Max Havelaar: Or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (Penguin Classics)

by Multatuli and Multatuli Multatuli

Book Overview

A fierce indictment of colonialism, Max Havelaar is a masterpiece of Dutch literature based on the author's own experience as an adminstrator in the Dutch East Indies in the 1850s. A brilliantly... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140445161
• Release Date: September 1995
• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.1" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

A masterpice indeed

This novel is by far the most fascinating novel I have ever read. The background stories alone make it worth reading. Plus, as an Indonesian, I felt obligated to read the novel. It was a very good read. Solid plot with a very unconventional ending. A masterpiece indeed.

Absolutely contemporary

Most people turn to this book in order to learn about 19 century colonialism. However the book is stunningly contemporary as a picture of universal human types, and of a particular type, which is especially well refined and developed in the Netherlands. I suppose because of the Netherlands history of Calvinism, wealth, "apartheid", provincialism - people living in separate sub communities defined by religion, who only care for those in their own group. Moreover the book is a multimedia self-referring extravaganza avant-la-letter, masterfully written. Approached in the right frame of mind it is at the same time desparately funny and funnily desparate. I recently asked 8 Dutch university students if they had read it - the most famous book in Dutch literature. 7 had not. One had started but had thrown it away half finished because it was all so depressingly familiar. (Familiar as a picture of present day attitudes in the Netherlands).

Multatuli

One can say that this work is a small man's grudge against hsi former employer. But one cannot really sunstantiate such a point. Even if he did write it as a kick to the boss's shin it still is a major work. Apart from the message which was and sadly still is and perhaps increasing issue in this world, it is magnificently told. Perspective in perspective tell you in often as much as four layers and thus four filters the point the writer is stating. As stated above by a more undoubtedly more learned reader, his technigues of argument are simply brilliant and any scholar should read this book just to brush up his essay writing. Finally, his way with words is just dragging you through this novel in a way I've only seen Charles Dickens and Oscar Wilde come close to. p.s. Note to the guy above, did you happen to know that Multatuli indeed lived many years in poverty because of his believes, that when he became a succesful writer he dropped the pen after realising people only read his work and didn't act on it. Living his last years as a recluse in Germany, bittered, and hopeless, instead of cashing on his succes.

A rhetorical masterwork

This book is one of the most important books of Dutch literature. The writer combines humour, emotion and facts. The book has a complex structure, without making it difficult to read, an outspoken view, but also more subtle jokes (at least in the Dutch language, and for people aware of Dutch culture), a perceptive view on the way the institutions in the Dutch East Indies worked to promote the corruption and the exploitation of the people. All these things make the book an enjoyment to read. The writer, however, isn't trying to make an objective unemotional description of the events in the East Indies, but he is arguing - making a treatise - for a different/better treatment of the people in the Indonesia, basing his treatise on facts and emotions (he stresses the parts which are undisputed facts in a very natural way). For this he uses al his (well developed) rhetorical abilities. To give some examples of his rhetorical abilities and the working of the structure: - at some point in the book he argues against painters which try to show the multitude of misery caused by a certain event, by painting the quantity involved. He argues that this makes people numb for the suffering shown on the painting. Why the writer tells this is unclear, until later when he starts telling a dramatic story about the injustice and suffering endured by an Indonesian boy. Then it becomes clear that this suffering is endured by many Indonesians, but instead of making you dazzle with numbers he tries (and succeeds) to make you feel compassionate with one individual. Only to make you realise afterwards that there are/were many individuals which are enduring the same suffering! - and instead of stating with certain facts: `this is a fact', he makes himself angry about how shocking/outrages something is, only to afterwards state: `it is true: you can look it up here, or there'. These are just two examples, but the entire book is a rhetoric masterwork! However, readers expecting a balanced book will be disappointed. The writer didn't strive for consensus, he strove to make an as great as possible contrast between his ideals (good) and the Dutch merchantmen spirit (evil). The treatise worked much in the same way as the books/movies of Micheal Moore do today. Mixing emotion, fact and rhetorical ability (although Multatuli has greater literary abilities) to create a document that polarises society about great contemporary political issues.

A superb translation of a superb book!

By this 19th century novel an attempt was made to arise the awareness of the general public in the Netherlands to the oppression of the Indonesian people by the Dutch colonial system. The book is a cry for justice. The story is set in Amsterdam and Java and has a surprising structure, with changing perspective, and an almost independent romantic story on the love between Saidjah and Adinda. It is romantic, melodramatic even, jet thought-provoking and despite its heavy subject funny and very readable. Yes, certainly rereadable. It gets more beautiful everytime I reread it. I've both read the Dutch original book and this translation, and I think a perfect job has been done.