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/lit/ - Literature

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Joseph Conrad Anonymous Mon Oct 22 13:33:31 2018 No.11972633 [Reply] [Original]

What's his best work?

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 22 13:38:31 2018 No.11972646 >>11972633 lawd jimmy

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 22 13:40:16 2018 No.11972650 >>11972633 The Nigger of the Narcissus

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 22 14:06:34 2018 No.11972725 >>11972633 Typhoon

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 22 14:19:45 2018 No.11972773 Nostromo, though sometimes I edge towards those first two Lingard novels

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 22 14:24:58 2018 No.11972793 >>11972646 A real human being, and a real hero

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 22 15:40:12 2018 No.11973050 Nostromo

Anonymous Mon Oct 22 17:20:14 2018 No.11973453

>tfw Conrad is your favorite author and you used to start conversations in every Conrad thread but /lit/ literally never bites
Conrad threads always get ten replies and then die. The only exceptions are the HoD threads that begins with someone asking if it's racist, anons proving both that it doesn't matter and that he probably wasn't anyways, someone asking what the Darkness in question was and then the thread dying

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 22 17:26:56 2018 No.11973477 >>11973453 why is Conrad so overlooked here?

Anonymous Mon Oct 22 17:38:49 2018 No.11973530

>>11973477
There's a pervasive problem that basically all literature is now overlooked on this board, and most threads are about philosophy, politics or lack of gfs. There is no next to no discussion about literature anymore
Conrad in particular simply has no memes surrounding him besides 'muh Achebe'. He's too dense for people who only read stuff like Hemingway, he's too new for classicists and he's too old for people who only read post-modern stuff.
It's a shame, because his work has a lot going on. I've always wanted to have a conversation about the nested ironies in Lord Jim (which, as I see it, has Marlow's friend diagnosing Jim as a romantic, Marlow diagnosing his friend as a romantic, the reader diagnosing Marlow as a romantic and finally Conrad diagnosing the reader as a romantic for having picked up the book in the first place).
I also just really really enjoy his prose, but I can understand why some people would not.

Anonymous Mon Oct 22 17:43:55 2018 No.11973550

A favorite between the ages of 8 and 14. Essentially a writer for very young people. Certainly inferior to Hemingway and Wells. Intolerable souvenir-shop style, romanticist clichés. Nothing I would care to have written myself. In mentality and emotion, hopelessly juvenile. Romantic in the large sense. Slightly bogus.

Anonymous Mon Oct 22 17:48:56 2018 No.11973579

>>11972633
Lord Jim got uncomfortable when it got away from the sea, but thematically it was great.
Heart of Darkness is probably my favorite of his, both because of its depth and because of it's prose. Conrad's lyricality and occasionally ironic tone can be fucking hilarious when it's not being very pleasant and easy to read.
Nostromo is fucking awesome but I have to reread it.

Conrad's such a great author, and it's absolutely insane considering English was his third language. Prolific too. I wish he got more talk around here.

>>11973453
There's been a few good threads on him. I've made a couple but most of them die quickly. There was one discussing the nature of the darkness that got probably 70 or 80 replies that I thought was an awesome thread.

But /lit/ doesn't talk about literature anymore

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 22 17:50:42 2018 No.11973585 >>11973550 >Romantic in the large sense. I love how this expression would be a positive if anyone but Nabs said it

Anonymous Mon Oct 22 18:14:32 2018 No.11973669

>>11972633
I've only read HoD and even then just to see the inspiration for Apocalypse Now. Was actually taken away by the book it slowly draws you in and then you're there. From what I understand Conrad's books are all about the "white man on the edge of the world type thing" which certainly appeals to me. I think Lord Jim is on my reading list but who knows when I'll get around to it

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 22 18:59:50 2018 No.11973835 >>11972633 Lord Jim

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 22 19:07:59 2018 No.11973872 >>11973579 Why do you like HoD more than Lord Jim? Lord Jim is basically an expanded and more nuanced take on Heart of Darkness -- white man flees his civilization to set himself up among the natives.

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 22 19:45:17 2018 No.11974021 >>11973872 damn, that sounds very good.

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 22 20:07:24 2018 No.11974074 >>11973550 >another nabby drone I've come to really hate this ugly windbag hack.

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 22 21:06:27 2018 No.11974225 I got a collection of HoD. Youth and The End of the Tether. I've only read HoD, should i read the other two?

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 22 21:30:50 2018 No.11974290 >>11972633 Nostromo's a burst of color, I've heard TK was more than a little fond of The Secret Agent (which I read on a plane), but of what I've read by him I think I like Victory best.

