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Ο τυφώνας - Ο Φαλκ
Οι δυο θαλασσινές ιστορίες του Τζόζεφ Κόνραντ (1857-1924) μας ταξιδεύουν στον κόσμο των ναυτικών, που υπηρέτησε ο ίδιος για σχεδόν είκοσι χρόνια. Πλέοντας στην απεραντοσύνη της θάλασσας και στην ελευθερία της, μακριά από τις οικογένειές τους, οι ναυτικοί καλούνται συχνά να ανταπεξέλθουν σε ακραίες συνθήκες, αναγκαζόμενοι να υπερβούν τα όρια της ανθρώπινης φύσης. Κοινός παρονομαστής του "Τυφώνα" και του "Φαλκ" είναι ο αγώνας του ανθρώπου για την επιβίωση. Στην πρώτη ιστορία, καπετάνιος και πλήρωμα δοκιμάζονται σωματικά και ψυχικά από το ανελέητο και μανιασμένο σφυροκόπημα που δέχεται το καράβι τους στη διάρκεια ενός τυφώνα. Μόνο αν λειτουργήσουν σαν ενιαίο σύνολο, ίσως μπορέσουν να σωθούν. Στον "Φαλκ" η μάχη περνά στο επόμενο επίπεδο: αφορά τον άνθρωπο και τον ίδιο του τον εαυτό. Όταν η επιβίωση του ενός είναι ο θάνατος του άλλου, πόσο ισχυρός γίνεται μέσα μας ο πόθος για ζωή; Μέχρι ποιες ζωώδεις ακρότητες θα έφτανε κανείς, προκειμένου να επιβιώσει; Και όταν καταδοθεί σε τόσο σκοτεινά και απύθμενα νερά, τι μπορεί να τον τραβήξει πάλι στην επιφάνεια, στο φως;
270 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1902
107 people are currently reading
823 people want to read
About the author
Joseph Conrad
3,084 books4,850 followersJoseph Conrad was a Polish-British novelist and story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language and, although he did not speak English fluently until his twenties, he became a master prose stylist who brought a non-English sensibility into English literature. He wrote novels and stories, many in nautical settings, that depict crises of human individuality in the midst of what he saw as an indifferent, inscrutable, and amoral world.
Conrad is considered a literary impressionist by some and an early modernist by others, though his works also contain elements of 19th-century realism. His narrative style and anti-heroic characters, as in Lord Jim, for example, have influenced numerous authors. Many dramatic films have been adapted from and inspired by his works. Numerous writers and critics have commented that his fictional works, written largely in the first two decades of the 20th century, seem to have anticipated later world events.
Writing near the peak of the British Empire, Conrad drew on the national experiences of his native Poland—during nearly all his life, parceled out among three occupying empires—and on his own experiences in the French and British merchant navies, to create short stories and novels that reflect aspects of a European-dominated world—including imperialism and colonialism—and that profoundly explore the human psyche.
Conrad is considered a literary impressionist by some and an early modernist by others, though his works also contain elements of 19th-century realism. His narrative style and anti-heroic characters, as in Lord Jim, for example, have influenced numerous authors. Many dramatic films have been adapted from and inspired by his works. Numerous writers and critics have commented that his fictional works, written largely in the first two decades of the 20th century, seem to have anticipated later world events.
Writing near the peak of the British Empire, Conrad drew on the national experiences of his native Poland—during nearly all his life, parceled out among three occupying empires—and on his own experiences in the French and British merchant navies, to create short stories and novels that reflect aspects of a European-dominated world—including imperialism and colonialism—and that profoundly explore the human psyche.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 70 reviews
November 9, 2017
Having read Bjørneboe's masterful The Sharks, I felt the need to return to sea with an old master. Conrad and I are bosom friends, having both served as boatswains on the Alcoholicus amidst the great waves and furious seasons of youth. Having disembarked as brothers, we'd lost touch for too many years. I have found you again, Connie (I call him Connie), and I'll never make that mistake again—down we go together. (Come on, that HAS to be some sort of record. Not one but TWO semi-oblique Morrissey references used sequentially in reference to a fucking Conrad book? Don't I get a prize or something? A bunch of those gothy, black rubber bangle bracelets or something?)
Oh, the book. Yes. Well, it's Conrad. Ergo, you're in the hands of the heir of Melville; JC being the only argument I'll entertain as being his logical successor. Like Melville, Conrad wrote what he knew, and he knew the sea as an intimate.
Wait...Shit. This is "Typhoon" by Joseph Conrad. Read it, don't...its mastery is hardly a well-kept secret. You know what to do. I leave you with this: if you have 'Hold Fast' tattooed on the knuckles you wrap around your shitty PBR, you are an asshole. Sorry, someone had to tell ya.
Tally-ho!
Oh, the book. Yes. Well, it's Conrad. Ergo, you're in the hands of the heir of Melville; JC being the only argument I'll entertain as being his logical successor. Like Melville, Conrad wrote what he knew, and he knew the sea as an intimate.
Wait...Shit. This is "Typhoon" by Joseph Conrad. Read it, don't...its mastery is hardly a well-kept secret. You know what to do. I leave you with this: if you have 'Hold Fast' tattooed on the knuckles you wrap around your shitty PBR, you are an asshole. Sorry, someone had to tell ya.
Tally-ho!
July 23, 2025
The Secret Sharer in particular is one of Conrad's finest stories. Is there a better a writer when it comes to fictionalizing their own experiences at sea. Not read him for years, and I'd forgotten just how well he wrote; considering Conrad's English wasn't even his first language. You can read them simply for adventure and suspense, or look further for that deeper perspective.
September 21, 2017
This collection includes three tales—The Nigger of 'The Narcissus', Typhoon, and The Shadow-Line—each of which centers on the sea. I liked the last story best.
"And the time, too, goes on—till one perceives ahead a shadow-line warning one that the region of early youth, too, must be left behind." (249)
October 5, 2025
4.25/5
"And yet I have known the sea too long to believe in its respect for decency. An elemental force is ruthlessly frank"
Typhoon : 4.75/5
As the eponymous novella of this collection, Typhoon has some weight to carry, which it handles with little stress. This story centres on the crew of the British steamer the Nan-Shan (flying the Siamese flag) who sail head-first into a cyclone while in the Strait of Taiwan, fighting tooth-and-nail to keep their ship afloat. Conrad effectively uses biblical imagery to capture the utter horror of being alone in the open ocean at night, with what must feel like the pure wrath of God Himself whirling just above your ship's masts. The primal rage of the sea is so palpable and real in these pages, which is backed up by an interesting crew who make the fight seem worth fighting, even in the blackest moments of this story. Typhoon is definitely the star of this collection, and would make this book worth it no matter the other stories.
Amy Foster : 4/5
The first of two short stories, this tale follows an Eastern European immigrant shipwrecked in rural Kent after his American-bound ship is sunk. Little by little, he adapts to his environment and the account follows his integration into a new life.
The narration in this one can be a bit too hard to follow, and the jumps in time and location are not always clear, but it still delivers a great emotional climax with so few pages.
Falk 4.5/5
Falk is the second novella, and is set in the port area of Bangkok, where the narrator recounts a rivalry between himself and a monopolist tugboat captain named Falk. The Siamese setting is described vividly, along with the ships and characters who inhabit it. Out of these four stories, Falk may have the characters with the most depth, which is needed for a dramatic interpersonal feud, and also compliments its lighter tone.
To-morrow 4.25/5
Coming in at 27 pages, this short story could almost be a vignette in style. Joseph Conrad depicts a woman coping with the burdens of two older male widows; one of whom is her blind, dependent father and the other, her landlord, whose son ran away as a teenager, but is expected to always be coming back 'to-morrow'. To-morrow is the most clear-cut tragic story, and subverts your expectations towards the end.
As a singular collection, Typhoon and Other Stories is concise and effective, and finds its strengths in the underlying themes and emotions that permeate through its stories.
"And yet I have known the sea too long to believe in its respect for decency. An elemental force is ruthlessly frank"
Typhoon : 4.75/5
As the eponymous novella of this collection, Typhoon has some weight to carry, which it handles with little stress. This story centres on the crew of the British steamer the Nan-Shan (flying the Siamese flag) who sail head-first into a cyclone while in the Strait of Taiwan, fighting tooth-and-nail to keep their ship afloat. Conrad effectively uses biblical imagery to capture the utter horror of being alone in the open ocean at night, with what must feel like the pure wrath of God Himself whirling just above your ship's masts. The primal rage of the sea is so palpable and real in these pages, which is backed up by an interesting crew who make the fight seem worth fighting, even in the blackest moments of this story. Typhoon is definitely the star of this collection, and would make this book worth it no matter the other stories.
Amy Foster : 4/5
The first of two short stories, this tale follows an Eastern European immigrant shipwrecked in rural Kent after his American-bound ship is sunk. Little by little, he adapts to his environment and the account follows his integration into a new life.
The narration in this one can be a bit too hard to follow, and the jumps in time and location are not always clear, but it still delivers a great emotional climax with so few pages.
Falk 4.5/5
Falk is the second novella, and is set in the port area of Bangkok, where the narrator recounts a rivalry between himself and a monopolist tugboat captain named Falk. The Siamese setting is described vividly, along with the ships and characters who inhabit it. Out of these four stories, Falk may have the characters with the most depth, which is needed for a dramatic interpersonal feud, and also compliments its lighter tone.
