Janwillem L. van de
Wetering was born in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, in
1931. His elderly father, a merchant with American
contacts, hurt by the Depression, wanted to give the
second son "Crisis" as a middle name, but
opted for "Lincoln", as the past president
and the present author share the same birthday. Van
de Wetering, ever resistant to parental hinting,
avoided the U.S. until 1975, when, retaining his
Dutch nationality, he settled on the Maine Coast,
where he can still be found today (1997). The early
Dutch period culminated when the Germans who he had
learned to know as gift-bringing family friends
speaking a beautiful language, surprised the child by
bombing his native city of Rotterdam and abusing,
ultimately killing, his Jewish classmates. Shaken to
the core of his nine-year-old brain he vowed to
either leave this life voluntarily or come to some
understanding of irreconcilable factors influencing,
perhaps even causing, a painful human existence. At
school he excelled in what his disapproving family
was to call "the useless subjects".
Literature introduced him to Dutch vagabond writers,
German morality and 19th century French poets,
"les poets maudits", the wildly destructive
geniuses of Baudelaire, Rimbaud and Verlaine. He was
expelled from art classes as he couldn't draw shades
on jugs too well. After graduating from high school
he discovered French black-tobacco cigarettes dipped
in jenever (Dutch gin) solve a multitude of problems.
Experiments with detachment from the heaviness of ego
through legal drugs did not interfere with his
graduation at a college aimed to qualify upper class
and/or gifted students for "business
abroad". Graduating at age 19 his father got him
a job with a Rotterdam-based firm in Africa. Finding
happiness in Capetown's art scene van de Wetering
refused to be transferred to the bleakness of
Johannesburg, got fired, and stayed six years,
drifting between odd jobs, reading, wandering the
beaches, wondering what could be what. He was briefly
married to a local artist who taught him how ideas
can be realized into more substantial forms through
pottery and sculpture. Members of an intellectual
motorcycle gang, inspired by Dostoyewski's novel
"The Young Devils", also furthered a search
that, he imagined, would free him from care through
total negation. Alcohol and speed being limited
means, the search proved fruitless. His father died.
In 1956 van de Wetering, unwittingly joined the
beatnik movement. Liberated from guilt caused by his
lack of aim to please the well-meaning, he sailed for
England. Signing up to be a "reader" at
London College, he worked his way through a list of
philosophical works recommended by professor (Sir
Alfred) A.J. Ayer. Re-satisfying his love of the
"useless subjects" he became infatuated
with existentialism. The idea that there is no
divinity, that, in an Indian guru's words, "God
is not a nice man, he is not your uncle"
attracted him.The resulting dogma that "we are
condemned to liberty" seemed too dour. Liberty,
in the still young author's opinion, should be fun,
mysteriously pleasing, tantalizing, sexy, probably.
Captured by visualizations of the Hindu goddess Kali
and her Buddhist projection, the deity Kwannon, van
de Wetering found his way to Kyoto, Japan - city of
temples. For two years (1958-1959) he studied at the
Zen monastery Daitoku-ji, a complex of hallowed
buildings of T'ang Dynasty architecture. Here, for
the first time, a glimpse of a possible answer
occurred. The Buddhist idea of emptiness,
concentrated in the Zen "mu" (nothingness)
koan, a meditation subject his teacher made him
concentrate on for endless painful hours in a dark
hall where police monks beat the unwary, proved to be
quite cheerful. No-purpose, happenstance, breaking
down of illusionary ego walls, giving in to the only
useful desire (the desire to break desire), sublime
indifference, moral detachment, non-judgment, and
still performing optimally for no reason whatsoever
definitely for no reason, were ideas that radiated
gloriously from the old abbot's subtle but forceful
being. Even so, the thrust into a luminous void
seemed too all-effacing and the author, out of money
by now, left to be a merchant again, in South America
this time. Five years in Colombia and Peru brought
ups and downs, eased by a second marriage, to a 17
year old descendant of long Jewish lines. A low point
in his career made the family (there was a daughter
now) move to Brisbane, Australia in 1963 where he
learned the trade of a real estate salesman. Reading
the works of Arthur Upfield, living on large shrimps
and mutton, listening to the Homeric laughter of the
Kukkaboorah bird when he missed a sale on hot arid
subdivisions where he spent his working days, life
seemed pleasant enough. Any status quo being
changeable, an opportunity to return to Holland
seemed propitious. For ten years (1965-1975) van de
Wetering knew prosperity while building an export
network for his wife's family's company's textile
product. Philosophical curiosity was aroused again
when he met Trungpa Rimpoche at a Tibetan Buddhist
retreat in Scotland. Studies at "The Tail of the
Tiger" led to visits to another metaphysical hot
spot. "Moon Spring Hermitage", led by a
fellow, much senior disciple of the, now dead,
Japanese abbot, on the Maine coast, U.S.A. Meanwhile,
back in Holland, van de Wetering had joined the
Amsterdam Reserve Constabulary. Having traveled as a
young man in territories beyond Dutch jurisdiction
without keeping in touch with Dutch authorities
brought a charge of dodging the draft. Military
Police suggested that, in order to avoid arrest, it
would be appropriate to serve the queen in voluntary
law enforcement. The period was to be for four years
(two years training, two years patroling Amsterdam
evenings and weekends) but got extended to seven
years as subject passed sergeant and inspector exams.
The idea of being an anarchist in police uniform
seemed surreally interesting. The textile trade was
"getting old" by then and, looking for a
way to change his career he had his Zen journals,
referring to both the Japanese and American monastic
periods, published. When his "Amsterdam
Cops" series took off internationally as well,
van de Wetering, aged 44 by now, moved to America.
The erratic lifestyle of the American
"Roshi" (that, in time, would lead to the
collapse of the center) made him rethink his course.
After settling on private shoreland he simultaneously
lost interest in nicotine, alcohol, any type of
organized religion. For the next eight years he
sailed the coast in an old lobster boat, traveled,
with his wife, in the U.S. and Europe, and eventually
reached Papua New Guinea and was touched intimately
by "primitive art". On his return to Maine
he began to shape constructions out of junk and
assemble surrealist collages. Around 1990, after an
eight year pause, the urge to write acted up again
and several novels, more episodes in the "Dutch
Cop" series, Buddhist essays, four childrens'
tales, a cartoon book and a series of (German) radio
plays followed. Translations in some fifteen
languages led to lecture tours and an involvement in
movie making. "Afterzen" the final journal
of his thoughts on an elusive subject, is planned for
1998 publication. "The Explosion", a novel
dealing with being a child in WWII, should follow a
little while later. "The Cannibal and the
Living" set in New Guinea, a last sequel in the
"Dutch Cop" series (sergeant de Gier meets
van de Wetering's other hero, Inspector Saito) is
being sketched. Mostly, however, he aims at taking
the dog fishing.
