Joseph Conrad

What are your thoughts about the author of Nostromo, The Secret Agent, Lord Jim, Heart of Darkness, The Nigger of the 'Narcissus' and many other novels, novellas and short-stories?

I think he's one of the finest authors of the English language and beyond. For me his greatness isn't so much in his style, which, with its long sentences, was remarkable in itself, but in the sharpness of his reflections about humanity. He had great analytical powers which, aided by cynical, disillusioned view of men, he employed to dismantle certains myths and notions deeply rooted in the European society of his time. Nostromo and Heart of Darkness, for instance, lay bare the greed and the bloodshed behind the civilising rhetoric of colonialism.

His work shows what a vicious endeavor is the creation of civilisation, and yet he has many doubts about the goodness of people. Lord Jim and Nostromo concern men who wrestle with their own consciousness, who take their inflated sense of virtue to self-destructive extremes.

In his work live many colorful and complex characters, from all walks of life and with their own mentalities: sailors, colonials, marauders, terrorists, saboteurs, politicians, capitalists, idealists, revolutionaries, scoundrels, freedom fighters, thieves, dictators, detectives. The novel I'm reading right now, Nostromo, is populated with so many fully-realised individuals it's amazing how Conrad could put himself in the shoes of so many types of people and write them so truthfully and non-judgementally.

Has anyone read Under Western Eyes? That's the novel I want to tackle next.

Heart of Darkness is still one of my favorite pieces of literature that I've ever read, and the most read of any piece of literature. I find it brilliant. I've only read one of his others--The Secret Agent--and did not enjoy it much. I've been meaning to read Lord Jim and Nostromo.

When I first attempted to read Lord Jim I have to give up on it and honestly I really did not care for how it was written. I could not get into the story, and I found it confusing to follow what was going on and initially after that I had swore of Conrad but after a while I relented a bit and decided to give him another chance. I have since read The Heart of Darkness which I did in fact really enjoy and so I am considering reattempting Lord Jim but have not yet been able to bring myself to do so.

I've read Heart of Darkness, as any literature fan should, and loved it. I will be reading Lord Jim for class in the upcoming semester and I'm glad I'll be reading it with the support of a professor and class as I've heard it's a difficult read.

I agree.http://pages.eggge.com/images/52.gif

Joseph Conrad has been called many things by many people. Racism, ethnocentrism, and all other similar charges aside, (though those are absolutely valid arguments) Conrad was a writer with the prose of a chemistry professor. He seemed like a writer picked out of another profession. His writing style is clunky, much too wordy, unnecessarily dense, and even laborious at times. Due to these particular flaws, Heart of Darkness - a novella - seemed longer than an eight hundred page Russian novel. He certainly created lasting images and scenes, but his writing style got in the way most of the time.

Conrad is verbose but even still his prose is technically superior in many ways to many other authors'. This reader is especially aware of this lately because the worst idea he has ever had here on LitNet was an attempt to disseminate one of Conrad's stories (The Point of Honor) in an effort to improve his own writing skill. This was a flawed idea for many reasons, not the least of which was that it was terribly slow going (and eventually abandoned. You can probably find the old skeleton of a thread if you're curious).

But he's one of the few who really engineered his use of language (even if it was 'running rich', metaphorically speaking).






J

Indeed his style is verbose, dense, sometimes confusing. But I think he took more chances than his contemporaries. His abrupt changes of perspective, unusual for his time, are now the bread and butter of any novelist. More impressive, but less copied, is the long sequence in HoD when Marlowe imagines meeting Kurtz and it takes a bit of attention to realise that's just happening in his mind, that it's not the real action. Confusing? Yes. Bold? Absolutely!

And in Nostromo, which I'm reading now, he inserted a prolepsis in the middle of a chapter; it's a jump several years ahead of the events he describes; and then he returns to the main storyline. It's amazing!

I have read The Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim, and I did not think much of the style or content of either. I got the impression that Conrad never really learned how to express himself in English. The stories were simple stories that were expanded into many more words than were needed. And, even with all of the extra words, it seemed like Conrad never really got to the heart of the matter.

