Conrad’s work is one of the great explorations and adventures in literature. Critical texts on Conrad are mostly aimed at readers who are already highly familiar with Conrad’s work. This book does not take this familiarity for granted; therefore I have outlined the plot of each novel or short story. Literature has been defined, among other things, as “a journey into wonder”; I believe that Conrad is one of the greatest guides we can possibly have on this journey. It is said that criticism is a tool to put the reader in touch with the author. In my case, the intention is that of passing along the legacy of emotions that reading Conrad has given me. I hope that the lawfulness of an outsider’s intermediation is recognized: I hope to be entitled to it. Sometimes, faced with the challenge of writing this book, I remembered the statement made by the narrator of The Shadow Line: “I always suspected that I might be no good.” But I also listened to Marlow, the story teller of Lord Jim, saying: “Nobody is good enough.” And I went on, because “it is always the unexpected that happens” (Lord Jim). The body of critical works and critical biography on Conrad is enormous. But my book wants to be something else: an immersion in Conrad’s narrative world. Whoever reads Conrad chooses to come under his spell. In addition, he chooses to listen to a story that matters: far away from all that which is dull and discouraging. This choice, I believe, can be lived by the readers of my book as well. Underneath the breathless anxiety of existence, here for me, and here for my reader is a book to reimagine life. Reading is a migration towards an inviolate and self-sufficient reality. Literature’s vicarious function is well-known; the magic of its horizon of precarious happiness remains intact.
The subject of this book is the entire body of Conrad’s narrative works, including some short stories that are not widely known. Joseph Conrad is an invitation to a voyage, and this voyage into Conrad’s world is an adventure in a remote land. Half of it is found somewhere hidden: maybe it’s an illusion, maybe a mirage, which is what I wanted to show other readers. Conrad is a writer that conveys emotion. First and foremost for his visionary strength, for the quality of his imagination: this is something truly unusual. The visionary clarity of a writer like Conrad is a gift. I have often thought that he observed on our behalf. He observed the border of sunlight around a cloud, the race of the moon across a stormy sky, and the outline of mountains, evaporating in the light of day, on our behalf. He saw for us. And he knew where to direct our gaze, where to lead it, faced with the multifaceted and hostile surface of reality. This is what Conrad did; and in this book I myself – on a different level and with other means – sought to do so as well. At the dawn of the twenty-first century we still have a tremendous need for emotions and illusions. When we put down the book of a great writer, wrote one important critic (George Steiner), “we are not the same as we were when we took it up.”
The subject of this book is the entire body of Conrad’s narrative works, including some short stories that are not widely known. Joseph Conrad is an invitation to a voyage, and this voyage into Conrad’s world is an adventure in a remote land. Half of it is found somewhere hidden: maybe it’s an illusion, maybe a mirage, which is what I wanted to show other readers. Conrad is a writer that conveys emotion. First and foremost for his visionary strength, for the quality of his imagination: this is something truly unusual. The visionary clarity of a writer like Conrad is a gift. I have often thought that he observed on our behalf. He observed the border of sunlight around a cloud, the race of the moon across a stormy sky, and the outline of mountains, evaporating in the light of day, on our behalf. He saw for us. And he knew where to direct our gaze, where to lead it, faced with the multifaceted and hostile surface of reality. This is what Conrad did; and in this book I myself – on a different level and with other means – sought to do so as well. At the dawn of the twenty-first century we still have a tremendous need for emotions and illusions. When we put down the book of a great writer, wrote one important critic (George Steiner), “we are not the same as we were when we took it up.”
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