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Robert Van Gulik: His Life His Work
Born in Holland in 1910 but raised in Java, Robert Hans van Gulik explored esoteric Buddhism and translated ancient texts, including an authentic Chinese 16th century detective novel, around which he created a fictional series. Based on extensive research, renowned author Janwillem van de Wetering, whose life and career parallels that of his subject, examines van Gulik's life and work.
149 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
About the author
Janwillem van de Wetering
150 books130 followersJan Willem Lincoln "Janwillem" van de Wetering was the author of a number of works in English and Dutch.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
May 19, 2017
It might not be the best idea to read a biography of a writer without having read any of their fictional works. Then again, when this book came in the mail from a friend, I was intrigued by the cover and the summary and I couldn't help myself. Van Gulik's life story sounded so exciting and implausible that I had a hard time believing he wasn't some other crafty writer's fictional creation. A little sleuthing (alright, Wikipedia) confirmed this brilliant Orientalist was in fact real.
Robert Van Gulik was a Dutch diplomat who spent a good deal of time in the Orient and fell in love with China. He discovered tales of mandarins/Chinese officials from previous dynasties who solved mysteries, sort of proto-Sherlock Holmes tales written centuries before Conan-Doyle created the sage of Baker Street. Gulik took these real characters and created a fictional universe beloved by millions, which was forgotten for a couple of decades and then rediscovered and reissued (selling millions of copies again, the second time-around).
I knew little about Chinese history and nothing about Gulik before picking up this book. Van de Wetering's text works as a concise, well-illustrated summary of the quixotic Gulik's weltanschaaung, as well as a sort of primer on Eastern Thought for Dummies (like me). I found this to be a short and enjoyable window into a world I definitely want to further explore. Now the only question remaining is which of Gulik's "Judge Dee" mysteries to read first. Recommended.
Robert Van Gulik was a Dutch diplomat who spent a good deal of time in the Orient and fell in love with China. He discovered tales of mandarins/Chinese officials from previous dynasties who solved mysteries, sort of proto-Sherlock Holmes tales written centuries before Conan-Doyle created the sage of Baker Street. Gulik took these real characters and created a fictional universe beloved by millions, which was forgotten for a couple of decades and then rediscovered and reissued (selling millions of copies again, the second time-around).
I knew little about Chinese history and nothing about Gulik before picking up this book. Van de Wetering's text works as a concise, well-illustrated summary of the quixotic Gulik's weltanschaaung, as well as a sort of primer on Eastern Thought for Dummies (like me). I found this to be a short and enjoyable window into a world I definitely want to further explore. Now the only question remaining is which of Gulik's "Judge Dee" mysteries to read first. Recommended.
January 5, 2009
I enjoy the Judge Dee novels of Van Gulik and the Dutch mystery novels of van de Wetering, but this look at the life of Van Gulik was only so-so. Van Gulik was a fascinating person, but van de Wetering did not make him come alive to me
February 14, 2017
What a book! I devoured the Judge Dee mysteries when I was a kid. Later, I devoured Jan Willem van de Wetering's Grijpstra & de Gier detective stories. Just imagine the luxury of van de Wetering as the biographer of van Gulik!
In the end there's only one thing you need to know, at the end of his life, he had a visit in the hospital from a Dutch consul in Korea, who wanted to be reassigned to Japan. Van Gulik accomplished that with a single phone call. The consul then asked him: "Don't you mind dying sir?" To which van Gulik answered: "Forgive me a little lofty talk, but all movement is illusory. From Seoul to Kobe. From life to death."
The explorations of van de Wetering into authors and their imagination and the role of projection are marvelous. The author is all the characters in his book, just as much as we are all the characters in our dream. Along with that, one begins to understand the deep connection with Chinese culture that is represented in van Gulik's life and work. And to the long list of Chinese firsts, which were so well documented by Simon Winchester, we can add the whodunit as a literary form, for Dee Gong An, the original story of Judge Dee, which van Gulik translated first, and which became the inspiration for his sixteen Judge Dee novels, goes back to the 7th century. Recommended!
In the end there's only one thing you need to know, at the end of his life, he had a visit in the hospital from a Dutch consul in Korea, who wanted to be reassigned to Japan. Van Gulik accomplished that with a single phone call. The consul then asked him: "Don't you mind dying sir?" To which van Gulik answered: "Forgive me a little lofty talk, but all movement is illusory. From Seoul to Kobe. From life to death."