I think you overrate Conrad by calling him one of the fine authors in the English language. He's an inconsistent writer in my opinion, continually rehashing a kind (or maybe a few kinds) of story so as to get it right.Lord Jim is a fantastic book, but Heart of Darkness shows the worst of him. Sentence structures can be repetitive, overloaded with adjectives, and they often refuse to build upon one another - he tends to chose to continually invoke rather than to explore anything with particular depth. I suppose this is hardly a strong criticism, and Conrad can be very exploratory with his writing, even as he's seemingly only going about telling a story, but it can be, at least for me, a little tedious and unsatisfying. Reading Heart of Darkness I got too sick of his seeming inability to use any noun without attaching an adjective to the front of it - often a poetic cliche, along the lines of rushing, wavering, languid, rustling, spectral, etc - to enjoy the book.

I love Heart of Darkness, and have re-read it several times, exactly because of the fact that Conrad suggests more than he shows. Indeed he chooses adjectives thematically connected to darkness that pull up a veil of indefinition, mystery, vaguness, incompleteness around the story; this, of course, can be see as Marlow's inability to fully verbalise the full horrors of what he witnessed in Africa, which in turn refers to the truth that, he writes in the end, must be kept hidden from civilisation for its own protection.

Joseph Conrad was from my country - Poland and his real name was: Józef Teodor Korzeniowski. His books such as: "Lord Jim" and "Heart of Darkness" are school readings in Poland. Frankly, I regret that he is more popular abroad than in my country.

but generally his books are worth the effort. I've read about half of his novels, and hopefully I will read the other half. Conrad is not nearly as verbose as Thackeray or Henry James. Nor as hard to read as Ulysses.

I have read Nostromo and Lord Jim twice, because they are somewhat deep books and require concentration. But I found them worth the extra effort I put into reading them. I have Conrad's complete novels. Anyone who likes literature should be willing to leap into the breecrh and read one of the world's greatest writers.

His prose lacks clarity but he had an incisive mind. Nostromo, for instance, deals with questions that are making headlines in the European Union and the USA right now: national debt crises, the influence of private capital on the sovereignty of states, bankrupt countries unable to get credit in the markets. He even writes about companies financing pro-business dictators.

He was ahead of his time and his influence is visible, for example, in writers like Mario Vargas Llosa and V.S. Naipaul. The War of the End of the World, for instance, is a tale of revolution, self-autonomy and political repression told with the bird's eye view that captures an entire society and changing perspectives that characterise Conrad's style.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Adam Zemelka

Joseph Conrad was from my country - Poland and his real name was: Józef Teodor Korzeniowski. His books such as: "Lord Jim" and "Heart of Darkness" are school readings in Poland. Frankly, I regret that he is more popular abroad than in my country.

---

It's an interesting, complicated situation: he was Polish, but he wrote in English; I presume Polish schoolchildren read him in translation. It's hard then to call him a true Polish writer. I myself never thought of him like that, with all due respect. To paraphrase Fernando Pessoa, "my fatherland is my language."

It is not too much to call him one of the very best writers in the English language. His style may not be liked by everyone but he was a crazy good writer. Dark Muse: It's not that difficult when you get into it. Its perhaps worth remembering that many of his stories are narrated by a story teller within the book and this makes quotes and time changes somewhat hard at times. You just have to read carefully. Nostromo, the secret sharer, typhoon, heart of darkness, lord jim, the nigger of the narciciss he wrote some gret stuff.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Vautrin

Joseph Conrad has been called many things by many people. Racism, ethnocentrism, and all other similar charges aside, (though those are absolutely valid arguments) Conrad was a writer with the prose of a chemistry professor. He seemed like a writer picked out of another profession. His writing style is clunky, much too wordy, unnecessarily dense, and even laborious at times.

---

I can see how someone can see the writing as too dense and maybe laborious, but clunky? Conrad's writing is wonderfully fluid and poetic.

And, I don't really get the chemistry professor analogy. Scientific writing is precise, no? Definitely not filled with adjectives and poetic language.

Honestly, by your description, especially with the use of the word "laborious," it sounds like you didn't like it because you found it to be a difficult read.

Seems as though Conrad is a writer you either love or hate. Personally I love his style, his stories and find his view of the world to be very convincing.

I like this description of Conrad's style by T. E. Lawrence:

Quote:

---

I wish I knew how every paragraph he writes goes on sounding in waves, like the note of a tenor bell, after it stops. It's not built in the rhythm of ordinary prose, but on something existing only in his head, and as he can never say what it is he wants to say, all his things end in a kind of hunger, a suggestion of something he can't say or do or think.

---

I guess for some people this is exactly what they don't like about his writing, but for me it is what makes it so great.

I think I have to post some excerpts from Nostromo to show how beautiful his prose could be.

