World War II

World War II appears again and again as a theme in Dear Mr. M. Aside from Payback and one other embarrassingly personal novel, M draws upon the War as his main creative inspiration. His fascination with World War II, and its ramifications, makes him an object of contempt and pity among his fellow writers. His reluctance to let go of the War as a subject reflects a cultural inability to acknowledge and, in doing so, relinquish the guilt of complicity felt by the Dutch people under the Nazi regime.

M's preoccupation with the war is reflected in the cultural conversations that surround him. the question of support for a Jewish Israel and concerns regarding the rise of right-wing extremism in Holland are two predominant topics of political conversation that, indirectly, indicate a lingering anxiety concerning the war and the Dutch people's behavior as an...