To-morrow 4.25/5
Coming in at 27 pages, this short story could almost be a vignette in style. Joseph Conrad depicts a woman coping with the burdens of two older male widows; one of whom is her blind, dependent father and the other, her landlord, whose son ran away as a teenager, but is expected to always be coming back 'to-morrow'. To-morrow is the most clear-cut tragic story, and subverts your expectations towards the end.
As a singular collection, Typhoon and Other Stories is concise and effective, and finds its strengths in the underlying themes and emotions that permeate through its stories.
December 31, 2022
It has been a very good reading year. One thing I have learned (and yes, I have left it late) is that I am a big fan of Joseph Conrad. The three novellas 'Typhoon', 'Falk' and 'The Secret Sharer' are among the best I've ever read. I find his prose style incredibly engrossing.
Sure, I could have discovered his work decades ago, but we simply can't read every author on every shelf. I learned I was a fan of H.G. Wells when I was 11 years old, Dickens when I was 12, Robert Louis Stevenson when I was 14. But reading them didn't necessarily lead to me sampling their equally-renowned contemporaries. I didn't become a fan of Chesterton, for example, until last year.
Ages ago, a grumpy fellow accused me of only reading 'old' books and never reading my 'peers'. That's absolutely untrue and I have many favourite authors who are still alive, and who hopefully will continue to be alive for a long time yet. But there is a quality in pre-self-conscious literature that I find compelling, especially in the rough time period 1880 to 1930.
Sure, I could have discovered his work decades ago, but we simply can't read every author on every shelf. I learned I was a fan of H.G. Wells when I was 11 years old, Dickens when I was 12, Robert Louis Stevenson when I was 14. But reading them didn't necessarily lead to me sampling their equally-renowned contemporaries. I didn't become a fan of Chesterton, for example, until last year.
Ages ago, a grumpy fellow accused me of only reading 'old' books and never reading my 'peers'. That's absolutely untrue and I have many favourite authors who are still alive, and who hopefully will continue to be alive for a long time yet. But there is a quality in pre-self-conscious literature that I find compelling, especially in the rough time period 1880 to 1930.
Want to read
January 4, 2024Contains the stories:
Typhoon
Falk
Amy Foster
The Secret Sharer - 4/5 - A young Captain on his first command secretly brings aboard a man who emerges from the sea one night. The doppelganger theme is treated with a high degree of ambiguity and it is left to the reader to decide if the stowaway is real or imaginary, and how much to rely upon the Captain's narrative. Conrad's prose is lovely, and the description of the nautical setting especially in the early pages are breathtaking.
Typhoon
Falk
Amy Foster
The Secret Sharer - 4/5 - A young Captain on his first command secretly brings aboard a man who emerges from the sea one night. The doppelganger theme is treated with a high degree of ambiguity and it is left to the reader to decide if the stowaway is real or imaginary, and how much to rely upon the Captain's narrative. Conrad's prose is lovely, and the description of the nautical setting especially in the early pages are breathtaking.
July 29, 2024
Joseph Conrad's maritime career and his writings are closely associated with the sea. Conrad is a masterful storyteller and this collection of his short stories and novellas are some of the best nautical pieces he has written. The three stories in this book are "The Nigger of the Narcissus," "Typhoon" and "The Shadow-Line". Conrad's work is sometimes regarded as difficult because his language does not always flow easily. Here, one should remember that English was not his native language but was acquired later. Also, he may appear difficult because his literary works are very psychologically complex. Nevertheless, he is considered a giant of late 19th and early 20th century literature, noted for his finely-wrought language and visual imagery. The Narcissus story was one of his first breakthrough successes. It deals with a return voyage from India to England. A key character is James Wait, the eponymous Negro, who joins the ship at the last minute and appears to be seriously ill. The ship encounters a savage storm en route that turns the vessel over on its side and threatens its destruction. However, through heroic efforts the ship is saved. The crew's attitude toward Wait is initially hostile because he claims his sickness prevents him from doing any ship's work and they suspect him of malingering. Over time, however, the crew develops sympathy and affection for him. Meanwhile, Donkin, an unruly and incompetent crewman, given to socialistic sympathies, attempts to incite a mutiny, but ultimately fails. Wait finally dies to the surprise and shock of the crew. Finally, the Narcissus arrives home and the crew is dispersed. What makes this fairly simple story significant is the strong interpersonal dynamics between Wait and the crew which vacillate from initial skepticism and resentment to affection to dismay at his demise. Also, the description of the storm at sea is very gripping and well told. Conrad also makes a strong case through his narrative for the motivation, good nature and dedicated work ethic of the English sailor. The next story, "Typhoon" is fairly uncomplicated; the main characters are the old captain MacWhirr and his young first mate, Jukes. MacWhirr is a crusty and plodding old seadog who ignores conventional maritime aids such as navigational manuals and meteorological forecasts. When his ship runs into a typhoon (which he should have been able to avoid) he decides the best course of action is to face the storm and plow through it. In so doing he puts in grave peril not only the ship's crew but also its human cargo, a load of Chinese workers or coolies returning home. During the turmoil of the storm, which is described very graphically, the coolies start to riot and must be subdued by chaining them to the decks below. Through super human efforts and much luck, the ship is eventually saved and returns home. It appears the unimaginative MacWhirr has narrowly averted disaster by stubbornly forging on in the face of the savage storm. The next story considered is called "The Shadow-Line". It describes the transition of its young, fairly innocent protagonist into a mature and experienced captain of his own ship. The story opens slowly with the young man stranded at an oriental port having abruptly left his former ship where he was first mate. He is looking for an opportunity to command his own ship. While staying at a sailor's home he meets an older retired captain named Giles who alerts him to an unexpected position that has just come available. After being appointed captain and joining his new ship, he learns that the previous skipper had died after apparently losing his mind. After the ship shoves off, the return journey becomes perilous because the vessel is becalmed for an extended period. The crew superstitiously believes this is due to its former captain preventing the ship from passing beyond his burial spot at sea. Then fever breaks out throughout the ship, and the supply of quinine is found to be woefully inadequate. Eventually, only the captain and a crewman named Ransome are well enough to run the ship. There follows a tortuous period in which the crew becomes agitated and a little crazy while the ship remains becalmed. Eventually, a squall arrives with sufficient wind for the ship to get under way. After a difficult voyage, the ship makes port and the crew receives medical help. The young captain has proved his toughness and maturity during his first, perilous command.
December 14, 2021
Najplastyczniej oddany opis grozy sztormu w literaturze. Ale nie on jest tu wbrew pozorom najistotniejszy. Conrad np. w ogóle pomija wychodzenie statku z oka cyklonu. Chodzi tu o pokazanie relatywizmu postaw moralnych. Kapitan MacWhirr zostaje przedstawiony czytelnikowi jako ograniczony mruk bez wyobraźni i polotu. Lecz w chwili grozy, gdy nawet sam nie wiedział czy nie został już zmyty do morza, kapitan troszczy się o przewożonych kulisów i ostatecznie skutecznie rozwiązuje problem. Pozostająca w Anglii dobra żona kapitana martwi się jedynie, że mógłby on kiedyś powrócić do domu i przestać przysyłać jej pieniądze. Nie chce jej się nawet czytać jego długich listów. Postawy rysowane przez Conrada pozostają aktualne w każdych czasach i realnościach. Sam Conrad fascynuje. Źle mówił po angielsku, tak że mało kto był w stanie go zrozumieć, a przecież stworzył najwspanialszą marynistyczną literaturę tego wtórnego dla siebie języka.
June 4, 2013
Anyone who follows politics much knows it's not uncommon to hear politicians or journalists confidently state how figures of the past would feel today. They often claim to know which positions many of the Founding Fathers would take on contemporary debates. Of course, it's a tricky proposition to confer viewpoints on anyone who lived long ago and has not seen the advancements and changes made since their death. And if it's tricky for most, it seems even trickier for Joseph Conrad. His stories are filled with ostensible contradictions: authoritarians who demand complete control only to turn around and act magnanimously toward their subordinates and many contrasts between sympathetic views of troublesome and lowly characters and a strict adherence to rules and social mores that suggest showing mercy is ineffective. In other words, there are times he seems equal parts conservative and liberal.
"Typhoon," the opening story in the collection, contains the first of these contradictions. It follows Captain MacWhirr, a quiet man without the slightest sense of imagination, as he and his crew travel through a fierce typhoon. They head straight into bad weather because MacWhirr doesn't understand changing course before sighting the storm, an act that would require some imagination. While at first seeming to be a dim-witted captain, he shows the intelligence and tenacity to get them through this immense turbulence alive. Not only that, though, he also manages to solve the crisis on board during the storm. The money belonging to the Chinese passengers below deck had spilled out, causing a desperate fight to break out when all the men tried to get their money back. MacWhirr makes the decision to redistribute it equally among them. So he exhibits the firm hold of an authoritarian on his crew before switching to the position of a fair-minded egalitarian.
The next story, "Falk," is more of a comic tale even though it involves some grisly events. Its central concern is the difference between civilized and primitive man. Has man actually evolved, or is there just a veneer covering his baser instincts? Its central character, Falk, eventually tells the harrowing story of his past, one that can both elicit sympathy for its depiction of the human instinct to survive as well as revulsion at the dire lengths required to do so.
