Showing results by author "Joseph Conrad" in All Categories

A brave Malay chieftain suffers from a surprising vulnerability. After giving birth to a series of unfortunate children, a farmer's wife is determined to bear no more. A spoonful of sugar brings a neophyte ivory trader to a moment of Nietzschean self-realisation. A pompous ass discovers that his wife has run off with another man. Secluded in an eerie lagoon, a Malay carries a guilty secret in his heart. "Tales of Unrest" was the first volume of short fiction Joseph Conrad published in his own lifetime.

"Here speaks the man of masts and sails, to whom the sea is not a navigable element, but an intimate companion. The length of passages, the growing sense of solitude, the close dependence upon the very forces that, friendly to-day, without changing their nature, by the mere putting forth of their might, become dangerous to-morrow, make for that sense of fellowship which modern seamen, good men as they are, cannot hope to know."

Today, we're likely to react to the title of this novella, on whose 'sincerity of expression' Conrad was willing to stake his artisitic reputation, with visceral disgust. There is a sad irony in this, for Conrad's title originally alluded to a rather complex set of meanings, implying that, by virtue of our human nature, we all carry within the fragile vessel that is our idealised image of ourselves a darker being we find troubling, even despicable, but with whom we must eventually come to terms.

Conrad began dictating the series of loose autobiographical sketches that would become 'A Personal Record' in 1911, when he was half way through writing 'Under Western Eyes'. His avowed aim was to give his readers a sense of 'the man behind the work', and he certainly succeeded in creating a vivid impression of the kind of Joseph Conrad he would have liked to have been seen as: a man capable of wry humour and self-deprecation, but a sober, serious man too, prepared to face life as he found it.

Almayer’s Folly, Joseph Conrad’s first novel, is a tale of personal tragedy as well as a broader meditation on the evils of colonialism. Set in the lush jungle of Borneo in the late 1800s, it tells of the Dutch merchant Kaspar Almayer, whose dreams of riches for his beloved daughter, Nina, collapse under the weight of his own greed and prejudice. Nadine Gordimer writes in her Introduction, “Conrad’s writing is lifelong questioning.

Heart of Darkness, a novel by Joseph Conrad, was originally a three-part series in Blackwood's Magazine in 1899. It is a story within a story, following a character named Charlie Marlow, who recounts his adventure to a group of men onboard an anchored ship. The story told is of his early life as a ferry boat captain. Although his job was to transport ivory downriver, Charlie develops an interest in investing an ivory procurement agent, Kurtz, who is employed by the government.

"The Secret Agent" is a novel written by Joseph Conrad, and published in 1907. The story is set in London in the late nineteenth century and revolves around a group of anarchists and their plot to detonate a bomb at Greenwich Observatory. The novel explores themes such as terrorism, politics, morality, and betrayal. The novel's protagonist is Adolf Verloc, a seemingly unremarkable man who owns a small shop selling pornographic materials. However, he is also a secret agent working for an unnamed foreign embassy.

Joseph Conrad was a Polish-British writer regarded as one of the greatest novelists to write in the English language. He came to be regarded a master prose stylist who brought a non-English sensibility into English literature. He wrote stories and novels, many with a nautical setting, that depict trials of the human spirit in the midst of what he saw as an impassive, inscrutable universe. Conrad is considered a literary impressionist by some and an early modernist by others, though his works also contain elements of 19th-century realism.

A young sea captain, struggling with the problems of his first far-Eastern command, is befriended by Hermann, commander of a German ship moored nearby in a treacherous river. But when the monopolistic tugboat captain Falk perceives him as a rival for Hermann's beautiful niece, the young man's problems suddenly increase—until he offers his diplomatic assistance in Falk's courtship. But Falk is haunted by an incident in his past, which he feels he must confess.

Zehn Meisterwerke von weltberühmten Autoren versammeln sich in dieser Hörbuch-Box! Mit dabei: "In der Strafkolonie" (Kafka), "Die Marquise von O." (Kleist), "Eine blassblaue Frauenschrift" (Werfel), "Der arme Spielmann" (Grillparzer), "In den Chambregarnies" (Tschechow), "Wieviel Erde braucht der Mensch?" (Tolstoi), "Die Zeitmaschine" (H.G. Wells), "Triumph der Schönheit" (Roth), "Die schwarze Spinne" (Gotthelf), "Jugend" (Conrad).

