Zonder verlangen. Mannelijkheid en affect in Pijpelijntjes

This article offers an affective and sociological reading of Pijpelijntjes (1904), the debut novel of Jacob Israël de Haan – often described as one of the first openly homosexual novels in Dutch literature. While earlier scholarship has mainly focused on the novel’s relation to contemporary medical discourses on homosexuality and on the question of sexual identity, this study shifts attention to the affective structures that shape the characters’ experiences of desire. It argues that the novel constructs homosexual longing not as a liberating force but as a source of melancholy, conflict, and emotional disturbance. Drawing on theoretical insights into hegemonic, subordinate, and complicit forms of masculinity, the article analyzes the hierarchical relations between the three central male characters: Joop, Sam, and Koos. Their interactions reveal how homosexuality is positioned as a form of subordinate masculinity within a heteronormative gender order that is simultaneously structured by class differences. Joop gradually accepts his subordinated position, which brings both deep melancholy and a fragile sense of serenity. By contrast, Sam is modelled after the hegemonic model of bourgeois heterosexual masculinity as he conforms to the heteronormative marriage plot, in this case characterized by aggression, emotional repression, and ultimately the extinction of affect. The article further situates this affective economy within broader queer theoretical debates on temporality and normativity. It shows how Pijpelijntjes contributes to what has been identified as the cultural production of the melancholic homosexual subject, while at the same time questioning the chrononormative, future-oriented ideals that often structure narratives of sexual emancipation. In this light, De Haan’s novel offers a critical perspective on the emotional costs of both social conformity and queer marginalization.