The third story, "Amy Foster," takes a turn back toward Conrad's more typical pessimism. It shows Yanko, a naive foreigner from Central Europe who ends up stranded in England when his ship to America sinks. His new society, while at times somewhat accepting of him, ultimately ostracizes him until he "perish[es] in the supreme disaster of loneliness and despair." One thing I find particularly odd about this story is its title. Its not named for its central character but for his wife who eventually abandons him. Perhaps this illustrates just how extreme alienation can be when even the title character deserts her husband because of his cultural differences.
The collection ends with one of the most well known and brooding Conrad stories (and my personal favorite): "The Secret Sharer." Its narrator has recently become captain of the Sephora. While working out the jitters of his recent promotion with a crew that is somewhat skeptical of his abilities, he encounters a murderer on the run who looks eerily similar to himself. And his decision to aid this criminal is one place where the aforementioned sympathy plays an important role. Readers could view this criminal as a separate person, which would suggest the new captain believes there are situations where it is morally right to show leniency to lawbreakers. On the other hand, readers could view this criminal as the impetuous part of the captain. In this case, the aid he provides would suggest that he's purging himself of his own inhibiting tendency to feel sympathy.
As solid as these stories are, with the exception of "The Secret Sharer," they still seem to be just a bit too superficial. They touch on serious topics but don't get as involved as I would have liked. I imagine this may be because I feel that I've been spoiled by Conrad's novels, which interminably explore humanity and civilization in a way short stories may not be able to.
"Typhoon," the opening story in the collection, contains the first of these contradictions. It follows Captain MacWhirr, a quiet man without the slightest sense of imagination, as he and his crew travel through a fierce typhoon. They head straight into bad weather because MacWhirr doesn't understand changing course before sighting the storm, an act that would require some imagination. While at first seeming to be a dim-witted captain, he shows the intelligence and tenacity to get them through this immense turbulence alive. Not only that, though, he also manages to solve the crisis on board during the storm. The money belonging to the Chinese passengers below deck had spilled out, causing a desperate fight to break out when all the men tried to get their money back. MacWhirr makes the decision to redistribute it equally among them. So he exhibits the firm hold of an authoritarian on his crew before switching to the position of a fair-minded egalitarian.
The next story, "Falk," is more of a comic tale even though it involves some grisly events. Its central concern is the difference between civilized and primitive man. Has man actually evolved, or is there just a veneer covering his baser instincts? Its central character, Falk, eventually tells the harrowing story of his past, one that can both elicit sympathy for its depiction of the human instinct to survive as well as revulsion at the dire lengths required to do so.
The third story, "Amy Foster," takes a turn back toward Conrad's more typical pessimism. It shows Yanko, a naive foreigner from Central Europe who ends up stranded in England when his ship to America sinks. His new society, while at times somewhat accepting of him, ultimately ostracizes him until he "perish[es] in the supreme disaster of loneliness and despair." One thing I find particularly odd about this story is its title. Its not named for its central character but for his wife who eventually abandons him. Perhaps this illustrates just how extreme alienation can be when even the title character deserts her husband because of his cultural differences.
The collection ends with one of the most well known and brooding Conrad stories (and my personal favorite): "The Secret Sharer." Its narrator has recently become captain of the Sephora. While working out the jitters of his recent promotion with a crew that is somewhat skeptical of his abilities, he encounters a murderer on the run who looks eerily similar to himself. And his decision to aid this criminal is one place where the aforementioned sympathy plays an important role. Readers could view this criminal as a separate person, which would suggest the new captain believes there are situations where it is morally right to show leniency to lawbreakers. On the other hand, readers could view this criminal as the impetuous part of the captain. In this case, the aid he provides would suggest that he's purging himself of his own inhibiting tendency to feel sympathy.
As solid as these stories are, with the exception of "The Secret Sharer," they still seem to be just a bit too superficial. They touch on serious topics but don't get as involved as I would have liked. I imagine this may be because I feel that I've been spoiled by Conrad's novels, which interminably explore humanity and civilization in a way short stories may not be able to.
February 5, 2020
This is a collection of four tales that vary from long short story length to novella length. They are all at least good and some of them are very good. The best two are the novella length stories. Falk is a comedic tale of courting and cannibalism and is the best piece in the book. Typhoon is a masterpiece of description. The other two stories are shorter. I preferred Amy Foster which is an interesting take on being an outsider and is about the husband of Amy Foster, more than her. It is really good and subtly disturbing. The Secret Sharer, despite being the most famous, is probably the least of the four and is not as well written as the others. It is a book that uses a "double" of the protagonist, although he is here only metaphorically a double. I liked it, but it reminded me of other better stories that use this device. With the exception of Amy Foster, I have individually reviewed these stories.
It's well worth reading if you are already a Conrad fan, but not the place I would start reading him.
It's well worth reading if you are already a Conrad fan, but not the place I would start reading him.
January 21, 2020
Expectations. That is the key to understanding and enjoying Joseph Conrad, in general, and Typhoon and Other Stories, in particular. And, initially, Conrad was regarded as much as an adventure writer as a composer of "serious literature." His works would not only appear in more upscale serial magazines but also those publications, heaven forbid, we consider "pulps" or those in the gray areas, where Conrad's stories might rub shoulders with works by Haggard, Mundy, or even Achmed Abdullah. The fact that they did so gives evidence that much of the divide cultural enforcers have placed between "literature" and "fiction" is artificial. Because another fact is that Conrad for much of his literary life and into the years beyond it, extending to the mid half of the twentieth century was not only seen as an adventure writer but marketed as one.
So it is with these stories. They serve as great examples of "literature" and also "adventure fiction." This in particular applies to "Typhoon" and "Falk." But it might also apply to "Amy Foster" and "To-morrow," as soon as the reader can wrench his head around the fact that substituting the domestic English locales in the latter two for the exotic places of the first two does not alter what Conrad is doing in his writing.
And what he is doing is exploring the peculiarities and particularities of the human psyche. In confined spaces, a ship adrift at sea, a remote sea port in Southeast Asia, or in two English coastal villages, Conrad paints a picture of people often torn and mutilated by their emotional experiences and establishes a feel that is general in scope.
Of course, it's how he tells his tales that make all the difference. Not simply the exquisite prose, but his off centering of his protagonists. Readers come to know MacWhirr through the narration of the ship's first mate, Jukes. "Typhoon" shares the same features of exposition in it as with Marlow and Jim in Lord Jim. Coincidentally or not, Conrad was working on both stories at the same time. But, then, wait. Is it really about MacWhirr? Remember, we only find out about MacWhirr what Jukes thinks is important to tell us. Perhaps, it is Jukes through whom the story comes that we are really exploring.
The same can be said of "Falk." Half of the story informs us of the troubles afflicting a young captain awaiting clearance to sail. This unnamed narrator doesn't really get to the story of Falk himself until half way through the tale. Only then do we begin to see the obsessions at work among everyone. "Amy Foster," meanwhile, positions yet another outsider, Yanko, in an English coastal village. Yanko has more in common with someone like Jim or Almayer, adrift in alien civilizations, than he does with the Englishmen who surround him. Things come to a head in the last story, "To-morrow," where all seems insane, not just one old man, and where Conrad explores the outer facades people so desperately construct to hide their inner madness from each other.
Note: I first read this book some 36 years ago, when most of my life lay in front of me. I have now reread it after the passing of many decades. In place of the adventure and action of that first reading, where it seems people need break their bonds and take control of their lives lest misfortune take root, I now think that Conrad was telling us of the futility of choices, how fate reaches into our souls, our minds, and leads where it will, despite our protestations.
So it is with these stories. They serve as great examples of "literature" and also "adventure fiction." This in particular applies to "Typhoon" and "Falk." But it might also apply to "Amy Foster" and "To-morrow," as soon as the reader can wrench his head around the fact that substituting the domestic English locales in the latter two for the exotic places of the first two does not alter what Conrad is doing in his writing.
And what he is doing is exploring the peculiarities and particularities of the human psyche. In confined spaces, a ship adrift at sea, a remote sea port in Southeast Asia, or in two English coastal villages, Conrad paints a picture of people often torn and mutilated by their emotional experiences and establishes a feel that is general in scope.
Of course, it's how he tells his tales that make all the difference. Not simply the exquisite prose, but his off centering of his protagonists. Readers come to know MacWhirr through the narration of the ship's first mate, Jukes. "Typhoon" shares the same features of exposition in it as with Marlow and Jim in Lord Jim. Coincidentally or not, Conrad was working on both stories at the same time. But, then, wait. Is it really about MacWhirr? Remember, we only find out about MacWhirr what Jukes thinks is important to tell us. Perhaps, it is Jukes through whom the story comes that we are really exploring.
The same can be said of "Falk." Half of the story informs us of the troubles afflicting a young captain awaiting clearance to sail. This unnamed narrator doesn't really get to the story of Falk himself until half way through the tale. Only then do we begin to see the obsessions at work among everyone. "Amy Foster," meanwhile, positions yet another outsider, Yanko, in an English coastal village. Yanko has more in common with someone like Jim or Almayer, adrift in alien civilizations, than he does with the Englishmen who surround him. Things come to a head in the last story, "To-morrow," where all seems insane, not just one old man, and where Conrad explores the outer facades people so desperately construct to hide their inner madness from each other.
Note: I first read this book some 36 years ago, when most of my life lay in front of me. I have now reread it after the passing of many decades. In place of the adventure and action of that first reading, where it seems people need break their bonds and take control of their lives lest misfortune take root, I now think that Conrad was telling us of the futility of choices, how fate reaches into our souls, our minds, and leads where it will, despite our protestations.
