And that, in turn, starts to explain the strangely complex social, linguistic, architectural, and political circumstances and tensions of today's Flanders. There are two main language groups — French-speakers and Flemish-speakers; you probably already knew that. But there are also accents and dialects within both, including a Latin-based dialect of (mainly) French, called "Ch'ti" (after one of its quirks of pronunciation). I was unable to fully get the nuances of local opinion about Ch'ti, as my French is (to put it as kindly as one can) not nuanced at all. But I did get the impression that it's somewhat looked down upon, even as it is undergoing a renaissance; for example, there's a bit of militancy about wanting it taught in schools.

The linguistic differences both symbolize and exacerbate political tensions in the region. They involve issues of whether a particular linguistic group can ever consider itself to be treated fairly if its language does not have equal status; historic defensiveness based on whether one "feels" French or Belgian or Flemish (or Ch'ti, for that matter); mutual suspicion based on conflicting definitions of who is allowed to consider themselves truly Flemish; even (slightly more good-natured) banter about whose beer or ham or waffles are the best. (I, myself, would be happy to keep sampling until I reach a decision; I reckon it might take me, oh, about a hundred years of diligent effort.)

My karate teacher said to me once, "Our greatest strengths are our greatest weaknesses." And it works the other way, too, particularly in the case of Flanders. Their greatest weakness might be how passionate they are about their identity. But that's a strength as well: that very passion makes them warm (and instant) friends, proud of their culture and eager to share it. Our day in Cassel was characterized by spending time (and drinking beer) with some of the most ebullient people I've met, who were part of the Albert Roussel Music Festival. This festival was the reason we were in the area: Houston was a composer-in-residence, and was having a piece performed that evening. The performance went really well! (I'm so proud of my husband.)

While we were in Cassel, I picked up a book on the giants of Flanders. This is a regional tradition whereby each little (and big) town builds, maintains, and carries in festivals these huge effigies. Each town has at least one of its own, sometimes more (two of Cassel's are Reuze Papa and Reuze Maman — loosely translated, "Big Daddy" and "Big Mama.") Here are some photos, snurched from Wikimedia Commons so I don't think I'm doing anything wrong....





Sort of like the crewes of New Orleans, each town has its group of people who take charge of building, maintaining, and carrying the giants. Here, for example, is the site of the Friends of Fromulus, one of the Steenvorde giants (we passed through Steenvorde during our time in Flanders). For me, these giants are symbolic of Flanders in many ways: intensely local, intensely cooperative, requiring and engendering great exuberance and flair. A countryside that can contain such creatures must be large of heart, if not perhaps of land area. I love the Giants of Flanders completely.

The next day we ventured back into Belgium (although the border is a political fiction, really: the land on one side is indistinguishable from that on the other, except that the road signs swap from French to Flemish), starting off with a visit to Ypres (Ieper), the central point of years of horrific and bloody stalemate during World War I. Here's where the reality of the war of attrition sets in: every half-mile or so (or at least it seems so), there is another small cemetery with a few hundred more bodies buried, and neatly marked with identical gravestones. Thousands and thousands — hundreds of thousands, all up. And these are only the British Commonwealth solders: not the Belgian, French, or (dare I say it) German soldiers who also perished in these fields.

Shaking off the gloom with difficulty (not helped by the miserably cold and wet weather, although that did give us a glimpse of what the soldiers had suffered for four years), we drove out to Dikkebus, one of the tiniest towns you can imagine, where there was another Albert Roussel concert. After the concert, we were very kindly invited to stay around and dine with the artists. (Sometimes being Houston's trophy wife yields unexpected benefits, over and above the ones I expect.) I had an evening the likes of which I hadn't had since...oh, since I'd been in the Soviet Union twenty years or more ago. We sang drinking songs together (I'd rather inappropriately taught Margaret a French drinking song back when she was just a little tacker, and the two of us gave a rendition, enthusiastically joined by most of the other people there), ate, talked, exchanged email addresses, laughed at my mistakes in speaking French, laughed about lots of other stuff, ate some more, and finally drove off, cheered and fed, back to Lille.

Today was our last full day in Flanders; tomorrow we go back to Paris to catch our plane to the U.S. We stuck around in Lille, seeing a few sights we hadn't gotten to yet, including the Hospice Comtesse museum. I was particularly taken with some wood carvings that (as far as I could gather) had been architectural elements:





We also went to the fairly ginormous bookstore Le Furet du Nord, where I bought, among other things, a couple of Jules Verne's books (20,000 Leagues and Around the World in 80 Days) in French, which I'm really looking forward to having a go of reading! (We'll just see whether my French has improved while I've been here!)

I'm going to miss Flanders. I feel very at home here (I was especially intrigued with Ghent; I told our friend Luk that if he ever heard of any grants or fellowships that would support an emerging writer for a few months' riotous waffle consumption in Ghent, he was more than welcome to pass my details on to them....