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Rating: 
Summary: A superb translation of a superb book!
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: A self-serving narrative that disappoints.
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: A self-serving narrative that disappoints.
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: A rhetorical masterwork
Review: 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.
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