Pynchon and the Low Countries

After venturing to Rome in 2019, and after the early days of the pandemic hit Italy pretty hard, the 2021 IPW was a Zoom get together like so many other get-togethers at the time. By 2022, the energy for an in-person gathering was back, and this time it would be closer to home for us---up in Vancouver. It's also on the Pacific coast of North America, and my cousin lives there, but it started---and ended---before the summer break actually happened for Los Angeles proper. That put the kibosh on the trip.

In 2024, the International Pynchon Week was in Belgrade. While taking a trip to Serbia would be exciting, taking a trip to Belgrade with a 4 year old proved too much for us to wrap our heads around.

When we saw that in 2026, this year's IPW was to be in western Germany, we decided to pull the trigger and make the journey. Camille is two years older, at 6, and Cass is big and tall and an adventurous eater, and the language barrier is less than in Serbia.

In Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands, English is both much closer to their own languages that it is to the Slavic languages in the Balkans, and taught from an early stage in their schooling. English adjacency and Camille being able to maybe remember things made this the trip for us.

When my half-thought-out project was rejected, I realized I could make the journey and not be stressed.

We ventured through the outskirts of Amsterdam to Dortmund, and then off to Brussels and Antwerp, finishing off with a return to the heart of Amsterdam. It was a whirlwind, and hot, and stressful at times (as anything this complicated can be), and as it recedes into the memories like a dream, the full effect may be borne out with the kids for, er, ever, maybe?