Die vyf hoofstukke van Bart Nel is soos die vyf bedrywe van ’n tragedie waarin die stropingsproses van die tragiese held dramaties verbeeld word. Op ’n nugter trant word die leefwêreld van Bart en Fransina blootgelê, ook namate trots en onbegrip hulle verder uitmekaar dryf – tot by die totale vereensaming van ’n verblindende rebel, saamgevat in die woorde: “My kry hulle nooit. Ek is Bart Nel van toe af, en ek is nog hy.” Bart Nel is nie ‘n historiese roman nie. Dis eerder ’n sielkundige of karakterroman wat handel oor ’n komplekse vereensamingsproses waarmee die werk verrassend modern was in Afrikaans. En tot op hede is daar min romans waarin die onmag en die beperktheid van mense, en die onmoontlikheid om selfs naasbestaandes en geliefdes te begryp, op so ’n beklemmende en oortuigende manier uitgebeeld word.
The novel with which Van Melle is associated above all is Bart Nel, first published in 1951. It is set during the historical rebellion of 1914 and even though Bart Nel is one of the rebel leaders, and the events of the novel are interwoven with those of the rebellion, essentially it is not a historical novel. Rather it is a psychological or character novel about a complex process of desolation. For Afrikaans writing of the time this was suprinsingly modern and up to this day there are few novels in which human impotence, limitation and the incapacity to understand even one’s closest family and loved ones have been expressed with such agony, and so convincinly.