The explorations of van de Wetering into authors and their imagination and the role of projection are marvelous. The author is all the characters in his book, just as much as we are all the characters in our dream. Along with that, one begins to understand the deep connection with Chinese culture that is represented in van Gulik's life and work. And to the long list of Chinese firsts, which were so well documented by Simon Winchester, we can add the whodunit as a literary form, for Dee Gong An, the original story of Judge Dee, which van Gulik translated first, and which became the inspiration for his sixteen Judge Dee novels, goes back to the 7th century. Recommended!
May 22, 2021
An excellent biography that makes you feel like you’ve met a very interesting person, and a talented writer about that person, and a the same time sad that you can’t continue a conversation with either of them. Well worth the time.
September 25, 2023
Here, once again, as in the case of Hồ Chí Minh*, is a short biographical sketch of a great linguist, diplomatist, scholar and poet in the classical Chinese tradition. Aside from that somewhat superficial commonality, though, the lives of these two men were quite different. On the other hand, I suspect that if they had actually met (perhaps during the Second World War, which both of them spent largely in southern China), they would almost certainly have had many things to talk about and would surely have enjoyed one another's company...
Robert Hans van Gulik (9 August 1910 - 24 September 1967) was born in the minor Hanseatic city of Zutphen in The Netherlands, but he spent most of his childhood in and around the city of Batavia, on the island of Java in the Dutch East Indies (now Jakarta, Indonesia), where his father was stationed as a physician in the K.N.I.L. (Koninklijk Nederlandsch-Indisch Leger, i.e. Royal Netherlands East Indies Army). While yet a small child, he exhibited both insatiable curiosity about and exceptional talent for languages. As a European child and the son of an officer, he was naturally admitted to one of the better elementary schools in which Dutch was the language of instruction; this did not, however, prevent him from picking up a basic fluency in both Malay and Javanese from the household servants, his neighbourhood playmates, and no doubt others as well. In addition, he became obsessively fascinated with Chinese characters and apparently was known to regularly beg Chinese shopkeepers in the area to teach him what the characters on their signs meant, and how to pronounce and write them. He must have been both persistent and persuasive, because he was able to attain at least a basic fluency, and some ability to read and write, in one or more Chinese dialects before returning to Europe to continue his education.
Upon returning to The Netherlands at the age of 12, he was enrolled in a gymnasium in Nijmegen, where during the course of his studies (in addition to all the other subjects in the curriculum, i.e. mathematics, physics, chemistry etc.) he added Greek, Latin, French, German and English to his rapidly increasing repertoire. He also engaged a Chinese student as a private tutor, so he could "perfect" his spoken Mandarin & Cantonese and add to his knowledge of written Chinese. At some point during his Gymnasium studies he had the incredible good fortune to become acquainted with Professor Dr. Christianus Cornelius Uhlenbeck, who was described by the author of the present book as "Holland's most celebrated linguist". The eminent Professor Doktor immediately recognised Robert van Gulik's extraordinary and precocious gifts, and began teaching him Russian; this was accomplished more quickly than expected, so he also taught him Sanskrit. By this time, the young protégé had begun to assist his mentor with his own scholarly work as well, and the Professor Doktor expressed his gratitude for the assistance by crediting him as co-author of 'An English-Blackfoot Vocabulary: Based on Material from the Southern Peigans' (1930) & 'A Blackfoot-English Vocabulary Based on Material from the Southern Peigans' (1934). Robert van Gulik thus became one of the very few individuals during the modern era to have his first scholarly publication before even embarking upon his undergraduate university studies. As if this was not enough, he capped off his gymnasium studies by becoming a contributor to 'China', the official scholarly publication of the Dutch Chinese Cultural Association, in which were published several of his essays on ancient Chinese poetry.
In 1929, the still quite young but already respected scholar began his university studies at the oldest and most famous university in The Netherlands, Universiteit Leiden. Universiteit Leiden was, and is to this day, one of the great centers for Asian studies in Europe. He studied "Indisch Recht" (Dutch East Indies law) and "Indologie" (history & culture of the Dutch East Indies), as well as Chinese and Japanese language and literature. He earned his baccalaureate degree in 1933 with a thesis entitled 'The Development of the Juridical Position of the Chinese in the Netherlands Indies', then transferred to the Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht for further studies. At Utrecht, he studied Tibetan and Sanskrit while preparing his essay 'Mi Fu on Ink-stones', which he submitted as his master's thesis, receiving his degree in 1934. Wasting no time, he then submited his doctoral dissertation, a treatise on esoteric historical Buddhist practices entitled 'Hayagriva, mantrayanic aspects of horsecult in China and Japan', less than a year later, receiving his Ph.D. cum laude. He applied that same year for acceptance into the Dutch foreign service, and was accepted.
