SOURCE: "The World Beyond," in his Mirror of the Indies: A History of Dutch Colonial Literature, edited by E. M. Beekman, translated by Frans van Rosevelt, The University of Massachusetts Press, 1982, pp. 154-66.

In the following essay, which was originally published in Dutch in 1972, Nieuwenhuys praises John Company for its unity but compares it unfavorably with Schendel's other novels, faulting its lack of "real human and dramatic content.'"

Arthur van Schendel's John Company is a historical novel dealing, from a Dutch perspective, with the first Dutch settlement in the Indies. The novel shows a great deal of unity throughout. No doubt Van Schendel, while unfolding an important phase in Dutch colonial history, aimed at monumentality.

His novels, especially those written after 1930, have a broad perspective and a carefully worked-out plot. The critic Jan Greshoff, in his Notes concerning "John Company" and "The Waterman" (Aanteekeningen over Jan Compagnie...