Long Ago, Not So Far Away
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PATHOLOGIES
The Downfall of Johan van Vere de With
by Jacob Israël de Haan
Translated by Brian Doyle–Du Breuil
Seagull Books. 352 pages, $24.

MUCH LIKE the embattled author himself, Johan, the young protagonist of Jacob Israël de Haan’s 1908 novel Pathologies, suffers one devastating setback after another. Johan is a closeted teenager in turn-of-the-century Holland whose mother hanged herself with her own “fierce and alive” plaited hair. Further, Johan is afflicted with a consuming sexual attraction to his father. His desire troubles him to the point of illness. When he finally reveals to his father his yearning for him, his father gives him three choices: either Johan leaves, his father leaves, or they live together with “no personal contact.”

Brian Alessandro is a writer who’s based in Roselle Park, NJ.