For his first diplomatic posting, Robert van Gulik was assigned a position in the Dutch embassy to the Empire of Japan in Tokyo. In 1938 he became one of the founders of the 'Monumenta Nipponica' monograph series (established under the auspices of Sophia University), and contributed two essays on the historical & cultural aspects of Chinese lute music which were issued as volumes 3 & 4 in the series. When the Imperial Japanese Navy launched surprise attacks on U.S. naval & military establishments in Hawaii, the Philippine Islands and Guam on 7 & 8 December 1941, thus expanding the already extant war on the Asian mainland throughout the entire Pacific region, all allied diplomatic personnel were immediately evacuated from Japan. After temporary assignments in East Africa, Egypt and India, Robert van Gulik received a promotion, and in 1943 was posted as First Secretary to the Dutch Legation in Chungking, the wartime capital of the Republic of China. Soon after his arrival there, he met Shui Shifang, daughter of an imperial mandarin and alumna of Ch'i-lu University, who was employed as a typist at the legation. They were married on 18 December 1943, and would eventually have three sons and a daughter together.
After the war, in 1946, he was transferred back to The Netherlands, where he was assigned to work in the Political Affairs Section of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Den Haag. After a short time, he was posted to the U.S.A. as a counselor at the Dutch Embassy in Washington, D.C. while concurrently serving as an advisor to the Far Eastern Commission, advising the member states in matters regarding the occupation of Japan. In 1948, Robert van Gulik was sent back to Japan (this time with his young family) upon his appointment as advisor to the Netherlands Military Mission at Kyoto. It was during this posting, finding himself with less work than expected and more time on his hands, that he began work on his translation of an 18th century Chinese detective novel, the First Edition of which he had privately printed in Tokyo in 1949 as Dee Goong An: An Ancient Chinese Detective Story.
At this point, I am going to stop for a while, both because this seems like a good place to stop and also because after discovering that there is now an actual serious biography available (and already translated into English!) of Robert van Gulik, Dutch Mandarin: The Life and Work of Robert Hans van Gulik, I am going to wait until I have read it before I continue this review, most likely combined with a review of the other book. So if you found the above at all interesting, I promise there will be more by-and-by...
* See my previously written review of Ho Chi Minh: A biographical introduction, by Charles Fenn (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...).
Robert Hans van Gulik (9 August 1910 - 24 September 1967) was born in the minor Hanseatic city of Zutphen in The Netherlands, but he spent most of his childhood in and around the city of Batavia, on the island of Java in the Dutch East Indies (now Jakarta, Indonesia), where his father was stationed as a physician in the K.N.I.L. (Koninklijk Nederlandsch-Indisch Leger, i.e. Royal Netherlands East Indies Army). While yet a small child, he exhibited both insatiable curiosity about and exceptional talent for languages. As a European child and the son of an officer, he was naturally admitted to one of the better elementary schools in which Dutch was the language of instruction; this did not, however, prevent him from picking up a basic fluency in both Malay and Javanese from the household servants, his neighbourhood playmates, and no doubt others as well. In addition, he became obsessively fascinated with Chinese characters and apparently was known to regularly beg Chinese shopkeepers in the area to teach him what the characters on their signs meant, and how to pronounce and write them. He must have been both persistent and persuasive, because he was able to attain at least a basic fluency, and some ability to read and write, in one or more Chinese dialects before returning to Europe to continue his education.
Upon returning to The Netherlands at the age of 12, he was enrolled in a gymnasium in Nijmegen, where during the course of his studies (in addition to all the other subjects in the curriculum, i.e. mathematics, physics, chemistry etc.) he added Greek, Latin, French, German and English to his rapidly increasing repertoire. He also engaged a Chinese student as a private tutor, so he could "perfect" his spoken Mandarin & Cantonese and add to his knowledge of written Chinese. At some point during his Gymnasium studies he had the incredible good fortune to become acquainted with Professor Dr. Christianus Cornelius Uhlenbeck, who was described by the author of the present book as "Holland's most celebrated linguist". The eminent Professor Doktor immediately recognised Robert van Gulik's extraordinary and precocious gifts, and began teaching him Russian; this was accomplished more quickly than expected, so he also taught him Sanskrit. By this time, the young protégé had begun to assist his mentor with his own scholarly work as well, and the Professor Doktor expressed his gratitude for the assistance by crediting him as co-author of 'An English-Blackfoot Vocabulary: Based on Material from the Southern Peigans' (1930) & 'A Blackfoot-English Vocabulary Based on Material from the Southern Peigans' (1934). Robert van Gulik thus became one of the very few individuals during the modern era to have his first scholarly publication before even embarking upon his undergraduate university studies. As if this was not enough, he capped off his gymnasium studies by becoming a contributor to 'China', the official scholarly publication of the Dutch Chinese Cultural Association, in which were published several of his essays on ancient Chinese poetry.
