|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||
Frequently Bought Together
Product Details
|
Product Description
From Amazon
The central part of the novel details conditions in Java, particularly Havelaar's efforts to correct injustices in the face of a corrupt government system. That his efforts will prove futile soon becomes apparent, and there is something almost Greek in the inevitability of Havelaar's declining fortunes. Despite its tragic themes, Max Havelaar is savagely funny, particularly the chapters narrated by Droogstoppel, a character unmatched for his veniality, narrow-mindedness, or singular lack of understanding or imagination. Though Multatuli's masterpiece is nearly 150 years old, it wears its age well, and Roy Edwards's excellent translation offers English-speaking readers a wonderful opportunity to experience one of the Netherlands's great literary classics.
Book Description
I have often heard the wives of poets pitied; and undoubtedly, they cannot have too many good qualities if they are to fill that difficult post in life with dignity. Read the first page
Concordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fine translation of difficult work,
By
This review is from: Max Havelaar: Or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (Paperback)
Multatuli's Max Havelaar (published in 1860) is one of the classics of Dutch literature. It relates in first person the experiences of a colonial administrator in what was then the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), exposing a web of injustice and corruption.The novel aroused instant controversy in The Netherlands and eventually led to a series of reforms. The effects that followed the publication of Max Havelaar have been compared to those achieved in the United States by Uncle Tom's Cabin, which was published only a few years before the Dutch book. I have read Max Havelaar in the original. Roy Edwards has accomplished an accurate and sensitive translation, an admirable feat considering the difficulty of bringing to life in English the twists and turns of 19th-century Dutch. R. P. Meijer has provided an illuminating introduction to the historical background of the novel in addition to a fine biographical sketch of Multatuli (Eduard Douwes Dekker), whose account of Max Havelaar's experiences is largely autobiographical.
1.0 out of 5 stars
A self-serving narrative that disappoints.,
By
This review is from: Max Havelaar: Or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (Paperback)
This book is first and foremost an attempt to establish an alternative version about the author's tenure as an official of the Dutch East Indian Civil Service. In short, he was removed from office for disagreeing with his supervisors' policies, and chose to vent through this book. The disgusting narrative continually portrays the author as something near a Christ-like personality battling a completely inept and corrupt civil service (the latter is almost a redundant description). The author does nothing to contain his raging ego, thus producing a nauseating description of self. The resulting cast of characters are as deep as cardboard cutouts. The cost of this immodest picture is a shallow representation of the plight of the colonized. The reader is forced to sift through page after page of self-serving drivel to extract meager details of the corruption in the Dutch East Indies. The book has not aged well. Contemporary cynicism--resulting from, in part, Watergate, Vietnam, a stream of revelations of various colonial regimes and a plethora of political scandals--makes the cursory information about the Dutch East Indian Civil Service under whelming. One has to repeatedly remind themselves that the original readers were idealistic about their government's intentions. One can glean interesting social and cultural glimpses of the period from the bloated pages. This indirect benefit is one of the few reasons to read the book. If the author had spent more time providing information about the colonies instead of rambling on and on with his self-aggrandizement, this book could have been an invaluable piece of history. As it stands, it is a testimony to the hubris of a flawed man.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A superb translation of a superb book!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Max Havelaar: Or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (Paperback)
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.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
|
