The Darkroom of Damocles ( De donkere kamer van Damokles), written in 1958, is no exception. The world, for the atheist Hermans, is nothing else than an originally "sadistic universe." In wartime, society sheds it thin veneer of culture, humans loose their pretense of humanity. This is not for historical reasons, but because war is the environment in which, according to Hermans' existentialist philosophy, malice and misunderstanding, as well as the pointlessness of our existence, can best be brought to the surface. The war made an indelible impression on him, and he often chooses the war as backdrop for his novels. Willem Frederik Hermans was an adolescent in Amsterdam during WWII.
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