In 1929, the still quite young but already respected scholar began his university studies at the oldest and most famous university in The Netherlands, Universiteit Leiden. Universiteit Leiden was, and is to this day, one of the great centers for Asian studies in Europe. He studied "Indisch Recht" (Dutch East Indies law) and "Indologie" (history & culture of the Dutch East Indies), as well as Chinese and Japanese language and literature. He earned his baccalaureate degree in 1933 with a thesis entitled 'The Development of the Juridical Position of the Chinese in the Netherlands Indies', then transferred to the Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht for further studies. At Utrecht, he studied Tibetan and Sanskrit while preparing his essay 'Mi Fu on Ink-stones', which he submitted as his master's thesis, receiving his degree in 1934. Wasting no time, he then submited his doctoral dissertation, a treatise on esoteric historical Buddhist practices entitled 'Hayagriva, mantrayanic aspects of horsecult in China and Japan', less than a year later, receiving his Ph.D. cum laude. He applied that same year for acceptance into the Dutch foreign service, and was accepted.
For his first diplomatic posting, Robert van Gulik was assigned a position in the Dutch embassy to the Empire of Japan in Tokyo. In 1938 he became one of the founders of the 'Monumenta Nipponica' monograph series (established under the auspices of Sophia University), and contributed two essays on the historical & cultural aspects of Chinese lute music which were issued as volumes 3 & 4 in the series. When the Imperial Japanese Navy launched surprise attacks on U.S. naval & military establishments in Hawaii, the Philippine Islands and Guam on 7 & 8 December 1941, thus expanding the already extant war on the Asian mainland throughout the entire Pacific region, all allied diplomatic personnel were immediately evacuated from Japan. After temporary assignments in East Africa, Egypt and India, Robert van Gulik received a promotion, and in 1943 was posted as First Secretary to the Dutch Legation in Chungking, the wartime capital of the Republic of China. Soon after his arrival there, he met Shui Shifang, daughter of an imperial mandarin and alumna of Ch'i-lu University, who was employed as a typist at the legation. They were married on 18 December 1943, and would eventually have three sons and a daughter together.
After the war, in 1946, he was transferred back to The Netherlands, where he was assigned to work in the Political Affairs Section of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Den Haag. After a short time, he was posted to the U.S.A. as a counselor at the Dutch Embassy in Washington, D.C. while concurrently serving as an advisor to the Far Eastern Commission, advising the member states in matters regarding the occupation of Japan. In 1948, Robert van Gulik was sent back to Japan (this time with his young family) upon his appointment as advisor to the Netherlands Military Mission at Kyoto. It was during this posting, finding himself with less work than expected and more time on his hands, that he began work on his translation of an 18th century Chinese detective novel, the First Edition of which he had privately printed in Tokyo in 1949 as Dee Goong An: An Ancient Chinese Detective Story.
At this point, I am going to stop for a while, both because this seems like a good place to stop and also because after discovering that there is now an actual serious biography available (and already translated into English!) of Robert van Gulik, Dutch Mandarin: The Life and Work of Robert Hans van Gulik, I am going to wait until I have read it before I continue this review, most likely combined with a review of the other book. So if you found the above at all interesting, I promise there will be more by-and-by...
* See my previously written review of Ho Chi Minh: A biographical introduction, by Charles Fenn (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...).
August 18, 2025
Janwillem van de Wetering neemt ons mee in het fascinerende leven van Robert van Gulik. Ronduit geniale schrijver van de Rechter Tie-reeks maar ook van wetenschappelijke verhandelingen, poylglot en overzees diplomaat van Nederland.
Geen traditionele biografie, maar een reeks anekdotische beschrijvingen bij een aantal verschillende aspecten van het leven en vooral het werk van o.a. de ambassadeur van Nederland in Japan.
Geen traditionele biografie, maar een reeks anekdotische beschrijvingen bij een aantal verschillende aspecten van het leven en vooral het werk van o.a. de ambassadeur van Nederland in Japan.
August 7, 2021
My mother and I read all of the Judge Dee mysteries so this was an interesting look into the author. Also the aspect that he was born in the Netherlands but raised in Indonesia just like my father. I wish this book had been published before my mother died - she would have enjoyed it.
December 19, 2013
Interesting if you're a Judge Dee fan.
October 11, 2015
Interesting to learn more about Van Gulik but did not enjoy the author's writing style.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews