The Later Life by Louis Couperus

Midlife crises in The Hague

The Later Life is a novel by Dutch author Louis Couperus (1863–1923). It is the second book in a four-novel quartet called Small Souls or The Books of Small Souls. (The first novel in the series is also titled Small Souls). The Later Life was originally published in the Netherlands in 1902, which is the time period in which the novel is set. It was first published in English in 1915.

Small Souls introduced us to the extensive Van Lowe family of The Hague, and the family drama continues in The Later Life. This second novel begins about two months after the end of Small Souls. In that previous book, Constance van der Welcke (née van Lowe) had a confrontation and a falling out with the rest of the Van Lowe family. After fleeing to Paris to be alone for several weeks, she returns to her husband and son in The Hague. Soon, the Van der Welckes patch up relations with Constance’s relatives and resume attendance at the family dinner parties.

The Later Life seems quite a bit shorter than Small Souls, and there is less going on in this second outing. Instead of bouncing around the entire Van Lowe family, here the focus remains primarily on the Van der Welckes: Constance, her husband Henri, and son Adriaan. Shortly after returning from Paris, Constance comes to the realization that her husband and her niece Marianne are in love with each other, though so far the interaction between the two has remained innocent. Meanwhile, an old school chum of Henri’s named Brauws returns to The Hague and becomes the frequent dinner guest of the Van der Welckes. Despite his history with Henri, Brauws forms a closer bond with Constance, and she falls in love with him. Much like her husband’s budding romance, there has been no physical affirmation of the relationship, just conversation. Will either of these harmless infatuations develop into full-fledged infidelity?

The title “The Later Life” may seem to imply that the novel is about senior citizens, but the three main players in this love quadrangle only range in age from their late thirties to their early forties (Marianne is about 19 or 20). Constance, Henri, and Brauws, however, all go through some sort of midlife crisis in this book and find themselves contemplating their lost youth. They are all dissatisfied and depressed by their present state of living. They’re lonely, trapped in loveless relationships, and/or depressed by the lack of meaning in their lives. Each wonders if he or she can finally find true happiness in later life, or is it too late to make a fresh start?

The phrase “small souls” is brought up more than a few times in the first two novels of this series. Couperus uses these words to signify the restrictive societal conventions under which these characters have developed and continue to live their lives. While somewhere in the world surely people are truly living lives that matter, the Van Lowes’ lives revolve around petty aristocratic concerns over what is proper or what people might think. “The world is full of mighty problems; and we . . . we are pigmies . . . in the tiny world of our own selves. . . .” says Brauws. Whatever was the equivalent of the Victorian era in the Netherlands, Couperus’s novels don’t so much rebel against it as rather critically acknowledge it as a pervading fact of life. Constance is the only one in her family who even questions the established order of things—whether these dinner parties or social engagements even matter. At 43, she realizes that she’s never really been in love, that she’s never even really lived. In the Small Souls series, which has proven a great read so far, Couperus reveals the existential angst beneath the veneer of upper-class respectability.