Here's a passage about Giorgio Viola, an old Italian republican who fought with Garibaldi:

Quote:

---

The spirit of self-forgetfulness, the simple devotion to a vast humanitarian idea which inspired the thought and stress of that revolutionary time, had left its mark upon Giorgio in a sort of austere contempt for all personal advantage. This man, whom the lowest class in Sulaco suspected of having a buried hoard in his kitchen, had all his life despised money. The leaders of his youth had lived poor, had died poor. It had been a habit of his mind to disregard to-morrow. It was engendered partly by an existence of excitement, adventure, and wild warfare. But mostly it was a matter of principle. It did not resemble the carelessness of a condottiere, it was a puritanism of conduct, born of stern enthusiasm like the puritanism of religion.

---

Or consider this description of the waste of human lives in the San Tomé silver mine:

Quote:

---

Mrs. Gould knew the history of the San Tome mine. Worked in the early days mostly by means of lashes on the backs of slaves, its yield had been paid for in its own weight of human bones. Whole tribes of Indians had perished in the exploitation; and then the mine was abandoned, since with this primitive method it had ceased to make a profitable return, no matter how many corpses were thrown into its maw. Then it became forgotten. It was rediscovered after the War of Independence. An English company obtained the right to work it, and found so rich a vein that neither the exactions of successive governments, nor the periodical raids of recruiting officers upon the population of paid miners they had created, could discourage their perseverance. But in the end, during the long turmoil of pronunciamentos that followed the death of the famous Guzman Bento, the native miners, incited to revolt by the emissaries sent out from the capital, had risen upon their English chiefs and murdered them to a man.

---

Or how about this passage about a revolutionary impatiently torturing a man to learn where the silver is hidden:

Quote:

---

Sotillo, irritable, moody, walked restlessly about, held consultations with his officers, gave contradictory orders in this shrill clamour pervading the whole empty edifice. Sometimes there would be long and awful silences. Several times he had entered the torture-chamber where his sword, horsewhip, revolver, and field-glass were lying on the table, to ask with forced calmness, "Will you speak the truth now? No? I can wait." But he could not afford to wait much longer. That was just it. Every time he went in and came out with a slam of the door, the sentry on the landing presented arms, and got in return a black, venomous, unsteady glance, which, in reality, saw nothing at all, being merely the reflection of the soul within—a soul of gloomy hatred, irresolution, avarice, and fury.

---

And this short meditation about greed:

Quote:

---

There is no credulity so eager and blind as the credulity of covetousness, which, in its universal extent, measures the moral misery and the intellectual destitution of mankind.

---

Well I like Conrad, but I consider him to be a much stronger Kerouac; a little short of being a peer of Dickens, Eliot, Swift, Sterne, Joyce, Melville, Faulkner, James, even the Brontes. Take this excerpt from an excerpt above:

Several times he had entered the torture-chamber where his sword, horsewhip, revolver, and field-glass were lying on the table, to ask with forced calmness, "Will you speak the truth now? No? I can wait." But he could not afford to wait much longer. That was just it. Every time he went in and came out with a slam of the door, the sentry on the landing presented arms, and got in return a black, venomous, unsteady glance, which, in reality, saw nothing at all, being merely the reflection of the soul within—a soul of gloomy hatred, irresolution, avarice, and fury.

That's pure Beat, just in a more serious setting. But he could not afford to wait much longer. That was just it. That's pretty low prose, though not half as melodramatic and, well, silly, as a black, venomous, unsteady glance, which, in reality, saw nothing at all, being merely the reflection of the soul within—a soul of gloomy hatred, irresolution, avarice, and fury.

A glance that is black and venomous? A soul of gloomy hatred, irresolution, avarice and fury? Perhaps Poe could pull this off - and 'gloomy hatred' certainly seems like a phrase only Poe could have used - but in a serious prose narrative this is inadequate, vague, cheap, what-you-will writing.

And as I say, I like Conrad.

It's not low prose, it's a passage that interweaves the prose with the thoughts of the character to give his sense of urgency; he's desperate to discover a load of silver because his life depends on it. If Conrad had written it in an ornate style, it'd have been silly.

Also, a soul of gloomy hatred, irresolution, avarice, and fury captures the essence of the character in question. And an unsteady glance that is a reflection of the soul within is a marvellous turn of phrase to describe the inner life of the character.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jack of Hearts

Conrad is verbose but even still his prose is technically superior in many ways to many other authors'. This reader is especially aware of this lately because the worst idea he has ever had here on LitNet was an attempt to disseminate one of Conrad's stories (The Point of Honor) in an effort to improve his own writing skill. This was a flawed idea for many reasons, not the least of which was that it was terribly slow going (and eventually abandoned. You can probably find the old skeleton of a thread if you're curious).

