Little Dutchman

THE OTHER WORLD -- Madelon Lulofs -- Viking ($2.50).

For Anglo-Saxons, Joseph Conrad and Somerset Maugham are the authorities, as far as novels go, on the East Indies. For Dutchmen, Madelon Lulofs tells the tale. Born in Sumatra, she writes of Holland's "other world" with first-hand knowledge.

This story of a Dutch rubber planter during the pre-War boom and the post-War gloom will not seem to U. S. readers so colorful as Conrad's nor so mordant as Maugham's. But as a straight report of a planter's life from A to Z it is a first-rate job. As a novel it cannot be rated quite so high.

Pieter Vos was a sallow, bandy-legged little city boy, who hated his menial job and poor prospects, jumped at the chance to make a pile as a rubber planter. When the rubber company took him on and paid him a month's salary in advance Piet had big visions. They began to get knocked out of him on the boat. He was horribly seasick. The stewards bullied him. His cabinmate bullied him, made him sleep on deck while he entertained a girl below. The reality of the tropics was so much too much for him that he immediately came down with malaria. His fellow-planters thought he was awful; ragged him for a while, then let him severely alone.

Gradually, painfully, Piet began to find his niche. A friendly planter got him a native housekeeper; her respectful affection and competent managing gave him some degree of comfort. He worked hard, never took a holiday until the doctor made him, saved every guilder. About the time rubber prices began to boom Piet's antlike qualities landed him a really good job on an isolated island. Then his boss catspawed him into marrying a European mistress who was getting troublesome. Piet, who was innocent enough to think the girl was in love with him, was overjoyed, gave his faithful brown housekeeper the goby. By the time his long-deferred leave came due, Piet was a rich man. But on the way home, and once they got there, he found that neither a pretty wife nor success were all they were cracked up to be. After showing himself off to his gaping family, he miserably watched his wife's real colors showing through at last. When she refused to go back with him to the tropics, Piet left her and went alone, though the bottom had dropped out of the rubber market, his plantation was closed down and there was no job waiting for him. But the island was still there, and so was his brown woman. Piet went native with a will, and died not in harness but in clover.

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