May 8, 2008
Wonderful, absolutely wonderful. It made me want to read everything by Conrad. It's easy, but dense reading. I especially loved An Outpost of Progress and The Nigger of the "Narcissus". These were what I felt to be the darkest of the stories in the book. It's amazing how he slowly and subtly illuminated the characters contradictions between thoughts and actions, their selfishness, and their blindness to their own hypocrisies and lack of awareness of their emotions and motives. And of course the creepy feeling as the reader knowing, yet wanting to deny, that all of that 'stuff' is inside you too.
I confess too that part of my extreme liking of An Outpost of Progress was that it was a story told on 'dry land'. No ships, storms, salt water, or excessive seafaring lingo to be found. All of which I enjoyed in the other stories, but after a few hundred pages of it, well-
I confess too that part of my extreme liking of An Outpost of Progress was that it was a story told on 'dry land'. No ships, storms, salt water, or excessive seafaring lingo to be found. All of which I enjoyed in the other stories, but after a few hundred pages of it, well-
January 7, 2013
Conrad’s novella, TYPHOON, is even more astonishing than I remember: “Captain McWhirr had sailed over the surface of the oceans as some men so skimming over the years of existence to sink gently into a placid grave, ignorant of life to the last, without ever having been made to see all it may contain of perfidy, of violence, and of terror. There are on sea and land such men thus fortunate—or thus disdained by destiny or by the sea.” It is a marvel of action prose, among its other virtues. Free from http://gutenberg.org/ebooks/1142
September 26, 2021
At the end of 'To-morrow' Captain Hagbeard's madness serves as the perfect counterpoint to the typhoon at the beginning. There are other resonances between the stories as well that makes this feel a lot more than an arbitrary collection of stories written at roughly the same time. For instance, Falk's doomed voyage that veers off course with life-altering consequences mirrors Yanko's equally doomed voyage that will lead to his isolation and subsequent death in an obscure English village. This is an exceptional volume of writing.
April 13, 2015
I seem to recall trying to read some Conrad in college and really, really struggling with it. Picking this up now, I can't remember how; Conrad's prose is sharp and clear, and his characterisation is phenomenal. I loved the drama ofTyphoon, contrasting with its anchored, stoic captain; Amy Foster is a tragedy, both as a character and a story; and let's not forget Falk, who was "once unfortunate". Just brilliant.
July 22, 2016
For people who think that Conrad is a limited writer, these four excellent short stories provide a significant challenge to this view.
There are some grounds for considering that the stories share the usual limitations of Conrad. All of them are set in or around the sea. The stories are predominantly about men, even ‘Amy Foster’. The men are white Europeans, and short shrift is given to non-European and non-white characters. In short, the stories do share some of the usual traits of a Conrad work.
However in subject matter, tone, intensity and style, they present an amazing richness that shows Conrad at his most skilful and interesting. No story is quite like another, and yet all four stories show Conrad at the height of his artistic powers.
The volume opens with ‘Typhoon’. Captain MacWhirr is the experienced and comically dull skipper to the Nan-Shan, which is transporting Chinese coolies home. MacWhirr ignores warnings about a coming tempest, and the ship is soon caught up in the terrible weather. During the storm, MacWhirr manages to keep the ship steady, and protect the Chinese labourers in the hold. During the typhoon, the labourers’ money has come loose, and it is impossible to decide who the money belongs to. MacWhirr solves the problem by distributing the money equally among the passengers.
The story was nearly given the unpromising title of ‘Equitable Division’, and one might be tempted to see MacWhirr’s solution as communism in action. Such an interpretation could only be offered by someone who does not understand Joseph Conrad.
In fact, MacWhirr’s solution is decidedly colonial. The Chinese coolies (Chinamen as the story calls them) are not individualised. They are seen as a collective panicking mass of people speaking in a strange, disconcerting language. None of them speaks up for themselves to MacWhirr, and it is left to the white Captain to hand down a solution. This solution is also a decidedly authoritarian and conservative one, made by a strong leader.
At the outset of the story, one might be forgiven for thinking that MacWhirr is a ridiculous and unworthy captain. Conrad has great fun with MacWhirr’s predictability and lack of imagination. MacWhirr’s conversation skills are so poor that he is bemused that his crew members enjoy talking, and he imagines that they must be repeating the same things. He fails to understand Jukes’ dislike of sailing under a Siamese flag, and can only conceive that Jukes is objecting to the design of the flag, rather than the implied patriotic slur of a British crew sailing under a foreign flag.
We hear a little bit about MacWhirr’s domestic arrangements. MacWhirr has a haughty wife and daughter who do not look forward to the prospect of him retiring and coming home. He writes long dull letters to his wife, often commenting on the good weather he is having (somewhat ironically in the light of the story).
MacWhirr’s insensitivity and lack of imagination may make him seem incompetent, as he totally fails to avoid a typhoon, despite warnings from the crew. However, I do not believe that Conrad intends us to judge MacWhirr too harshly. MacWhirr is an old hand who responds to situations that lie within the wisdom of his personal experience. He is therefore unprepared for the sheer magnitude of the storm that follows.
While MacWhirr is understandably irresponsible in failing to take the Nan-Shan out of harm’s way, he rises to the occasion when the typhoon strikes. Most of the crew struggle to cope with the unprecedented storm that is raging around them, but MacWhirr remains capable and responsible, handing out the necessary orders for the ship’s preservation.
It is MacWhirr who thinks to look after the Chinese labourers in his hold, and to ask his first mate to prevent them coming to harm. After the typhoon, it is again MacWhirr who keeps his head when the crew fear that the coolies will attack them in a bid to retrieve their money. Instead, MacWhirr comes up with the only fair method for redistributing the money among the coolies, giving them all an equal amount.
We should therefore see MacWhirr as the unlikely hero. Like Singleton in The Nigger of the Narcissus, he is unheroic and rather at a loss when on land. However, he has the hardiness of spirit and innate wisdom to deal with a crisis. Notably one of the characters is called Solomon, and MacWhirr’s final compromise with the coolies has a hint of the Biblical Solomon about it.
‘Typhoon’ is a fine tale. Aside from the interest arising from Conrad’s views about the good qualities of command, and the ability to find a workable solution to the problems caused at sea, the story also contains some bravura descriptions of the tempest that are genuinely exciting to read.
Whilst the humour in ‘Typhoon’ is gentle, the humour in ‘Falk’ is of a more black nature. The story is narrated Marlowe-style by an inexperienced captain who befriends a German family. Like MacWhirr, they have never experienced the tempests of the sea and their lives are secluded and happy. Onto the scene comes Falk, a local shipper who controls the only tug boat in the area and charges rapacious prices for its use.
Falk is in love with the niece of the family and sees the narrator as a rival. This leads to some bad behaviour on Falk’s part. However, the necessity of getting his boat out to sea forces the Captain to talk amicably to Falk. The Captain reassures Falk about his lack of interest in the niece, and even agrees to intercede on his behalf.
This intervention is welcomed by both the niece and Hermann, the uncle. However, Falk has an appalling secret from his past that he insists on sharing. During a previous ill-fated voyage, the crew were trapped without provisions, and he resorted to cannibalism. This revelation horrifies Hermann, but ultimately he stifles his disgust and the match between Falk and the niece is successfully agreed.
The story is an extraordinary one because it takes a dark idea and fails to present it with any of the horror that we might expect from the writer of Heart of Darkness. Indeed, there is a good deal of anticipatory irony and humour in the story since the characters observe Falk’s aversion to eating meat and his apparent hunger for the girl, and fail to realise how these elements are connected.
Conrad often deals with the fallibility of humans under severe strain, but this is only partly true of Falk. To some extent, you could see the cannibalism as part of his nature. He hungers after the niece. He adopts ruthless methods to undermine his apparent rival. He is willing to exploit his position as owner of a tug to charge extortionate amounts. His personality is driven by basic hungers and urges.
Falk also has no self-condemnation for his actions. He feels horror and guilt, but insists that it was bad luck. You could see his motives as unconsciously Darwinian. When he kills the carpenter on the ship and eats him, it is seen as a case of the strong man winning out.
Indeed Conrad is hardly condemning of Falk’s acts. He seems understanding of the pressures that would make a man of Falk’s nature act this way. Hermann’s anger on finding out about is seen as purely ridiculous, and he is angrier that Falk told him than at what Falk did. Indeed, Falk’s confession does not prevent him from having a happy ending and marrying the niece.
While the lighter tone ‘Falk’ is disconcerting, the story works very well. It unfolds beautifully in its development up to the shock revelation. The actual account of Falk’s cannibalism occupies a surprisingly short amount of the story, and the focus is more on the reactions of those who hear the story. As with ‘Typhoon’ it shows complacent characters brought into contact with something outside their normal experience, and forced to find a compromise solution. Only this time even the solution is broadly comical.
If ‘Falk’ is surprisingly cheerful in tone, this cannot be said of ‘Amy Foster’. This is one of the most heartbreaking stories that Conrad ever wrote. It concerns a central European called Yanko who is washed up in England after a shipwreck. Landing in a strange country and not speaking the language, his arrival is at first greeted with fear and confusion by the locals.
