{"id":138360,"date":"2022-04-07T11:01:04","date_gmt":"2022-04-07T09:01:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=138360"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:26:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:26:13","slug":"a-true-war-story-has-no-moral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2022\/04\/07\/a-true-war-story-has-no-moral\/","title":{"rendered":"A true war story has no moral"},"content":{"rendered":"

How can you tell a story about the war to people who haven\u2019t experienced war? In Dani\u00ebl Grimmelikhuijzen\u2019s favourite book, The things they carried<\/em> by Tim O\u2019Brien, the author shows how difficult that is. \u201cOutsiders are often not interested in the truth. They just want to hear a good story.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Dani\u00ebl Grimmelikhuijzen is doing a PhD in criminal law: \u201cIn court, you can\u2019t mess around with the truth, but as a lawyer you must be aware that someone will inflate facts and omits information to tell a story.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRonald van den Heerik<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

How to tell a true war story? <\/em>Is the title of the chapter that lawyer Dani\u00ebl Grimmelikhuijzen has already reread five times, even before the war in Ukraine broke out. In the book, author Tim O\u2019Brien presents the struggle of someone who is trying to explain what he experienced in the war to people who have never lived in a war. \u201cOutsiders are often not interested in the truth. They just want to hear a good story. But a true war story has no moral,\u201d says Grimmelikhuijzen, which is why it\u2019s so difficult to tell a true war story. \u201cTo be able to convey what you want to say, you sometimes need to twist the facts, leave things out or inflate them. But once you do that, it\u2019s no longer a true story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grimmelikhuijzen is doing a PhD in criminal law, \u2018where stories are also told about the facts\u2019. \u201cIn court, you can\u2019t mess around with the truth, but as a lawyer you must be aware that someone will inflate facts and omits information to tell a story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Author Tim O\u2019Brien shows that people want events to have meaning, even though a war story is merely ugly or banal. That\u2019s it. Grimmelikhuijzen can accept that life is sometimes just ugly \u2013 \u2018otherwise you shouldn\u2019t study criminal law\u2019 \u2013 as is criminal law itself. \u201cIn history, criminal law was nothing more than the right of revenge on someone who had harmed you. The process of retaliation may now have been institutionalised, but essentially nothing has changed. People hurt each other through criminal law.\u201d<\/p>\n

The question remained unanswered <\/h2>

Grimmelikhuijzen does not understand why not all law students choose criminal law. For him, it\u2019s the most interesting discipline, with the most important questions. After a social studies class at secondary school, he knew that he wanted to study Law. \u201cThe teacher couldn\u2019t explain why the sentence for grievous bodily harm with intent was longer than that for unlawful wounding. I didn\u2019t understand why it was worse to inflict grievous injury on someone than unlawful wounding. That question remained with me.\u201d He now knows that it concerns the intent. Causing someone harm with intent is worse than when it happens by accident.<\/p>\n\t

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Reading behaviour:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Last book read: Always with honor, the memoirs of general Wrangel<\/em> by Piotr Wrangel<\/a><\/p>\n

Favourite genre: \u201cI have a huge weakness for fantasy, but in recent years, I find less that excites me. Now I mainly read historic books.\u201d<\/p>\n

Main motivation: curiosity<\/p>\n

Number of books a year: 10 \u2013 15<\/p>\n\n\t<\/div>\n

Reading is (not) working<\/h2>

Unlike other students, Grimmelikhuijzen read all the literature during his studies. For his PhD research into public-private partnership in criminal law, he read a lot. Now that the four-year renovation of his house in Nieuwegein has been completed, he can now read again in his free time, although he wouldn\u2019t call himself a critical reader. \u201cI am very rarely totally gripped by a book.\u201d Before the conversation, he considered why The things they carried <\/em>is such a good book for him. \u201cThis will get quite nerdy,\u201d he warns.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the one hand, a book can be very gripping. It\u2019s a wonderful feeling when you are gripped by the story and can\u2019t put the book down. That rarely happens, but when it does, it\u2019s fantastic. On the other hand, there are books that are sometimes a bit more work. It\u2019s not so much fun while you\u2019re reading them, but afterwards you\u2019re glad you read them, because they contained lessons. This book has the perfect balance between being gripped and becoming wiser.\u201d<\/p>\n\t

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Dani\u00ebl Grimmelikhuijzen is PhD student at Erasmus School of Law. He is researching public-private partnership in criminal law. Before his PhD, he worked as assistant professor and tutor at EUR.<\/p>\n\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t

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De redactie<\/h2>\n\t\t\n\t\t
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