The Hidden Force

Louis Couperus

Jan 1990 · Univ of Massachusetts Press

About this ebook

This novel, set in Java around 1900, is centered around the family of Van Oudijck. Van Oudijck is the resident, or the man in charge, of the district of Labuwangi in the Dutch colony. Not yet fifty when the book begins, he is successful and good at his job - he's been resident here for some five years - and likes his life. Van Oudijck is not eager to get a promotion and move up to being the resident in Batavia (Jakarta) or a similarly important place - and he dreads the thought of retiring in the Netherlands, where he would be a nobody. This novel is a story about the futility and cost of colonialism to the local population, and to the colonists themselves.