Yanko is menaced by the townfolk until finally he is trapped in a wood-lodge. It is left to a rather insipid young lady called Amy Foster to take pity on him and provide him with food. A local neighbour agrees to employ Yanko. As Yanko learns his new job and begins to learn English, he becomes more and more useful. After he saves the life of his employer’s grand-daughter, he gains some level of acceptance in the town.
This acceptance is tested when he and Amy Foster decide to marry, but he gets his way. Sadly although they have a child together, the marriage proves unhappy. Amy is finally repelled by his strangeness. The final crisis occurs when Yanko falls dangerously ill. He begs for water but in his delirium he speaks in his native language, and Amy flees from the house in fright, leaving him to die.
This is a poignant tale, and gives us an insight into some of Conrad’s own deep-seated fears as a Polish immigrant in England. He too was married to an often uncomprehending English wife, and the tale is almost a nightmarish projection of what might happen to him. It contains another recurring theme in Conrad’s works – the essential loneliness of the human condition.
The local community is portrayed in a negative light here. Yanko is appalled that they treated him far worse on his arrival than the people in his homeland would have treated beggars. He remarks at one point that if he had not seen a cross on one of the women, he would not have realised that this was a Christian country. (Indeed, Yanko is a believer in a benevolent Providence, but this belief is betrayed, and he dies crying out, ‘Why?’)
He finds limited acceptance from the community – especially his employer, the narrator (a local doctor) and (to begin with) Amy Foster. However, she has none of the qualities of a supportive wife. We get a glimpse of this in an earlier incident where we hear that she looked after a parrot, but when a cat got in and threatened the parrot she ran away and left it to its fate because its cries were so human. This anticipates the way she treats Yanko.
‘Amy Foster’ is a stark and powerful story, and the very brevity and bare bones of its telling allows the story to seem strangely allegorical like a fable. It is not an allegory of course, but it is a tale that can appeal to any outsider who fears ultimate rejection by their loved ones.
The tone of the first three stories is fairly clear, if a little surprising in ‘Falk’. By contrast, ‘The Secret Sharer’ is ambiguous in the telling. It is one of those tales that seems to tease us with an extra meaning that we cannot quite pin down. The narrator is once more a young man on his first voyage as Captain of a ship. While alone on the deck, he is startled by young man climbing aboard. The man is an officer from a neighbouring ship who murdered one of his crew members, and is now a fugitive.
The fugitive (Leggatt) feels that he was justified, because the victim was a bully who refused to obey an order at a time when the ship was in peril from a storm. The narrator conceasl Leggatt in his cabin because he feels a strange affinity with the murderer. The two men look alike and they both went to Conway, a training ship. Eventually the Captain agrees to take his ship close to an island at great risk to the safety of his ship and crew so that Leggatt can safely swim ashore.
‘The Secret Sharer’ cries out for psychological interpretations, especially those of a Freudian nature. The two men look similar, suggesting a dual identity. Even the cabin in which Leggatt is concealed is in an ‘L’ shape, reflecting both his name and a letter that comprises two identical sticks, one fallen over. The title too hints at this. Leggatt is a sharer of more than just the secret of his concealment in the cabinet. He shares a resemblance to the Captain.
There are certainly some characteristic Conrad ideas about the weakness and fallibility of humans. Had circumstances been different, the story suggests, then Leggatt and the Captain’s places might have been interchangeable. However, it is a mistake to see Leggatt as an imaginary or psychological projection of the Captain’s personality. The story is a concrete tale, and Leggatt’s existence is confirmed by others. We should also avoid seeing the story as a Jekyll and Hyde variation, as both men are morally ambiguous.
In fact, this gets more to the heart of the narrative. In so far as it is about psychological issues, it is more about the moral choices made by Leggatt and the Captain. On the surface, it might seem that Leggatt is the darker character, but this position is far more blurred. Leggatt kills a man to saves his ship from disaster. The Captain endangers his ship to save a known murderer. Right and wrong are uncertain. Was the Captain in the right to risk all to protect Leggatt, and was Leggatt justified in his murder?
There is also the question about the Captain’s motives in protecting Leggatt. These are never explained to the reader, but seem to lie in the strange resemblance between the two men. The Captain is almost protecting himself, or an alternative version of what he might have been. This lends itself to other interpretations.
Some see a form of elitism in the actions of the Captain. He and Leggatt were trained in the same place, and both men are intelligent and well-educated. They are more compatible with one another than they are with their stupid crew members. This creates a freemasonry between the two men. Another reading of the story is to see a homosexual connection between the two men, and some of the language the Captain uses might suggest an attraction between them.
While ‘The Secret Sharer’ may not bear out all the psychological interpretations placed on it, the story is a fascinating one that appeals to the dark recesses of the imagination, and its ambiguity leaves the reader guessing.
The four stories here are very different, but there are a few shared characteristics. Three of them are seafaring adventures, and even the hero of ‘Amy Foster’ comes from out of the sea.
Women are reduced to a supporting role in the action, and almost treated with some kind of resentment by Conrad. MacWhirr’s female family members are superior and do not appreciate him. The women of Hermann’s family live in a bubble, away from the harsh realities that might force a man to resort to cannibalism to survive. Only the niece stands out as a woman of some strength, yet she is barely individualised at all – more of a warrior-like ideal for Falk to aspire to.
Amy Foster proves unworthy of her gentle husband and deserts him during his sickness. Much emphasis is given to her dullness and insipidity. There are no women in ‘The Secret Sharer’, but we are told that the Captain of Leggatt’s ship had a wife on board, further weakening the Captain’s resolve.
All four stories present the characters with a problem that comes from outside their comfort and experience, and which will test their resolve and strength. Two of the stories involve newly-appointed Captains who feel responsible for their crew. Two of the stories involve experienced seafarers who have had an easy time at sea, and who are not prepared for revelations of a shocking nature.
The successful resolution of the stories depends on how well the characters adjust to the change. MacWhirr proves capable in the crisis. There is a point in the middle of the typhoon when he notices that the readings suggest the weather will get far worse, and his mind is now expanded enough to take this seriously, even though it lies outside his experience. He has the courage, flexibility and good moral sense to get his crew through the danger.
Falk finds another solution to problems at sea. It is a brutal one, but one that keeps him alive, and has been forced on him by harsh necessity. The narrating Captain has a different problem (how to get persuade Falk to tow his ship out to sea), and he solves this problem with diplomacy and persuasion. Hermann has to make a choice about whether to allow a one-time cannibal to marry into his family, and he gives in to pragmatism and expediency.
The other stories present less clear-cut solutions to the problem at hand. Yanko tries hard to adjust to living in a strange land, but he is let down and left to die. The town fails to adjust to the problem of having a stranger in their midst, never allowing him to be accepted as one of their own. Amy Foster’s failure is the greatest. After seeming more accepting of Yanko’s outlandishness at the beginning, she is finally repelled and frightened by him, and abandons him at a critical moment.
The Captain in ‘The Secret Sharer’ has to make a choice about what he should do with an intruder and self-confessed murderer. He responds by concealing Leggatt until he can drop Leggatt off at an island for safety, but he creates more problems for himself by nearly causing his ship to wreck. It is unclear whether his solution was the morally right one or not. Similarly Leggatt solved a problem for his own shipmates and protected his ship in a storm, but he also murdered a man in the process.
It is easy to overlook these stories, as people tend to see Conrad’s longer novels as his most significant work. This is a shame, as the four stories are among the best that Conrad ever wrote, and offer a more concentrated artistic unity and purpose than even many of Conrad’s most famous books.
There are some grounds for considering that the stories share the usual limitations of Conrad. All of them are set in or around the sea. The stories are predominantly about men, even ‘Amy Foster’. The men are white Europeans, and short shrift is given to non-European and non-white characters. In short, the stories do share some of the usual traits of a Conrad work.
However in subject matter, tone, intensity and style, they present an amazing richness that shows Conrad at his most skilful and interesting. No story is quite like another, and yet all four stories show Conrad at the height of his artistic powers.
The volume opens with ‘Typhoon’. Captain MacWhirr is the experienced and comically dull skipper to the Nan-Shan, which is transporting Chinese coolies home. MacWhirr ignores warnings about a coming tempest, and the ship is soon caught up in the terrible weather. During the storm, MacWhirr manages to keep the ship steady, and protect the Chinese labourers in the hold. During the typhoon, the labourers’ money has come loose, and it is impossible to decide who the money belongs to. MacWhirr solves the problem by distributing the money equally among the passengers.
The story was nearly given the unpromising title of ‘Equitable Division’, and one might be tempted to see MacWhirr’s solution as communism in action. Such an interpretation could only be offered by someone who does not understand Joseph Conrad.
In fact, MacWhirr’s solution is decidedly colonial. The Chinese coolies (Chinamen as the story calls them) are not individualised. They are seen as a collective panicking mass of people speaking in a strange, disconcerting language. None of them speaks up for themselves to MacWhirr, and it is left to the white Captain to hand down a solution. This solution is also a decidedly authoritarian and conservative one, made by a strong leader.
At the outset of the story, one might be forgiven for thinking that MacWhirr is a ridiculous and unworthy captain. Conrad has great fun with MacWhirr’s predictability and lack of imagination. MacWhirr’s conversation skills are so poor that he is bemused that his crew members enjoy talking, and he imagines that they must be repeating the same things. He fails to understand Jukes’ dislike of sailing under a Siamese flag, and can only conceive that Jukes is objecting to the design of the flag, rather than the implied patriotic slur of a British crew sailing under a foreign flag.
