Mudflat hiking with Jaap Robben. Now it is still possible. Soon everyone will be gone for good

After that, Robben (1984) started to make a name for himself as a writer for all ages. His novel debut Birk meant a breakthrough to a large audience. The novel Summer coat was made into a film by director Joren Molter. And published in 2022 Twilight life another book that landed him in the Bestseller 60.

Now there is Wantij , part of the Terloops series from publisher Van Oorschot. Like his predecessors (Gerbrand Bakker, Maartje Wortel and many others), Robben was asked to describe a personal walk. His starts in Harlingen on the boat and then runs from the Brakzand sandbank to Schiermonnikoog.

Celebrate a bachelor party while you’re at it

Robben wants to walk on the mudflats while he still can; in ten years it would become impossible due to climate change. The group he travels with consists of various types. Special attention is paid to a Spanish-speaking man who is only busy with his phone, members of a group who are celebrating a bachelor party while drinking and a couple from Hellevoetsluis.

For a moment it seems that Robben wants to describe a group process, as his colleague Merijn de Boer likes to do. But gradually a deepening occurs and goes Wantij about looking and remembering. This may not be surprising for those who have read more parts from the Incidental series. Yet Robben manages to come up with nice observations.

An absent traveling companion

Such as the strange expectation of finding people who have disappeared on islands. To this end he introduces Bregje, a now deceased friend. While walking on the mudflats, she becomes an absent traveling companion who puts the rest of the group at a distance, making Robben a wanderer. For a moment the image emerges of a man who has fallen between two stools. Unfortunately, the walk, like the story, is too short to expand on this.

The sobering reality continually imposes itself. Especially in the person of mudflat walking guide Henk, a man who, for understandable reasons, should not be overtaken by anyone. This predecessor tackles the landscape pain suggested by Robben with the realization that everything is temporary and therefore relative. Man muddles along for a while, the earth continues to turn. With ebb and flow. If it’s not here, it’s there.