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

... of the Modern Novel, Max Havelaar is a disaster. A hodge-podge. A clumsy polemic thinly disguised as an biography of a fictive hero ... until the final veil is cast aside and the 'author' reveals his still-masked face under the pseudonym Multatuli. But Max Havelaar ISN'T a Modern Novel. The rules don't apply. Though it was published in 1860, it's closer to an 18th C novel of 'sensibility', much like Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy or A Sentimental Journey. Is it mere serendipity that the fictional scribe in Max Havelaar, the German student who assembles the notes of the Scarfman into a book purporting to deal with coffe auctions, is named Ludwig Stern? A critic might also trace Multatuli's peculiar narrative mayhem to another pseudonymous author, Stendahl, whose Le Rouge et le Noir and whose autobiographical Life of Henry Brulard are equally spasmodic in structure.Multatuli in the flesh was Eduard Douwes Dekker, a Dutchman born in 1820 who joined the East Indian Civil Service at age 18, rose steadily in rank during his years of service in Java, and resigned in protest against brutal colonial exploitation in 1856. The character Max Havelaar is indeed Dekker's avatar, but Dekker's career is narrated third hand: by Stern, who edits the manuscripts of Scarfman, who reports on the trials and tribulations of Havelaar. Odd structure? Well, it's even stranger yet, since the literary labors of Stern are commissioned by his coffee merchant host in Amsterdam, Batavus Drystubble, a pompous philistine who interrupts the very book he's commissioned with chapters of his own illiberal blather. And one of Drystubble's interpolations is the full text of a sermon by Reverend Blatherer, a Calvinist assertion of God's implicit favor for the rich and detestation for the hapless shiftless color-stained poor. Drystubble and Blatherer could easily be identified by a contemporary reader as foreshadowings of billionaire David Koch and any of the fundamentalist preachers of the extreme Right in American politics. Greed and self-righteousness have ye always with you!But if Max Havelaar isn't a proper Modern Novel, perhaps it's a premature post-modernist novel, a collage of realia and fantasy, a deliberate `theater of the absurd' blending sentimental poetry, caricature, factual reportage, and confessional self-psychotherapy.What it was for its audience -- the citizens of the Dutch Republic at the height of its colonial dominion over many millions of Javanese, Malays, and other peoples of the Indonesian archipelago -- was a shocking exposé of their callous treatment of their non-Dutch subjects. Dekker's purpose was not artistry; it was muckraking, and it had a modicum of impact on Dutch colonial adminstration in the short term. That the book also has enduring literary strengths is somewaht accidental.Beyond its short term impact on Dutch and other European readers, the works of Multatuli had an extraordinary effect on the subsequent development of Indonesian literature and intellectualism. The novels of Pramoedya Ananta Toer, modern Indonesia's foremost author, are replete with references to Multatuli, and the stylistic peculiarities of Toer's books become less puzzling when one recognizes the enduring influence of Eduard Douwes Dekker.

While the preface may be full of interesting facts I strongly recommend you do NOT read it until after you finish the novel. It may be an early novel, set in an odd framework of stories within stories but it <i>has</i> a story and that plot is completely revealed including the ending(!) by the preface. :(. Frown face. Left with knowledge of exactly what was going to happen over the next 330 pages I was supposed to enjoy the story on its merit of prose alone? That would be difficult with any work in translation, it is especially challenging with an older work.That said, the original narrator, a crotchety old Dutchman is amusing. His voice is unique from the voice of Havelaar. About 3/4 way through the book an omniscient narrator shows up without explanation. I think if the book were written with a modern editor that would have been smoothed out. The most interesting parts, the descriptions of Java and what happens to Max in Lebek are horribly spoiled by the spoiler revealing preface making that part of the book a bit of a slog. I doubt it would have been if the reader were unaware of what was going to happen next. I mean it <i>has</> events, actions and dialogue. It's just that when Max is narrating the prose is plain so in comparison to the original narrator it is not comical. And if you know what's going to happen and the writing is rather straightforward it's hard to keep going.I felt like I was trying to read a play right after I finished the cliff notes. . .It IS a legitimately interesting book. The book, as a story, unfolds better than the short preface. If you don't have time to read the book and just want to impress people at parties you can just read the preface, as it reveals the ending and everything that happens, but what's the fun in that?

Max Havelaar is the best story of the 1000 years and the Uncle Tom's Cabin of the Dutch East Indies, according to the Indonesian novelist Pramodeya Ananta Toer. The billing piqued my search for the novel.Max Havelaar, of the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company was written in 1860 by Eduward Douwes Dekker under the pen name Multatuli. The intrigue unfolds from the points of view of Droogstoppel, a stuffy Dutch coffee broker; Scarfman, an aspiring writer; Havelaar, an idealist and newly appointed Resident of Labak, Java; Blatherer, a preacher; Saijah, a young servant yearning for his love; and others, all affected by coffee markets. Interspersed are direct writings from author to reader. These asides are at times lengthy, quaint, or preachy. Not an easy read, yet intriquing enough to drive me to keep turning the pages. Indeed, the author himself describes his work as "chaotic, disjointed, striving for effect, bad in style, lacking skill.....but the substance is irrefutable." Most appealing are descriptions applicable today. Anyone who has ever been expected to report only the positive to corporate superiors, is bothered by products made by "millions who are maltreated or exploited in your name," or notices empires go to war more easily than mills are moved is bound to welcome this book. The novel hastened abolition of the Dutch Cultural System requiring compulsory growing of particular crops. Toer's characterization, if over the top, afforded me the opportunity of a brilliant read.

It is a tough one. I was trying to understand the Dutch as a nation or people. I read it in English.

Be forewarned, I purchased the $1 Kindle edition and it was not in English and therefore is not useful to me.

I bought first this Penguin edition of Max Havelaar.I started to read it but I found the typeface very small, and so I bought the Struik edition.The Struik edition is full of spelling errors which sometims make one stop and question "What does he mean?".For example, "ump" instead of "hump" and "he" instead of "the".So, buy this Penguin edition.As regards the preface by Meijer, I found it very helpful.The comment herein that it tells the story before one has read the story is correct of itself,but the story is fairly difficult to follow by itself, so having not studied it at school with the help of a teacher(which is what most Dutch people have done)I found it helpful.So, that is anoher reason to recommend this Penguin version.

Really helpful perspective on trade justice from history, for those who of us who need to be reminded that our comfort may often rely on the oppression of others.

Surprising book for English readers, who are probably unaware that after the Napoleonic Wars, Britain allowed the Dutch to continue to administer what is now Indonesia. A better verb would be exploit, and this books details the exploitation, in a sanitised way for Victorian audiences.Even in its cleaned up history, the book was a revelation to the thousands of Dutchmen and women who profited from the seedy trade in coffee, the violent taxation, and the abuse of the natives.

Set book, very intertesting

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