The Dilemmas of Mockery

On Willem Frederik Hermans’ A Guardian Angel Recalls

As I turned the final page of Dutch author Willem Frederik Herman’s A Guardian Angel Recalls, I found myself unsure what to think. The prose is fine, mostly flat. The conceit of the book, wherein a Guardian Angel narrates five days in the life of their ward Simon Alberegt, is absurd. It is, despite all this, utterly compelling. The force of the narrativ…