the Book: "Alexander - De vergeten kroonprins"
English: "Alexander - The forgotten crown prince"
The first cover was the cover used for the first edition of the book, published in the late 70's of last century. The cover on the right is of the latest edition, published some time around 1997.
This book is the best and the most complete biography you can find on Alexander. There's not that much exciting to find out, Alexander didn't really do much of importance. Great parts of the book are filled with the complete texts from papers. It also includes Alexander's sent in letter as a reaction on an article in a paper and the two following brochures he published to explain his point made in the first mentioned letter. It's an interesting and exhausting read since it's all in old Dutch. But it gives a nice view of how Alexander's brain worked. Pretty well, I must say.
In the second edition is a an intro in which the below series "Wij Alexander" ("We Alexander") is mentioned. According to the author the series says Alexander went mad and got institutionalized, instead of dying in 1884. If the author of the book had watched the series right till the end, or had paid attention right till the end, he would have found out his assumptions of what the series was saying were wrong. To find out what I'm talking about watch "Wij Alexander". The piece of intro I'll add in the next entry.
To buy:
the TV-series: "Wij Alexander"
English: "We Alexander"
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| Find the |
The story plays in 1909 right after the birth of the (then) future Queen Juliana. Doctor Giltay returns to the Netherlands to finish his studies at an institution. In the institution he meets patient #4 who claims to be Prince Alexander, who at that point had been dead for 25 years.
Soon the care of this patient is handed over to Giltay who also gets the assignment to find out about a wooden box (mentioned before on this blog).
The questions are many: Is patient #4 really Prince Alexander? Where's the wooden box and why are people so keen to find it?
I thoroughly enjoyed this series. The story is clever and very respecting towards Alexander. Only facts are presented as facts and rumours remain rumours. If we're not certain about something, neither is the series. In other words, this series doesn't sling any false facts into the world, it merely plays with the already old existing rumours.
Also the pace of the story is right, the acting is superb and it all looks very authentic. Definately recommended.
the Play: "Alexander - de prins die niet wilde"
English: "Alexander - the prince who didn't want to"
I only found out about this play today. This play was only performed on Texel, I believe, for a small audience and only a few dates. The prince was played by Dutch actor Antonie Kamerling, who unfortunately was very depressed and commited suicide in 2010.
I can't really find much about the play except that it was performed in December (?) 2009 and that it gave a view on the Dutch royals from around 1890 from the viewpoint of Alexander. It was a solo performance.
If I find more, I'll post it here.
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