Written in a flowing style heavily dependent on letters, the novel tells the story of two childhood friends who fall in love but cannot be together.

While there he is out of contact for several months, leading Rasmani to worry and fall ill. After receiving a letter that Masrul has found a job and will be coming to meet her, she is shocked.

[3] The Indonesian literary critic Zuber Usman contrasts Kalau Tak Untung with the earlier novel Sitti Nurbaya (1923) by Marah Rusli.

He notes that both begin in a similar fashion and have the same general pattern, but, unlike Sitti Nurbaya with its background in Minang nobility, Pengaruh Keadaan portrays simple villagers without noble blood.

[1] The Japanese scholar of Indonesian literature Tsuyoshi Kato notes the presence of a non-traditional material culture in Kalau Tak Untung,[7] exemplified by the protagonists' "enthusiastic" use of letters as a means of communication.

She considers the style "graceful [and] flowing" until the end of the novel, when Masrul resorts to using "tortured, fragmented phrases" to apologise to the dead Rasmani.

[1] Kalau Tak Untung was released by the state publisher of the Dutch East Indies, Balai Pustaka, under the pseudonym Selasih.