Some Observations

I wonder what inspired Dick Matena to make Kaas into a graphic novel. Was it the movies? It's hard to say, never having seen any of them. The main character and his brother look exactly like pictures of Elsschot himself at different stages of his life. I'm guessing it wasn't the movies.

It's hard to say what moves an artist. I suppose Matena was born to draw, and he was able to visualize Kaas as a graphic novel.

That being said, it's a great achievement. This is not a visual story at all. Most of the action takes place inside Frans' head. He thinks over social situations and wonders what is on the minds of others. There is almost no action. Still, as I wrote about Chapter 6, the reactions and expressions of the letter reader fit remarkably well. The drawings bring Antwerp in the 30s alive with great detail. Matena's other artistic achievement is that he knows when to stop drawing. His visuals help carry the story forward, but they are never cluttered.
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Because this book is relatively short, there is a lot of room for back stories. Again, I hope anyone who adapts the graphic novel to the cinema resists the temptation to fill in details as to the achievement gap between the brothers and why the doctor seems to be a bachelor. Any such additions would make the story drag.
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It seems that for Frans, being Flemish adds weight to his almost hapless existence. As the book begins, he works for an English company. The big boss is a Francophone. The cheese business happens in Dutch, but it's across the border in Amsterdam. Although it was a big modern city, Elsschot's Antwerp was a backwater.

Chapter 4

While reading this book as it is, I keep thinking of how it might be as a movie. Due to the nature of the visuals, this has to be moving paintings, not moving pictures. If this gets outsourced to a shop that sends back the usual flat faces one finds in animation, it will be terrible. It takes a lot to draw an expressive face. Matena's adaptation of Kaas is built around expressive faces. Even the shots of the man reading the letter add to the story.

While reading this short chapter, I listened to many Dutch language podcasts and watched today's nieuws. I keep trying to pound the language into my head. I understand more than in the past, but quite a bit goes by.

The story gets poignant in Chapter 4. We can see why the protagonist (Is his name Oscar? I saw a panel that makes me wonder.) gets taken in. He wants to be somebody. His skeptical wife makes some remarks I didn't quite understand. What seems to be good news isn't taken well. This is a man who was hired shortly after 1900 and rode out WWI. It seems he would have a lot to be proud of, but even during a depression, it's hard to stay at the bottom of the totem pole, especially after so long.

He visualizes saying, "Goodbye," to his friends at the bar. He wants his wife to share in his joy, but she is leery.

The chapter ends with him getting a telegram summoning him to the Hornstra company in Amsterdam. Although there is a promise to reimburse his expenses, it looks daunting.