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 22 21:45:29 2018 No.11974351 >>11974021 It is

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 22 22:39:49 2018 No.11974568 >>11973530 Conrad is pretty Reddit my dude

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 22 23:40:32 2018 No.11974903 >>11973872 Heart of Darkness is about a lot more than that. And so is Lord Jim. You bozo. Faulkner's novels are a lot more about the nature of man and individual men than they are about natives

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 22 23:42:32 2018 No.11974906 >>11974225 Yes but those are strange selections.

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 22 23:42:37 2018 No.11974908 The Nigger of the Narcissus

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 22 23:45:19 2018 No.11974914 >>11974906 why?

Anonymous Mon Oct 22 23:52:09 2018 No.11974949

>>11974914
He has much more popular works: desu this is the first time I've ever heard anyone mention the end of the tether and I haven't read it myself.

Youth is good but not really what people think of when they think Conrad. Nostromo, Lord Jim, NotN, Secret Agent, and his short stories are all great works and I'd recommend at least one or two first over Youth

Anonymous Tue Oct 23 00:22:04 2018 No.11975079

I have a collection of Conrad's correspondences, published I think a few years after his death. It's a nice old hardcover, a bit beat up though. From what I understand only around 1000 copies were ever printed.
I'd post photographs but it's at my home in another city.
It was a gift from someone I no longer speak to, but it's probably the best gift I've ever received. Thinking of the context in which I got it makes me sad, so I've never read through the entire thing.
Thanks for reading my blog post

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 23 00:37:48 2018 No.11975133 >>11973530 What was Achebe's problem with Conrad? He was too racist or something?

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 23 00:43:05 2018 No.11975154 >>11975133 yep exactly actually

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 23 01:04:06 2018 No.11975228 File: 135 KB, 600x996, Nostromo.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 23 01:05:38 2018 No.11975235 >>11974903 No shit. But practically everything that Heart of Darkness is about, Lord Jim is also about except at more length and with more subtlety.

Anonymous Tue Oct 23 01:34:38 2018 No.11975324

>>11975235
Whoops, meant Conrad. But no, I don't think they are about the same thing at all. Lord Jim is on a more personal, individual level is concerned with personal ideals: principles, redemption, guilt and making bad decisions, forgiveness, etc. Heart of Darkness is on a much larger scale (though it all goes back to the individuals). It regards civilization and the nature of man in regards to civilization.

Thematically I think they're pretty different. I loved them both. But imo think Heart of Darkness is a much more unique and timelessly relevant work.

Anonymous Tue Oct 23 02:02:54 2018 No.11975399

>>11975324
>Lord Jim is on a more personal, individual level is concerned with personal ideals: principles, redemption, guilt and making bad decisions, forgiveness, etc. Heart of Darkness is on a much larger scale (though it all goes back to the individuals)

I do see what you mean. But IMO Lord Jim is "personal" only because we have more time to hang around the characters. If Lord Jim were 100 pages long I don't think Jim himself would come across as substantially different from Kurtz: a man who flees his civilized responsibilities to live among the savages. Conrad uses the additional length to examine the motives and context of the white man's relationship with "the wogs", and of course spends a lot more time on the details of the Malayan natives and the mechanics of Jim's "white saviorhood" among them than he was able to do in HoD. HoD's portrayal of similar events borders on caricature (though maybe you see this as "mythological") by comparison.

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 23 02:15:50 2018 No.11975428 >>11975228 >tfw prime Scott never got to adapt any of his favourite author's books

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 23 02:43:09 2018 No.11975497 >>11972650 This, but also The Secret Agent

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 23 03:11:01 2018 No.11975540 I've only read Heart of Darkness so far, but I really enjoyed it. Plan on giving Lord Jim and Nostromo a chance, too.

Anonymous Tue Oct 23 05:21:49 2018 No.11975777

>>11975497
Love that book. This shit with mildly retarded young dudes being trained for death by malign intellectuals never really goes away, and Conrad does grimy street life so well too.

There's some terrific short stories too, especially Typhoon - which is probably too racist feeling in the descriptions of chinese people to make reading lists nowadays but is the bomb.

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 23 07:50:29 2018 No.11976049 >>11975777 i was disappointed he skipped over the bombing itself

Anonymous Tue Oct 23 09:45:34 2018 No.11976316

>>11974225
I had the same collection, though I didn't read Tether. I wasn't a big fan of Youth, but the /lit/ consensus on it is quite positive. At least it's short.
The Nigger of Narcissus, on the other hand, is really good. One of the best seafaring novels/novellas I've read.

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 23 11:55:02 2018 No.11976755 >>11975428 You mean Lean

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 23 13:41:44 2018 No.11977098 >>11973477 corncob probably

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