I found this review by "a reader" on Amazon (written november 1998), and I think it's so good, I copied it. I sincerely hope "a reader" doesn't mind!
A gifted doctor seeks to escape humanity in the Jungle.
This book is superbly written. The characters are quite realistic. The main character, Anton Zorgdrager, receives a "scholarship" to medical school from the government of the Netherlands in exchange for a commitment to serve several years in the government health service treating pygmies, aborigines, and other natives of Borneo, New Guinea, and other islands in the East Indies. After graduation from medical school, he serves in various jungle settings in the East Indies. There, Zorgdrager meets a series of atheists and Christians (early Salvation Army soldiers). From certain experiences he has in the jungle, Zorgdrager becomes convinced that he has a special gift (sixth sense) that enables him immediately to diagnose early stages of diseases (leprosy, frambesia) that other doctors cannot perceive. This hubris leads him to hypothesize that God does not exist, and the evils of man can be cured simply by the discovery of a "serum of conversion," a drug that will turn its patient into a God-fearing, pious being. Self-obsession and thanatos envelop the doctor, leading to a series of personal missteps in which he foresakes the comforts of civilization for "purification" of his soul, alone in the heart of a terrifying jungle of New Guinea. This book should be a classic in the mold of Hesse's "Steppenwolf," and Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," but inexplicably I've seen no reviews of it on the Internet. This book is quite suspenseful and totally captivating. The reader should beware that one of the characters has what appears to be a dream sequence that lasts for about 40 pages (at around page 150 of the 465-page first edition (1957)) that is difficult to get through because of the incoherence that all dreams usually have. It is well worth the patience and effort to read past the dream sequence, however, because elements of the dream are important to the plot, and the book resumes its steady pace of suspense after dream sequence is over. ( )