Maxence Van der Meersch
Maxence Van der Meersch ( born May 4, 1907 in Roubaix, † January 14, 1951 in Le Touquet ) was a French writer.
Life
Maxence Van der Meersch studied law and acquired in 1934 admitted to the bar. In 1927 he met the young worker Thérèze Denis, with whom he lived in Wasquehal. 1929, the daughter Sarah was born.
His first book, La Maison dans la Dune, appeared in 1932. In the 18 years since its creation 17 books and numerous newspaper articles appeared. In 1937 he received the Prix Goncourt for L' Empreinte de Dieux. After the war the company moved to Le Touquet.
Maxence Van der Meersch suffered from tuberculosis. However, he refused to be treated according to the methods of traditional medicine, which he rejected as mechanistic. He was a strict vegetarian.
The towns of Roubaix and Le Touquet are both in the Nord -Pas -de -Calais, the most northern region of France. It comprises the departments of Nord and Pas -de- Calais and is its capital Lille near the Belgian border. This region, which includes French Flanders was Maxence Van der Meersch life together and it forms the background of most of his works.
Van der Meersch was an extremely popular writer who is now almost entirely forgotten in the period between the world wars.
Works
A complete edition, there is not today. Here is a selection:
Body and soul
Like any great work of art you can read this novel from several perspectives: as a coming of age novel, as a romance novel, as drastic criticism of the traditional medical treatment services, as a plea for natural healing methods, a comparison of a purely material and a humane attitude to people.
Michel is in Angers son of the physician Doutreval and studying of course medicine. Because of his father's position at the University Hospital a good career waiting for him, even a marriage with the daughter of another "big " of medical school is already provided. The whole faculty business with its intrigues and power struggles is shown alive. But as he learns in the hospital met a young worker, in which he falls in love. In an altercation with his father, he finally breaks away from his pre-planned life, to settle down with his future wife in a small town as an ordinary doctor. Here he has to fight in modest circumstances in a very different social milieu than in his hometown. He does what he has recognized in his heart to be right - this is one of the basic themes of the book. He learns to work with natural healing methods, in contrast to the sometimes blatant violent, but certainly not unrealistic described methods of conventional medicine.