But he's one of the few who really engineered his use of language (even if it was 'running rich', metaphorically speaking).

J

---

While I was never able to get through Heart of Darkness (and I attempted two times, but I have not given up yet, because I think everything is about timing...) I will say that I agree about his use of language... His writing is difficult to digest at times, but when he succeeds in engineering his words, as you so adequately put it, he can come up with some of the most striking and stunning lines in literature.

here is an example from one of his short stories, 'The Idiots':

"The clear and gentle streams of summer days rushed discoloured and raging at the stones that barred the way to the sea, with the fury of madness bent upon suicide."

Oldest thread bump in the world, PP!

That's a fine example. And what you said about timing... seems wise.







J

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jack of Hearts

Oldest thread bump in the world, PP!


J

---

I like bumping things which have been forgotten. :D (not sure that made sense)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PoeticPassions

I like bumping things which have been forgotten. :D (not sure that made sense)

---

I would rather forget Conrad, but it's too lte for bumping him.

Conrad didn't even speak English until he was 21. I remember having to read Lord Jim in Freshman English many, many years ago. And like som of the people here, students were *****ing about the novel. There were a lot of Cs and Ds given in this course. But I stuck with it and now have read many of his novels, In fact, I have all his novels and stories in Folio Society editions. Conrad is hard to read at times, but the effort is worth it.

If your having trouble with Lord Jim, watch the movie with Peter O'Toole as
Jim and James Mason as Mr. Brown. It follows the book rather closely.

Quote:

---

Much like Nabokov, Conrad didn't write in his native tongue ....

---

Nabokov was fluent in English before age eight. His first language was French. I'd have to look it up, but Russian may have come after German, but maybe it came before. In any case Russian was no Nabokov's first or second language, but he learned it better than most native speakers.

Conrad never seems to have really learned English.His syntax was not always English syntax. He may have thought that it was, but it was not right. Tht's what makes Conrad unpleasant to read.There are places where his language closely approximates English,and things move nicely, then he drop s in half Polish, and it becomes unreadable.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PeterL

Nabokov was fluent in English before age eight. His first language was French. I'd have to look it up, but Russian may have come after German, but maybe it came before. In any case Russian was no Nabokov's first or second language, but he learned it better than most native speakers.

Conrad never seems to have really learned English.His syntax was not always English syntax. He may have thought that it was, but it was not right. Tht's what makes Conrad unpleasant to read.There are places where his language closely approximates English,and things move nicely, then he drop s in half Polish, and it becomes unreadable.

---

It's odd how so many disagree with you, isn't it?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PeterL

Nabokov was fluent in English before age eight. His first language was French. I'd have to look it up, but Russian may have come after German, but maybe it came before. In any case Russian was no Nabokov's first or second language, but he learned it better than most native speakers.

Conrad never seems to have really learned English.His syntax was not always English syntax. He may have thought that it was, but it was not right. Tht's what makes Conrad unpleasant to read.There are places where his language closely approximates English,and things move nicely, then he drop s in half Polish, and it becomes unreadable.

---

Actually, Nabokov learned French, English and Russian all at once, basically. His household was trilingual, and it is said that he actually could write English before he could write Russian. However, having read a lot of his thoughts and some short biographies, he always thought that English was deficient and that you couldn't really beat Russian as far as writing goes... However, most critics believe his best work was written in English.

As for Conrad, it is natural that he could not completely master the English language as far as structure and syntax go, since he learned it so late in life. However, I still think that his writing is quite spectacular, and I don't think it is unreadable... it can be dense, but definitely not unreadable. Besides, I think it is quite a feat that he was able to learn the language to such a degree to be considered as one of the best English novelists of his time.

I still don't really fancy him, but I must give credit where credit is due.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PoeticPassions

Actually, Nabokov learned French, English and Russian all at once, basically. His household was trilingual, and it is said that he actually could write English before he could write Russian. However, having read a lot of his thoughts and some short biographies, he always thought that English was deficient and that you couldn't really beat Russian as far as writing goes... However, most critics believe his best work was written in English.

---

You may be right, but I have seen in more than one source that Russian was his third language, and that he did not start to learn it until he was several years old; but I will confess that I ws not there.

I loved The Heart of Darkness.