We hear a little bit about MacWhirr’s domestic arrangements. MacWhirr has a haughty wife and daughter who do not look forward to the prospect of him retiring and coming home. He writes long dull letters to his wife, often commenting on the good weather he is having (somewhat ironically in the light of the story).
MacWhirr’s insensitivity and lack of imagination may make him seem incompetent, as he totally fails to avoid a typhoon, despite warnings from the crew. However, I do not believe that Conrad intends us to judge MacWhirr too harshly. MacWhirr is an old hand who responds to situations that lie within the wisdom of his personal experience. He is therefore unprepared for the sheer magnitude of the storm that follows.
While MacWhirr is understandably irresponsible in failing to take the Nan-Shan out of harm’s way, he rises to the occasion when the typhoon strikes. Most of the crew struggle to cope with the unprecedented storm that is raging around them, but MacWhirr remains capable and responsible, handing out the necessary orders for the ship’s preservation.
It is MacWhirr who thinks to look after the Chinese labourers in his hold, and to ask his first mate to prevent them coming to harm. After the typhoon, it is again MacWhirr who keeps his head when the crew fear that the coolies will attack them in a bid to retrieve their money. Instead, MacWhirr comes up with the only fair method for redistributing the money among the coolies, giving them all an equal amount.
We should therefore see MacWhirr as the unlikely hero. Like Singleton in The Nigger of the Narcissus, he is unheroic and rather at a loss when on land. However, he has the hardiness of spirit and innate wisdom to deal with a crisis. Notably one of the characters is called Solomon, and MacWhirr’s final compromise with the coolies has a hint of the Biblical Solomon about it.
‘Typhoon’ is a fine tale. Aside from the interest arising from Conrad’s views about the good qualities of command, and the ability to find a workable solution to the problems caused at sea, the story also contains some bravura descriptions of the tempest that are genuinely exciting to read.
Whilst the humour in ‘Typhoon’ is gentle, the humour in ‘Falk’ is of a more black nature. The story is narrated Marlowe-style by an inexperienced captain who befriends a German family. Like MacWhirr, they have never experienced the tempests of the sea and their lives are secluded and happy. Onto the scene comes Falk, a local shipper who controls the only tug boat in the area and charges rapacious prices for its use.
Falk is in love with the niece of the family and sees the narrator as a rival. This leads to some bad behaviour on Falk’s part. However, the necessity of getting his boat out to sea forces the Captain to talk amicably to Falk. The Captain reassures Falk about his lack of interest in the niece, and even agrees to intercede on his behalf.
This intervention is welcomed by both the niece and Hermann, the uncle. However, Falk has an appalling secret from his past that he insists on sharing. During a previous ill-fated voyage, the crew were trapped without provisions, and he resorted to cannibalism. This revelation horrifies Hermann, but ultimately he stifles his disgust and the match between Falk and the niece is successfully agreed.
The story is an extraordinary one because it takes a dark idea and fails to present it with any of the horror that we might expect from the writer of Heart of Darkness. Indeed, there is a good deal of anticipatory irony and humour in the story since the characters observe Falk’s aversion to eating meat and his apparent hunger for the girl, and fail to realise how these elements are connected.
Conrad often deals with the fallibility of humans under severe strain, but this is only partly true of Falk. To some extent, you could see the cannibalism as part of his nature. He hungers after the niece. He adopts ruthless methods to undermine his apparent rival. He is willing to exploit his position as owner of a tug to charge extortionate amounts. His personality is driven by basic hungers and urges.
Falk also has no self-condemnation for his actions. He feels horror and guilt, but insists that it was bad luck. You could see his motives as unconsciously Darwinian. When he kills the carpenter on the ship and eats him, it is seen as a case of the strong man winning out.
Indeed Conrad is hardly condemning of Falk’s acts. He seems understanding of the pressures that would make a man of Falk’s nature act this way. Hermann’s anger on finding out about is seen as purely ridiculous, and he is angrier that Falk told him than at what Falk did. Indeed, Falk’s confession does not prevent him from having a happy ending and marrying the niece.
While the lighter tone ‘Falk’ is disconcerting, the story works very well. It unfolds beautifully in its development up to the shock revelation. The actual account of Falk’s cannibalism occupies a surprisingly short amount of the story, and the focus is more on the reactions of those who hear the story. As with ‘Typhoon’ it shows complacent characters brought into contact with something outside their normal experience, and forced to find a compromise solution. Only this time even the solution is broadly comical.
If ‘Falk’ is surprisingly cheerful in tone, this cannot be said of ‘Amy Foster’. This is one of the most heartbreaking stories that Conrad ever wrote. It concerns a central European called Yanko who is washed up in England after a shipwreck. Landing in a strange country and not speaking the language, his arrival is at first greeted with fear and confusion by the locals.
Yanko is menaced by the townfolk until finally he is trapped in a wood-lodge. It is left to a rather insipid young lady called Amy Foster to take pity on him and provide him with food. A local neighbour agrees to employ Yanko. As Yanko learns his new job and begins to learn English, he becomes more and more useful. After he saves the life of his employer’s grand-daughter, he gains some level of acceptance in the town.
This acceptance is tested when he and Amy Foster decide to marry, but he gets his way. Sadly although they have a child together, the marriage proves unhappy. Amy is finally repelled by his strangeness. The final crisis occurs when Yanko falls dangerously ill. He begs for water but in his delirium he speaks in his native language, and Amy flees from the house in fright, leaving him to die.
This is a poignant tale, and gives us an insight into some of Conrad’s own deep-seated fears as a Polish immigrant in England. He too was married to an often uncomprehending English wife, and the tale is almost a nightmarish projection of what might happen to him. It contains another recurring theme in Conrad’s works – the essential loneliness of the human condition.
The local community is portrayed in a negative light here. Yanko is appalled that they treated him far worse on his arrival than the people in his homeland would have treated beggars. He remarks at one point that if he had not seen a cross on one of the women, he would not have realised that this was a Christian country. (Indeed, Yanko is a believer in a benevolent Providence, but this belief is betrayed, and he dies crying out, ‘Why?’)
He finds limited acceptance from the community – especially his employer, the narrator (a local doctor) and (to begin with) Amy Foster. However, she has none of the qualities of a supportive wife. We get a glimpse of this in an earlier incident where we hear that she looked after a parrot, but when a cat got in and threatened the parrot she ran away and left it to its fate because its cries were so human. This anticipates the way she treats Yanko.
‘Amy Foster’ is a stark and powerful story, and the very brevity and bare bones of its telling allows the story to seem strangely allegorical like a fable. It is not an allegory of course, but it is a tale that can appeal to any outsider who fears ultimate rejection by their loved ones.
The tone of the first three stories is fairly clear, if a little surprising in ‘Falk’. By contrast, ‘The Secret Sharer’ is ambiguous in the telling. It is one of those tales that seems to tease us with an extra meaning that we cannot quite pin down. The narrator is once more a young man on his first voyage as Captain of a ship. While alone on the deck, he is startled by young man climbing aboard. The man is an officer from a neighbouring ship who murdered one of his crew members, and is now a fugitive.
The fugitive (Leggatt) feels that he was justified, because the victim was a bully who refused to obey an order at a time when the ship was in peril from a storm. The narrator conceasl Leggatt in his cabin because he feels a strange affinity with the murderer. The two men look alike and they both went to Conway, a training ship. Eventually the Captain agrees to take his ship close to an island at great risk to the safety of his ship and crew so that Leggatt can safely swim ashore.
‘The Secret Sharer’ cries out for psychological interpretations, especially those of a Freudian nature. The two men look similar, suggesting a dual identity. Even the cabin in which Leggatt is concealed is in an ‘L’ shape, reflecting both his name and a letter that comprises two identical sticks, one fallen over. The title too hints at this. Leggatt is a sharer of more than just the secret of his concealment in the cabinet. He shares a resemblance to the Captain.
There are certainly some characteristic Conrad ideas about the weakness and fallibility of humans. Had circumstances been different, the story suggests, then Leggatt and the Captain’s places might have been interchangeable. However, it is a mistake to see Leggatt as an imaginary or psychological projection of the Captain’s personality. The story is a concrete tale, and Leggatt’s existence is confirmed by others. We should also avoid seeing the story as a Jekyll and Hyde variation, as both men are morally ambiguous.
In fact, this gets more to the heart of the narrative. In so far as it is about psychological issues, it is more about the moral choices made by Leggatt and the Captain. On the surface, it might seem that Leggatt is the darker character, but this position is far more blurred. Leggatt kills a man to saves his ship from disaster. The Captain endangers his ship to save a known murderer. Right and wrong are uncertain. Was the Captain in the right to risk all to protect Leggatt, and was Leggatt justified in his murder?
There is also the question about the Captain’s motives in protecting Leggatt. These are never explained to the reader, but seem to lie in the strange resemblance between the two men. The Captain is almost protecting himself, or an alternative version of what he might have been. This lends itself to other interpretations.
Some see a form of elitism in the actions of the Captain. He and Leggatt were trained in the same place, and both men are intelligent and well-educated. They are more compatible with one another than they are with their stupid crew members. This creates a freemasonry between the two men. Another reading of the story is to see a homosexual connection between the two men, and some of the language the Captain uses might suggest an attraction between them.
