Here’s a chance for foreigners bedazzled by this archipelago of astonishments to better their knowledge of its history and cultures – not through texts hammered by pedestrian academics clumsy at storytelling, but through fiction. Mataram was once a powerful Sultanate based on the lands dominated by Central Java’s Mount Merapi and the cities of Yogyakarta and Surakarta before the Dutch took control. Mataram is also a novel by a near octogenarian scholar who let his creativity roam free after a lifetime of formal study marked by footnotes. That cleared the path to introduce Tony Reid’s creation: a ginger-bearded seaman from Hampshire with a sinking marriage. His adventures help us understand the Java of four centuries ago. Thomas Hodges had little to warrant his inclusion as master’s mate in an imagined English trading venture to the East Indies in 16...