I picked up a copy of Lord Jim at a used bookstore a while ago and it is on my 'to read' list. After viewing some of the comments here, I can see that I might be in for some tough going.

The Heart of Darkness is one of the great books of English literature I always take as one of my favorites. In fact Conrad proved through his mindbogglingly written books that English literature has a number of writers who used English as a second language and yet their mastery over English is matchless. Ayn Rand, Nabokov, Salmon Rushdie, Pankaj Mishra are a few names to add to the list of those who hailed from a different language community and yet the elegant style of English in their novels have remain unparalleled.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Heteronym

What are your thoughts about the author of Nostromo, The Secret Agent, Lord Jim, Heart of Darkness, The Nigger of the 'Narcissus' and many other novels, novellas and short-stories?

I think he's one of the finest authors of the English language and beyond. For me his greatness isn't so much in his style, which, with its long sentences, was remarkable in itself, but in the sharpness of his reflections about humanity. He had great analytical powers which, aided by cynical, disillusioned view of men, he employed to dismantle certains myths and notions deeply rooted in the European society of his time. Nostromo and Heart of Darkness, for instance, lay bare the greed and the bloodshed behind the civilising rhetoric of colonialism.

His work shows what a vicious endeavor is the creation of civilisation, and yet he has many doubts about the goodness of people. Lord Jim and Nostromo concern men who wrestle with their own consciousness, who take their inflated sense of virtue to self-destructive extremes.

In his work live many colorful and complex characters, from all walks of life and with their own mentalities: sailors, colonials, marauders, terrorists, saboteurs, politicians, capitalists, idealists, revolutionaries, scoundrels, freedom fighters, thieves, dictators, detectives. The novel I'm reading right now, Nostromo, is populated with so many fully-realised individuals it's amazing how Conrad could put himself in the shoes of so many types of people and write them so truthfully and non-judgementally.

Has anyone read Under Western Eyes? That's the novel I want to tackle next.

---

"Heart of Darkness" is one work that looks really, really fun to apply criticism to, especially when looking at the character of Kurtz (One of my favorite villains in fiction because of his strong sympathetic edge... He's like a symbol for the lowest form of evil that's simultaneously unhappy with his status). It's a strong meditation on the worst in people, and what made it an impacting read was in its dreamlike representation of this horror.

Conrad is king. There should be churches built for the glorification of that man.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TheChilly

"Heart of Darkness" is one work that looks really, really fun to apply criticism to, especially when looking at the character of Kurtz (One of my favorite villains in fiction because of his strong sympathetic edge... He's like a symbol for the lowest form of evil that's simultaneously unhappy with his status). It's a strong meditation on the worst in people, and what made it an impacting read was in its dreamlike representation of this horror.

---

Conrad's HoD really does have to be one of the most symbolically charged pieces of prose I've ever read, maybe only outdone by Moby Dick. Just about everything in HoD can be open to legitimate interpretation.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi

Conrad's HoD really does have to be one of the most symbolically charged pieces of prose I've ever read, maybe only outdone by Moby Dick. Just about everything in HoD can be open to legitimate interpretation.

---

The characters are definitely open to interpretation, along with its three stages of darkness that Marlow describes to his crew throughout the narrative. Also interesting is how the sun setting throughout the narrative seems to symbolize descent in negative forms: Descent towards hell, descent towards hatred, etc.

As for Kurtz... I see him as a "tragic villain"... he may be the antagonist, but there's too much sympathy to feel for him at the closing passages...

And don't forget that crazy tribal woman. A wonderful "WTF?" moment. Comparing her with the calm, ordinary white wife of Kurtz would make a great paper.

Why do I keep mixing Joseph Conrad with Stephen King?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by cacian

Why do I keep mixing Joseph Conrad with Stephen King?

---

I don't think they have anything in common. But, it happens, something in the sound of their names, maybe. :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dark Muse

When I first attempted to read Lord Jim I have to give up on it and honestly I really did not care for how it was written. I could not get into the story, and I found it confusing to follow what was going on and initially after that I had swore of Conrad but after a while I relented a bit and decided to give him another chance. I have since read The Heart of Darkness which I did in fact really enjoy and so I am considering reattempting Lord Jim but have not yet been able to bring myself to do so.

---

I found it a bit difficult to get into, but persevered as he seemed to be saying some important things. I'm glad I did! I found it turning into a great adventure story, while retaining the "depth". Now it's one of my favourite novels. "Victory" is another slow burner that lives in the memory.