Lucian Wester Annotation

Annotation

The adventures of Olivier B. Bommel are written and drawn by Maarten Toonder. The stories are best described as a short novel/comic book and are regarded to be Dutch literature. This episode was written in 1955 and is called: Het slaagsysteem (The succeed system). The main character of the story/comic is Olivier B. Bommel a wealthy bear how lives in a small castle just outside the city of Rommeldam. Bommel is big, peaceful, a bit naïve and a real gentlemen. The second most important character is Tom poes who is Bommel best friend and always helps him out when he got himself in trouble again.

Synopsis Bommel and Tom poes are going on a winter holiday in the mountains. The day after their arrival in the mountains they visit a cave where Bommel makes a wish to be a more successful gentlemen. At first the whish doesn’t seems to be coming true but after a few misfortunate accidents he meets a man who teaches people to be successful. The teacher agrees to go work with Bommel to make him successful. First they try by bluffing to get Bommel the job of the director of the local bank, but Bommel doesn’t succeed to convince the president-director to give him the job. The second plan is to make Bommel successful by braking the speed record in a car, but Bommel chickens out and hires someone to drive in his place who than takes the credits for the new speed record. The third plan is to make Bommel minister of television but again he screwed up. The forth and last attempt is to make Bommel smart because by pretending to know something he failed all earlier attempts. He studies for a couple of weeks but just before he is going give a lecture on gravity on the academy, that will make him successful, Tom poes takes him back to the mountains. Bommel, totally absent-minded by all the knowledge, just follows Tom poes not knowing where he is going. In the mountains they revised the wish cave and Bommel wishes that the everything will go back to how it was before he made his first wish.

Maarten Toonder always plays with the Dutch language for example by taking words literally and building a story around them to reflect on issues in society.

To continue research it would be interesting to look ad: - Other story of Bommel. - A biography of Maarten Toonder - Text on the importance of Maarten Toonders work on the Dutch language.