The Tea Lords
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Review
'A compelling piece of innovative historical fiction' --Sunday Times
'An affecting portrait of a life devoted to duty, which asks whether the sacrifice was worth the emotional costs' --Financial Times
'This morally challenging work has already become a novel by which others, inside and outside its tradition, can be judged' --Independent
`A moving, densely textured book which deserves the status it has already achieved in the Netherlands' --Giles Foden, Conde Nast Traveller
'Haasse's stories derive an unostentatious strength from her steady, irresistible immersion in her characters' lives'
--Guardian --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
'An affecting portrait of a life devoted to duty, which asks whether the sacrifice was worth the emotional costs' --Financial Times
'This morally challenging work has already become a novel by which others, inside and outside its tradition, can be judged' --Independent
`A moving, densely textured book which deserves the status it has already achieved in the Netherlands' --Giles Foden, Conde Nast Traveller
'Haasse's stories derive an unostentatious strength from her steady, irresistible immersion in her characters' lives'
--Guardian --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Product Description
Rudolf leaves his comfortable origins in Delft by ship for Java to help run the family's estates there. He moves from plantation to plantation, attempting to understand the ways of the local peoples, their version of Islam and their relationship to their land. On a visit to the capital, Jakarta, he falls in love with a teenage girl, Jenny, who he courts surreptitiously via his sister, with grave consequences for the reality of their relationships. Eventually they marry, and make a hard colonist-couple's life theirs, bear, lose and raise children, before Jenny on her visit to the home country discovers all the comforts of which she has been deprived in Java. Back at the plantation homestead, as the back-breaking work of establishing and maintaining business takes its toll on Rudolf, Jenny becomes estranged from him, and the bitter resentments of relatives eat at her until a terrible solution is achieved.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Haasse's 'The Tea Lords' is about colonial life in the Dutch East Indies (present day Indonesia), as experienced by the Kerkhoven family between 1869 and 1918. Principally, the book follows the expatriate life of Rudolf Kerkhoven, the eldest son, from the time he prepares to leave Holland to join his family in the cultivation of tea, through to the end of his working life.
This is very much a portrait of colonial life and more interestingly perhaps, of the colonial mindset. In Holland prior to his departure, Rudolf sees himself as a man of "broad horizons" ready to go out and explore the world. On arrival in the tea plantations, he falls very genuinely in love with the land and the landscapes, yet slowly the years of arduous work to make a success of his life gradually mean that his world shrinks to little more than the jobs in hand on the farm. The book is rich in the beauty of Indonesia and is peppered with native Soedanese and Malay words, but there is little by way of indigenous activity. The Kerhovens and their friends see themselves as distinct from the Dutch they left behind in Holland, they are steadfast in their belief that they are of the East Indies and belong there.
It's worth pointing out that this is not strictly a novel. The book is instead based on private correspondence and documents from The Indies Tea and Family Archive and also from clearly substantial records from various family collections. As Haasse writes at the end, the material in the book is "not invented but chosen and arranged to meet the demands of the novel". So 'The Tea Lords' is neither quite fact nor fiction but it maintains a beautifully compelling middle road. The European characters are all very believeable and lovingly drawn, with a very real attempt by Haasse to understand and convey the emotions, pressures and principles behind her source material. She brings the Kerkhovens to life and in so doing, recreates a bygone age with all its hopes, aspirations, pressures, obligations, manners and morals. It's a beautifully written book and a really fascinating and engaging read. I would recommend it simply in its own right, but you will particularly like this if you like tea, if you think you know all about colonialism and if you enjoy tales about 19th Century families.
This is very much a portrait of colonial life and more interestingly perhaps, of the colonial mindset. In Holland prior to his departure, Rudolf sees himself as a man of "broad horizons" ready to go out and explore the world. On arrival in the tea plantations, he falls very genuinely in love with the land and the landscapes, yet slowly the years of arduous work to make a success of his life gradually mean that his world shrinks to little more than the jobs in hand on the farm. The book is rich in the beauty of Indonesia and is peppered with native Soedanese and Malay words, but there is little by way of indigenous activity. The Kerhovens and their friends see themselves as distinct from the Dutch they left behind in Holland, they are steadfast in their belief that they are of the East Indies and belong there.
It's worth pointing out that this is not strictly a novel. The book is instead based on private correspondence and documents from The Indies Tea and Family Archive and also from clearly substantial records from various family collections. As Haasse writes at the end, the material in the book is "not invented but chosen and arranged to meet the demands of the novel". So 'The Tea Lords' is neither quite fact nor fiction but it maintains a beautifully compelling middle road. The European characters are all very believeable and lovingly drawn, with a very real attempt by Haasse to understand and convey the emotions, pressures and principles behind her source material. She brings the Kerkhovens to life and in so doing, recreates a bygone age with all its hopes, aspirations, pressures, obligations, manners and morals. It's a beautifully written book and a really fascinating and engaging read. I would recommend it simply in its own right, but you will particularly like this if you like tea, if you think you know all about colonialism and if you enjoy tales about 19th Century families.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
First I would like to point out that I recently read the book in Dutch - not the English translation.
As the previous reviewer pointed out, Haasse based the book mainly on letters written by members of a Dutch colonial family that was instrumental in developing tea plantations in Indonesia.
She does so in a very creative way - and the resulting characters are very believable and sound authenthic. This is actually the strong point of the book.
I believe it has a much larger appeal that the original Dutch audience- it was a bestseller in Holland. As a neutral reader ( I am from Belgium) I believe that the faithful recreation of these aristocratic / authoritarian colonial people will please many people - and i truly enjoyed the book
As the previous reviewer pointed out, Haasse based the book mainly on letters written by members of a Dutch colonial family that was instrumental in developing tea plantations in Indonesia.
She does so in a very creative way - and the resulting characters are very believable and sound authenthic. This is actually the strong point of the book.
I believe it has a much larger appeal that the original Dutch audience- it was a bestseller in Holland. As a neutral reader ( I am from Belgium) I believe that the faithful recreation of these aristocratic / authoritarian colonial people will please many people - and i truly enjoyed the book
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book really doesn't work. At the level of the collection of letters upon which it is supposedly based, these are simply too few to give a coherent history. At the level of a novel the character painting is poor and at no point are you made to care what happens to any of them. The letters add little to the storyline and if you expect to become more knowledgeable about tea and quinine plantations in the East Indies then you will be sorely disappointed.
Sales to the descendants of the Kerkhoven Family probably account for its popularity rather like the audience in a school Nativity Play.
Sales to the descendants of the Kerkhoven Family probably account for its popularity rather like the audience in a school Nativity Play.
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