War and Turpentine

War and Turpentine, under the original Dutch title of Oorlog en Terpentijn, is a historical fiction novel by Stefan Hertmans. Published in 2013 and based on a series of diaries, the story is a novelization of the life of Hertmans' grandfather, World War I-era painter Urbain Martien. Hertmans is a Flemish Belgian author of poetry, essays, short stories, and novels. The English translation of War and Turpentine was published in 2016, and it was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2016 by The New York Times Book Review, as well as called one of the Books of the Year by The Economist. 

The novel is told in three sections. In the first, Hertmans reminiscences about his deceased grandfather as well as his rediscovery of his grandfather’s story. In the second and lengthiest section, Urbain, as the narrator, provides a firsthand account of his experiences in the Great War. The soldier recalls, “Sometimes we roast [the rats], but their flesh is vile, muddy and gooey. A commander roars that we’ll catch the plague.” In the third section, Hertmans narrates the six decades following Urbain’s life after World War I.

Shortly before his death in 1981, Urbain Martien, a quiet, artistic man, gives several notebooks to his grandson, Stefan Hertmans. Hertmans has grown up listening to his grandfather's stories of World War I, and so he suspects that the contents of the notebooks may be disturbing. For more than 30 years, he is too afraid to open them. When the 100th anniversary of World War I finally prompts him to read them, however, he discovers years’ worth of diary entries detailing his grandfather's childhood, time during the war, and his life afterwards. The stories he finds inspires him to write War and Turpentine.



Urbain is born to a middle-class mother named Céline Andries. His father, Franciscus Martien, is a chapel painter, and Céline marries him against the wishes of her parents. The Martien family is poor, but happy. Urbain gains inspiration from his hardworking parents and from watching his father paint. When Franciscus' health begins to fail due to asthma, Urbain apprentices to a tailor to help bring in money for the family. Despite his ill-health, Franciscus becomes the target of socialist attacks, which gives Urbain a lifelong aversion to those championing that cause. He also visits a gelatin factory, which he finds traumatizing and instills in him a deep sense of sympathy for animals.

After leaving the tailor, Urbain takes a job at an iron foundry, and although he applies himself to the back-breaking labor, he feels his sensitive spirit begin to break. He continues because his family desperately needs the money to support the neighbor’s children, whom the Martiens have adopted following their father’s death. Despite their poverty, the children are given a chance at an education, which they embrace wholeheartedly, and Urbain gains great inspiration from his relationship with them.

The family's fortunes seem to turn when Franciscus is hired to paint a church in Liverpool. He journeys to the job, instructing Urbain to care for his mother and adopted siblings as the man of the house. During this time, Urbain takes art lessons, but he finds even the basic techniques to be difficult and grows frustrated with himself. Franciscus returns from Liverpool with his asthma much worsened. Shortly afterwards, he dies. Céline goes into a state of shock, leaving Urbain to care for the household.



Feeling that she has no other choice, Céline eventually marries an alcoholic by the name of Henri de Pauw because he promises he will provide for her children. Although Urbain gets along with Henri's children, he never accepts his new stepfather and decides to enroll in military school. In 1914, World War I begins, and Urbain is conscripted.

He and his fellow soldiers are sent to Belgium to confront the German presence there, but they end up at odds with the French soldiers, who harass them even though both groups are fighting for the same side. With low rations and even lower morale, Urbain's unit weathers heavy battles, the death of comrades, and long, tense periods of stalemate. Twice Urbain injures his leg; on one of the occasions, he is sent to Liverpool to recuperate. While there, he finds the church his father painted and sees that his own face has been included in the mural. All too soon, he is sent back to the horror of the front lines.

When the war finally ends, Urbain returns home a broken man. He finds joy returning to his life when he meets Maria Emelia Ghys, the daughter of a local merchant. The couple falls in love, but before they can be married, Maria dies from the Spanish flu. Devastated, Urbain marries Maria's sister, Gabrielle, but the relationship is understandably tense as Gabrielle refuses to be a doppelgänger for her sister. However, the marriage endures, and the pair have children and eventually grandchildren.



For the last several decades of his life, Urbain focuses on painting, and Hertmans explores his grandfather's works, looking for the people from his stories. He finds Maria portrayed in Urbain's Rokeby Venus, but it is his grandfather's "emotional detached" self-portraits that are the most telling. Hertmans imagines his grandfather, the soldier artist, standing at the gates of Heaven and requesting entry to the place he has long dreamed of.