The UnDutchables:

Colin White & Laurie Boucke
White Boucke Publishing €14.99

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I felt drawn to The UnDutchables by its supposed notoriety and the conflicting reports I’d been given. Surprisingly my Dutch friend liked it (‘brilliantly accurate!’) but an English friend didn’t, 'It’s snide and spiteful,' she said.

It turned out that both were right. It’s all of the above, but I have to confess to spending a few hours of guilty pleasure sniggering out loud at some of the admittedly scathing, but highly amusing observations.

For anyone who’s lived here, the descriptions of a Dutch homestead, their penchant for big dogs in tiny houses, reputation for frugality, the assimilation of English profanities into their daily language, and not forgetting the abundance of ‘hondenpoep’ EVERYWHERE, made for a convivial read, but then it got a bit samey.

That’s not to say it isn’t funny throughout (it is), but love them or loathe them you can’t lampoon the Dutch without acknowledging their global domination in certain spheres (water management, horticulture, engineering and er… speed-skating) and half way through I got bored.

Their considerable talents are merely chucked into the mix alongside the ridicule, perpetuating jaded old stereotypes and covering almost every topic you can imagine – even if it is humorously written. But in a book this long I was expecting to find a balance. And there wasn’t.

The Netherlands might be miniscule in size but in their fields of expertise, they’ll trounce the rest of the world, and then some, so reading pages of diatribe left me feeling a little uneasy, particularly as this could be the first (albeit one-sided) introduction for newcomers to the Netherlands.

The Dutch are a bold and unique bunch and there’s certainly plenty to parody. So if you want to read about the worst kind of provincial ‘cloggy’ then grab a copy and fill your wooden shoes because despite being too long and feeling outdated, it’s harmless fun.

Shelley Antscherl
books@dutchnews.nl