Gerard Reve (1923-2006) was a Dutch Catholic communist homosexual author, who in 1966-1968 fought the state of The Netherlands in a two-year blasphemy trial, a trial which centred on Reve’s literary description in which he thrice fucks God during His incarnation as a donkey.
Yet there is little here that you can’t find in the medieval mystics, all updated for the twentieth century:
“Reve describes how God vists him in the form of a donkey and how, in an upsurge of love and devotion, he takes the incarnated God to bed:
En God Zelf zou bij mij langs komen in de gedaante van een éénjarige, muisgrijze Ezel en voor de deur staan en aanbellen en zeggen: ‘Gerard, dat boek van je–weet je dat Ik bij sommige stukken gehuid heb?’ ‘Mijn Heer en mijn God! Geloofd weze Uw Naam tot in alle Eeuwigheid! Ik houd zo verschrikkelijk veel van U,’ zou ik proberen te zeggen, maar halverwege zou ik al in janken uitbarsten, en Hem beginnen te kussen en naar binnen trekken, en na een gewildige klauterpartij om de trap naar het slaapkamertje op te komen, zou ik Hem drie keer achter elkaar langdurig in Zijn Geheime Opening bezitten, en daarna een presenteksemplaar geven… met de opdracht: Voor de Oneindige. Zonder Woorden. (Nader 112-113)
And God Himself would visit me in the form of a one-year-old, mouse grey Donkey and stand in front of my door and ring the bell and say: ‘Gerard, that book of yours–did you know that I wept while reading some of its passages?’ ‘My Lord and my God! Praisebe Your Name to all Eternity! I love You so immensely,’ I would try to say, but would burst out crying halfway, and start to kiss Hi and pull Him inside, and after a colossal climb up the stairs to the little bedroom, I would possess Him three times in a row and at great length in His Secret Opening, and afterwards give Him a free copy… of my book with the dedication: To the Infinite. Without Words (Trans. Jessika Batteau).
As is evident from the above, Reve combines the high rhetoric of the Bible with the banal and carnal, using capital letters in an ironic manner.”
(Jesseka Batteau, “Literary Icons and the Religious Past in the Netherlands” (2009), 239)
Ah – but what intense devotion!
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