Pim Fortuyn
Another leading character in the novel Weinkrampf! is the in may 2002 murdered Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn. Just like queen Beatrix he can be seen as a central character in the novel. On the cover he is portrait in a characteristic pose: smoking a little cigar in a stately costume.
Sometimes the emotions in the boat run very high when the person of Pim Fortuyn is being discussed. No occupant who doesn’t have a opinion about him. Especially the manner he was killed ensures the conversation. On more then one occasion the company in the dinghy of Survival.org threatens to collapse arguing, but everytime it’s the guide who manage to keep the case together and is leading the occupants to the springs of evil, where the mysterious river originates, somewhere in the hearth of an obscure kind of Europe. Maybe not a real existing place, but occurring as fiction in the heads of the participants. Who knows.
On the covert, standing under Pim Fortuyn, we can see the figure of the murdered moviemaker Theo van Gogh. Also his life was abruptly ended by a crazy fanatic. Just like the murder on Pim Fortuyn an event that draw deep tracks in the Dutch society. By the conversations in the boot about this the religion of the Islam plays an important role. No one of the particpants on the boat trip can have any sympathy for this: You do’t kill a defenseless
artist for the sake of any religion, and certainly not to reserve for yourself a place in heaven. It must be the most backward motif for a religious person one can imagine.
There’s also a spot on the cover for the deceased, after a short but turbulent life, folk singer Andre Hazes. Just like the depicted Herman Brood, rocker in eternal rest, symbol for the tabloids culture in Holland. The content of tabloid magazines like the Story and the Prive are feeding the discussions in Weinkrampf! about the Dutch artists, but also about the before mentioned royal house with the pre-eminently exponent of glamor, glitter and gossip: princess Maxima.
See more about Weinkrampf! in About-books.