While ‘The Secret Sharer’ may not bear out all the psychological interpretations placed on it, the story is a fascinating one that appeals to the dark recesses of the imagination, and its ambiguity leaves the reader guessing.
The four stories here are very different, but there are a few shared characteristics. Three of them are seafaring adventures, and even the hero of ‘Amy Foster’ comes from out of the sea.
Women are reduced to a supporting role in the action, and almost treated with some kind of resentment by Conrad. MacWhirr’s female family members are superior and do not appreciate him. The women of Hermann’s family live in a bubble, away from the harsh realities that might force a man to resort to cannibalism to survive. Only the niece stands out as a woman of some strength, yet she is barely individualised at all – more of a warrior-like ideal for Falk to aspire to.
Amy Foster proves unworthy of her gentle husband and deserts him during his sickness. Much emphasis is given to her dullness and insipidity. There are no women in ‘The Secret Sharer’, but we are told that the Captain of Leggatt’s ship had a wife on board, further weakening the Captain’s resolve.
All four stories present the characters with a problem that comes from outside their comfort and experience, and which will test their resolve and strength. Two of the stories involve newly-appointed Captains who feel responsible for their crew. Two of the stories involve experienced seafarers who have had an easy time at sea, and who are not prepared for revelations of a shocking nature.
The successful resolution of the stories depends on how well the characters adjust to the change. MacWhirr proves capable in the crisis. There is a point in the middle of the typhoon when he notices that the readings suggest the weather will get far worse, and his mind is now expanded enough to take this seriously, even though it lies outside his experience. He has the courage, flexibility and good moral sense to get his crew through the danger.
Falk finds another solution to problems at sea. It is a brutal one, but one that keeps him alive, and has been forced on him by harsh necessity. The narrating Captain has a different problem (how to get persuade Falk to tow his ship out to sea), and he solves this problem with diplomacy and persuasion. Hermann has to make a choice about whether to allow a one-time cannibal to marry into his family, and he gives in to pragmatism and expediency.
The other stories present less clear-cut solutions to the problem at hand. Yanko tries hard to adjust to living in a strange land, but he is let down and left to die. The town fails to adjust to the problem of having a stranger in their midst, never allowing him to be accepted as one of their own. Amy Foster’s failure is the greatest. After seeming more accepting of Yanko’s outlandishness at the beginning, she is finally repelled and frightened by him, and abandons him at a critical moment.
The Captain in ‘The Secret Sharer’ has to make a choice about what he should do with an intruder and self-confessed murderer. He responds by concealing Leggatt until he can drop Leggatt off at an island for safety, but he creates more problems for himself by nearly causing his ship to wreck. It is unclear whether his solution was the morally right one or not. Similarly Leggatt solved a problem for his own shipmates and protected his ship in a storm, but he also murdered a man in the process.
It is easy to overlook these stories, as people tend to see Conrad’s longer novels as his most significant work. This is a shame, as the four stories are among the best that Conrad ever wrote, and offer a more concentrated artistic unity and purpose than even many of Conrad’s most famous books.
November 15, 2017
This short Oxford University Press edition includes four short stories by Joseph Conrad: Typhoon, Falk, Amy Foster and The Secret Sharer, and a very useful introduction. I loved it. I do not typically read shorter fiction, but these stories were incredibly satisfying in their sense of completeness and wholenesss as works of art. Nabokov once said in his Lectures on Literature that it would take an entire lifetime just to know one novel properly – but these short stories by Conrad give one the opportunity of getting familiar with his particular craft of writing in a much shorter amount of time. It is much easier to get a sense of structure of the whole from a short story than it is from a full-length novel.
Typhoon is very much a typical Conrad story, and I would recommend it as an introduction to his more complex works – it is basically a story about the truth of one’s character being tested by extreme conditions at sea. There is more to characters than might initially meet the eye and a seemingly inept captain proves a hero. It reminded me a great deal of Lord Jim.
Falk was not a particular favourite of mine, even though I acknowledge that its theme of appetite and hunger was very well carried through. The other thing I may note is that I think the introduction simplified the moral ambiguity of Falk too much for my taste (though perhaps the critic was using Conrad’s letters in some way that I am unaware of). I don’t think it’s simply a sympathetic tale of survival, and I suspect that the narrator of the story feels that there is something primitive in Falk, which is unappealing to him. Even though the narrator does not share Schomberg’s unthinking moral condemnation, he does wonder why instead of committing cannibalism, Falk did not commit suicide…. (that’s typically a Joseph Conrad-style moral problem to ponder, by the way)
Amy Foster was the short story that touched me greatly as it seems to embody all of Conrad’s greatest fears about being isolated in a foreign country that has become one’s home. The story of Yanko Goral lost on the shores of Kent, though it may be similar to other Eastern European narratives of the time, is deeply personal in Conrad’s retelling. I was heartbroken to read in the introduction that Conrad suffered a fever during his honeymoon during which he spoke in a ‘strange language’ which his wife couldn’t understand. He later guessed he must have been speaking Polish.
The Secret Sharer is an amazing artwork in its own right. But I confess that even as I can easily imagine critics writing pages and pages about doppelgangers and potentially homosexuality, I was fascinated by the very strange treatment of justice and injustice in this tale. It seemed very unlike Conrad’s other stories.
Typhoon is very much a typical Conrad story, and I would recommend it as an introduction to his more complex works – it is basically a story about the truth of one’s character being tested by extreme conditions at sea. There is more to characters than might initially meet the eye and a seemingly inept captain proves a hero. It reminded me a great deal of Lord Jim.
Falk was not a particular favourite of mine, even though I acknowledge that its theme of appetite and hunger was very well carried through. The other thing I may note is that I think the introduction simplified the moral ambiguity of Falk too much for my taste (though perhaps the critic was using Conrad’s letters in some way that I am unaware of). I don’t think it’s simply a sympathetic tale of survival, and I suspect that the narrator of the story feels that there is something primitive in Falk, which is unappealing to him. Even though the narrator does not share Schomberg’s unthinking moral condemnation, he does wonder why instead of committing cannibalism, Falk did not commit suicide…. (that’s typically a Joseph Conrad-style moral problem to ponder, by the way)
Amy Foster was the short story that touched me greatly as it seems to embody all of Conrad’s greatest fears about being isolated in a foreign country that has become one’s home. The story of Yanko Goral lost on the shores of Kent, though it may be similar to other Eastern European narratives of the time, is deeply personal in Conrad’s retelling. I was heartbroken to read in the introduction that Conrad suffered a fever during his honeymoon during which he spoke in a ‘strange language’ which his wife couldn’t understand. He later guessed he must have been speaking Polish.
The Secret Sharer is an amazing artwork in its own right. But I confess that even as I can easily imagine critics writing pages and pages about doppelgangers and potentially homosexuality, I was fascinated by the very strange treatment of justice and injustice in this tale. It seemed very unlike Conrad’s other stories.
April 10, 2021
"Typhoon" is famous as a virtuouso description of a storm at sea, and it is easy to see this novella as little more than a yarn about a dullard captain who gets lucky and his annoying, callow first mate Jukes. As usual with Conrad, second and further readings reveal a much more complex and sophisticated story than at first glance. It happens that the ship's "cargo" is not inanimate goods but a group of homebound Chinese coolies, and although very little happens during the duration of the voyage, the story's moral center revolves around the difference between the dull MacWhirr's commitment to treat the Chinese just as he would any other human being, and Jukes's self-serving and racist attitude. More subtly still, Conrad's use of the aesthetics of the sublime (as I've argued in an academic paper) links the storm at sea to the political storm on board.
Conrad took many risks in "Falk," from the inclusion of a female lead who never speaks (for which the serial press rejected the story, even in 1900) to the subject of cannibalism. The only actual cannibalism in Conrad's oeuvre is committed by a white man himself, Falk, which suggests a counterargument to readings of Conrad--rather than Marlow, the narrator of "Heart of Darkness"--as racist. Moreover, "Falk" also deploys the double-voiced, doubly distanced narration also at work in "Heart of Darkness," written just before "Falk" with the difference that in the latter the story ends by emphasizing the epistemological instability of storytelling and gossip. The reception trouble that "Heart of Darkness" has generated, as Chinua Achebe argues in his essay on the novella, "An Image of Africa," is that it lacks this "alternative frame of reference" that tells the reader how to receive the images of Africa and Africans. But reading "Falk" against "Heart of Darkness" might have given Achebe the opportunity to discover that Conrad was well aware of such an alternative frame.
The story of a doomed Eastern European castaway washed ashore in an English town who is rejected by his host community is both a scathing commentary on the insularity and hard-hearted indifference of the townspeople to the Other and a heartbreaking tale of shattering pathos. Brief but unforgettable, in the tradition of Flaubert and Maupassant whose compressed narratives heighten emotional power, "Amy Foster" is notable for its exploration of the failure of cross-cultural language and communication. It's also one of the more successful Conrad stories in my college classroom.
More on "The Secret Sharer" coming soon.
Conrad took many risks in "Falk," from the inclusion of a female lead who never speaks (for which the serial press rejected the story, even in 1900) to the subject of cannibalism. The only actual cannibalism in Conrad's oeuvre is committed by a white man himself, Falk, which suggests a counterargument to readings of Conrad--rather than Marlow, the narrator of "Heart of Darkness"--as racist. Moreover, "Falk" also deploys the double-voiced, doubly distanced narration also at work in "Heart of Darkness," written just before "Falk" with the difference that in the latter the story ends by emphasizing the epistemological instability of storytelling and gossip. The reception trouble that "Heart of Darkness" has generated, as Chinua Achebe argues in his essay on the novella, "An Image of Africa," is that it lacks this "alternative frame of reference" that tells the reader how to receive the images of Africa and Africans. But reading "Falk" against "Heart of Darkness" might have given Achebe the opportunity to discover that Conrad was well aware of such an alternative frame.