Fünf beruflich erfolgreiche Männer sitzen beisammen. Auch wenn sie in verschiedenen Professionen ihr Geld gemacht haben, ist ihnen doch eines gemeinsam: Ihre Erfahrung auf See. Einer von ihnen, Marlow, erzählt, wie er sein erstes Kommando als zweiter Offizier auf einem Kohlenfrachter nach Bangkok erhielt. Von Anfang an steht die Reise unter keinem guten Stern; zahlreiche Zwischenfälle verhindern das Auslaufen. Endlich auf hoher See, wird bald ein merkwürdiger Geruch spürbar – und eine Rauchfahne, die aus dem Kohlenbunker aufsteigt. Bald brennt die Ladung lichterloh – und Marlow erlebt das größte Abenteuer seiner Jugend.

Country doctor Kennedy tells the story of Amy Foster, a tender-hearted country girl, who alone takes pity on a starving and bewildered foreign castaway, feared and shunned by the rest of her community. The castaway proves to be amiable and intelligent, but this is not enough to overcome the prejudice aroused by his alienness.

"Racconti dell’inquietudine" raccoglie cinque brevi testi che offrono –al fan di lunga data, così come a chi intenda leggere Conrad per la prima volta – un prontuario dei temi più cari e delle ambientazioni più esotiche dell’avventuroso scrittore polacco.

The steamship Nan-Shan, en route through the China seas to the port of Fu-chau during the season of tropical storms, with 200 returning Chinese workers aboard, encounters an ominous fall in the barometer. Phlegmatic and unimaginative Captain MacWhirr, unable to comprehend the awesome natural forces ahead of him, refuses to alter his course, pitting his ship and his own indomitable will against the fury of the storm.

Marlow—the narrator of Lord Jim and Heart of Darkness—tells the story of his first voyage to the exotic, romantic East, as a 20-year-old second officer of the ancient barque Judea. It is a story of almost comical disaster—and of the resilience of youthful hope and enthusiasm.

Jim versucht, seiner Vergangenheit zu entkommen. Als Erster Offizier auf einem Pilgerschiff beging er einen schrecklichen Fehler, der ihn Ruf und Laufbahn kostete. Nach langen Reisen erreicht er die entlegene Insel Patusan im Indischen Ozean, wo er sich das Vertrauen der Einheimischen erwirbt. Als Friedensstifter wird er hoch verehrt, aus Jim wird Lord Jim. Doch dann tauchen Piraten auf, und sie scheinen zu wissen, wer er wirklich ist.

"Un socio" reúne una buena parte de las características de la obra de Joseph Conrad, si bien en esta ocasión el escenario no es una gran aventura. Se trata de un relato construido en diferentes planos y escrito con un estilo ágil, de gran originalidad.

Un hombre de dudosa condición moral embauca a su honrado e ingenuo socio para hundir un barco de su propiedad y así poder cobrar la prima del seguro. Lo central en esta historia es el juego de tensiones psicológicas, desarrollado con maestría y rematado con un final de acción trepidante.

Forty-two years old Marlow is drinking with four other Englishmen. They have known each other since the beginning of their working lives. Some of them have other jobs now, but they still gather to recall the good old days. Marlow tells his friends a story of his early life, when he travelled to the East as a young man in search of adventure. He shares his experience and impressions of the different cultures he came across with the four men.

In this 1901 short story inspired by Ford Maddox Ford’s "The Cinque Ports", Conrad works on the theme of alienation. It centers on a young man, Yanko, the sole survivor of a shipwreck off the coast of Kent. The locals, not knowing that a boat has sunk, shun him as he washes up on their shores. But he is taken in by an eccentric local, and little by little, Yanko learns some English and falls in love with the servant girl, Amy Foster. But he has not come to the end of his troubles yet and the community keeps him at arm’s length, terrified of his very difference.