Evening star., 1933-05-23
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM
M. C..

Indies. BY Madelon Lulofs. Trans
lated from the Dutch by G. j. Rem
Ter and Irene ~Clephane. New York:
The Century Co.
Nine Madelon H. Szekely-Lulofs is q
product of the tropics, and during her
life among the native tribes and among
those of white blood who find them
selves literally exiled from the white
mans world she has gained enough
background and experience to fill many
interesting volumes. This story, how
ever, Is her first successful contribution
to literature, and she has chosen the
novel as the medium of its exposition.
Her love for stories led her into the
manufacture of many vivid and pic
turesque tales for her own amusement
before she was old enough to handle a
pencil, and she has been thinking them
though until the present publication
made its appearance she has not been
well known in literary capacity. 1t
might be interesting to note here that
her first recorded effort at writing was
a letter addressed to God. This is not
particularly unusual in itself, for many
children write to God, and more often
than not for very remarkable reasons.
Little Madelon's letter, however, con-
tanned a most extraordinary request:
my dear, dear God Won't you
please send me an angel? want to
give it to my doll. Yours very truly,
Tootsy"
She was born in Soerabaja Java, and
being the daughter OF civil otncer OF
the Dutch government in the colonies,
she was necessarily moved from place
to place at frequent intervals, giving her
the splendid experience Of attending
some nine elementary schools before she
was sent to Holland to complete her
education. Fearing for her safety after
the outbreak Of the Great War, her father
arranged for her return to the Dutch col
onies, and two years later, at the age OF
seventeen, she married M. Lulofs, q
Hungarian whose fortune was invested
in the rubber industry Of the tropics.
The collapse of the rubber market,
household duties and the care OF babies
kept Nine. Lulofs too busy for a while
to indulge in the expression OF her un-
doubted talent, but when she and her
husband returned to his home in Hun
gary she found that the only means by
which the depleted family fortunes
could receive aid was through her pen.
white Money" is the result of that ef-
fort, and it went rapidly into four edi-
tions in Holland.
The story is laid in the tropics Of
Sumatra, where white men struggle
against an alien civilization until they
actually become strangers to themselves.
Through years of battle against home
sickness, against intolerable heat, against
the strangling jungle, white men work
to preserve themselves for the time
when, their fortunes made, they return
to their own world. Men divided within
themselves! For they know, however
much they try to deceive themselves,
that eventually they will become VIC
tins Of the tropics. Many OF them go
home, only to find themselves strangers
to the life they once lived, and despite
the hardshfps, the aching loneliness, the
dread of the heat and the jungle back
they 60. The urge of the tropics is too
big and too strong to defeat. Wherever
else they may go they are exiles.
In the Dutch East Indies there are
great wealth-producing rubber planta-
tions, where white men strive against
alien climate, conditions and civiliza-
ton to defeat overpowertng influences
In an effort to wiring out Of the soil
the fortunes they expect to make.
Through many years the brave adven-
turers Of the Caucasian race struggled
in entire isolation from all the things
that meant comfort, happiness and the
joys of home life. No woman Of their
own race was believed to possess the
strength and the endurance required to
exist In the alien land, and so there
were none.
But it is the destiny Of women to fol-
low their men. just as surely as men
adventure into strange places, just so
surely will women eventually follow
them. White women entered the for
hidden life in the tropics. They suf-
rors of jungle, the agony Of homesick-
their coming life for the white man in
the Dutch East Indies changed.
The two figures around whom the
story of white Money" Is woven are
Frank and Marian Versteegh, as strong
in their love as the jungle itself, and
as stabilizing an influence in a topsy-
turvy world as mighty cliff against
which storm may lash in vain. With
the coming Of white women to the
jungle came also the civilizing influence
which they were intended by their
Maker to represent Spreading over
the colonies in the natural course Of
its development, this influence brought
many changes in the ways Of life among
the whites in the tropics. But it
brought other elements also, Of which
up to that time these colonies had
been free.
With the arrival at the colony of
the young, beautiful and very modern
French wife Of John Van Laer things
begin to change rapidly. Intrigue and
the jealousies and rivalries and hatreds
which follow in its wake run rampant,
introducing elements more difficult to
defeat than the ever-growing jungle.
But the growth Of wealth breeds, as
always, spirit Of liberation, even
though those who benefit most realize
fully the demoralizing influences under
the crust of a wave Of prosperity.
Women Of America and women OF
Europe flock into the colony, and with
the introduction and acceptance of
American customs social activities and
contacts become more free and more
pleasant. American millions are put
to work financing huge enterprises, and
rubber prices soar higher and higher.
Wealth flows in like a river at flood
tide, and flowing in with it is high
pitch Of excitement which filters poison
into the blood Of the money-mad pop
ulation. The boom in rubber, like
great real estate booms In this country
that have wrecked fortunes running
into millions and broken hearts run
ming into hundreds of thousands, sky
rocketed on and on. There was no
limit to the wealth to be had, no limit
to the money that could be offered for
privileges of promotion, no belief in
the intrigue and duplicity which was
rotting the roots of the tree of wealth.
And then the crash came.
From the early days Of the first
clearing Of the jungles Nine. Lulofs car
ries this powerful novel through all the
stages of the development of the Su-
matran rubber industry until it reaches
its climax in the collapse of Wall Street
and the consequent wreckage of for
tunes and Of lives as the world plunged
headlong into economic chaos.
white Money" has all of the appeal
of the exotic beauty and attraction of
the tropics in its vivid portrayal of the
lives of adventures and its graphic
revelation of the hurly-burly conditions