The story of a doomed Eastern European castaway washed ashore in an English town who is rejected by his host community is both a scathing commentary on the insularity and hard-hearted indifference of the townspeople to the Other and a heartbreaking tale of shattering pathos. Brief but unforgettable, in the tradition of Flaubert and Maupassant whose compressed narratives heighten emotional power, "Amy Foster" is notable for its exploration of the failure of cross-cultural language and communication. It's also one of the more successful Conrad stories in my college classroom.
More on "The Secret Sharer" coming soon.
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May 21, 2024I read the title story a long time back, and mainly remember it as a mood piece, Conrad reminding us that he doesn't just do the best sunsets in the business, he's got weather in general down pat - and all this, of course, in his third language. It also hews a little closer than usual to that occluded genre with which he shares so much, but out of which posterity's respect has done its best to usher him, the stirring tale of men at sea.
Falk, like Typhoon, is right around where I'd put the novella/novel threshold, but feels far more typically Conrad in the framing, an old salt telling a story of a time he was stuck in port on the other side of the world, only within which nest do we hear at a further remove the backstory of the eponymous tugboat captain - a figure who very much reminded me of a Galaxie 500 song I never quite liked, and helped me put my finger on why. Unlike Cedric Watts' introduction, I'd rather not give the game away; suffice to say that even before I had the whole explanation, I was picturing Falk as played by Klaus Kinski. I did wonder at times whether the account might be a little padded, most often when the narrator got carried away with rhapsodising over the physicality and vitality of Falk and/or his friend's "magnificent lump" of a niece, but there's still a solid piece of work under the Robert E Howard-esque thigh-rubbing.
The last two tales, perhaps happily, are roughly half as long. Amy Foster might have been based on a Ford Madox Ford original; if nothing else, the sheer tragedy of it makes that feel plausible. It's set on the Kent coast, where a foreigner washes ashore from the wreck of a vessel run by unscrupulous traffickers, only to be met with suspicion. Thank heavens that sort of thing couldn't happen now, eh? Finally, there's The Secret Sharer, probably the best-known thing here, but for me the least successful, though that may just be because I very seldom get on with stories on the theme of the sinister double, possibly on account of how seldom they go for the obvious solution of making out. The omission is particularly glaring in this case, where there really was only one bed.
Falk, like Typhoon, is right around where I'd put the novella/novel threshold, but feels far more typically Conrad in the framing, an old salt telling a story of a time he was stuck in port on the other side of the world, only within which nest do we hear at a further remove the backstory of the eponymous tugboat captain - a figure who very much reminded me of a Galaxie 500 song I never quite liked, and helped me put my finger on why. Unlike Cedric Watts' introduction, I'd rather not give the game away; suffice to say that even before I had the whole explanation, I was picturing Falk as played by Klaus Kinski. I did wonder at times whether the account might be a little padded, most often when the narrator got carried away with rhapsodising over the physicality and vitality of Falk and/or his friend's "magnificent lump" of a niece, but there's still a solid piece of work under the Robert E Howard-esque thigh-rubbing.
The last two tales, perhaps happily, are roughly half as long. Amy Foster might have been based on a Ford Madox Ford original; if nothing else, the sheer tragedy of it makes that feel plausible. It's set on the Kent coast, where a foreigner washes ashore from the wreck of a vessel run by unscrupulous traffickers, only to be met with suspicion. Thank heavens that sort of thing couldn't happen now, eh? Finally, there's The Secret Sharer, probably the best-known thing here, but for me the least successful, though that may just be because I very seldom get on with stories on the theme of the sinister double, possibly on account of how seldom they go for the obvious solution of making out. The omission is particularly glaring in this case, where there really was only one bed.
August 19, 2018
TYPHOON AND OTHER STORIES was published in 1902, at tge outset if Joseph Conrad’s career. It should not be confused with a collection made in 2006 or so, called TYPHOON AND OTHER TALES. Tgst one is fine in itself, but this one, at least after its reprint of 1918, had Conrad’s Author’s Nite, in which he says the stories appear in the irder in which thry were written.
The book contains only four stories, Typhoon, Any Foster, Falk: A Reminiscence, and To-Morrow.
Even in 1902, to spell “tomorrow” with a hyphen was a bit archaic, but Conrad taps into a fairy tale world of sorts, full, though it is, of physical hardship snd and moral perplexity.
Almost any serious admirer of Conrad points out that his writing puts tge reader in an oppressed mood. This is not to say Conrad’s tone is oppressive, but he conveys the weight of a situation in a way fee writers ever have.
Three of these stories deal with courtship, not a theme one iften associatrs with this teller if sea tales. He cannot be called feminist, nor can he be called dismissive of women. There is not one woman in Conrad who the reader cannot pity. That Conrad thinks the condition of women is unchangeable is obvious. That he sees tragedy in there lived is unmistakable, though. He is well worth reading.
The book contains only four stories, Typhoon, Any Foster, Falk: A Reminiscence, and To-Morrow.
Even in 1902, to spell “tomorrow” with a hyphen was a bit archaic, but Conrad taps into a fairy tale world of sorts, full, though it is, of physical hardship snd and moral perplexity.
Almost any serious admirer of Conrad points out that his writing puts tge reader in an oppressed mood. This is not to say Conrad’s tone is oppressive, but he conveys the weight of a situation in a way fee writers ever have.
Three of these stories deal with courtship, not a theme one iften associatrs with this teller if sea tales. He cannot be called feminist, nor can he be called dismissive of women. There is not one woman in Conrad who the reader cannot pity. That Conrad thinks the condition of women is unchangeable is obvious. That he sees tragedy in there lived is unmistakable, though. He is well worth reading.
October 26, 2022
This is a plot summary, though it's rather detailed.
In Joseph Conrad’s Typhoon (1902), a captain of a ship changes from “having just enough imagination to carry him through each successive day” to doing “something rather clever.”
Early in the story, first mate Jukes updates the log. “Swell increasing. Ship labouring and taking water. Battened down the coolies for the night.”
The coolies were two-hundred men with "yellow faces and pigtails" who worked for years in colonies around the China seas. Now, the Bun Hin company was sending them home by way of cargo steamer, the Nan-Shan. Locked below, each Chinese had his wooden chest "containing the savings of his labours: clothes of ceremony, sticks of incense, a little opium, and a small hoard of silver dollars."
The swell that Jukes noted was from a nearing storm; the barometer confirmed it. But when he suggested steaming around, Captain MacWhirr refused. "’Three hundred extra miles to the distance, and a pretty coal bill to show. I couldn't bring myself to do that.’" And, "’How can you tell what a gale is made of till you get it?’"
Jukes thought the captain stupid. The first mate once wrote a friend: "’He's so jolly innocent that if you were to put your thumb to your nose and wave your fingers at him he would only wonder gravely to himself what got into you. He's too dense to trouble about, and that's the truth.’"
The storm increased and tossed the ship so severely that everyone onboard struggled to hang on. Below deck the Chinese were hurled about and their chests tumbled and broke. The coins rolled and the confined men fought over them. The boatswain discovered the chaos and the captain wouldn't have it. Jukes and the hands--while the storm was quite violent--invaded the hold and took the men's silver. The taking was ordered by MacWhirr.
The captain was "glad the trouble in the 'tween-deck had been discovered in time. If the ship had to go after all, then, at least, she wouldn't be going to the bottom with a lot of people in her fighting teeth and claw. That would have been odious. And in that feeling there was a humane intention and a vague sense of the fitness of things.”
Despite six hours of rocking and flooding, the Nan-Shan reached the calm of the typhoon's center. The relief was temporary; soon the storm would batter again. What's more, Jukes feared mutiny by the Chinese to take back their silver. Before the trip, the Nan-Shan's owners transferred her to the Siamese flag. This increased the mate's concern. He warned the captain, "’Let them only recover a bit, and you'll see. They will fly at our throats, sir...she isn't a British ship now.’”
MacWhirr agreed, then told Jukes to watch the ship while he took time in the chart-room.
"In the solitude and the pitch darkness of the cabin, he spoke out as if addressing another being awakened within his breast. ‘I shouldn't like to lose her,’ he said half aloud. A moment passed, of a stillness so profound that no one could have guessed there was a man sitting in that cabin. Then a murmur arose. ‘She may come out of it yet.’"
The captain returned to the bridge as increasing wind, waves, and darkness threatened the ship. He told Jukes, "'Keep her facing it—always facing it—that's the way to get through.’”
<><><>
The Nan-Shan did get through. On a bright sunshiny day she arrived in Fu-chau. How they avoided the mutiny was revealed in letters that the captain and crew wrote home.
Jukes wrote that the Chinese were still locked below when the typhoon ended. With fifteen hours to port he suggested the captain throw the coins into the hold to let them "fight it out amongst themselves.'” MacWhirr disagreed. “’He wanted as little fuss made as possible, for the sake of the ship's name and for the sake of the owners.’”
It wasn’t long until Jukes became aware of the captain's solution. It began when the ship's steward roused him from sleep. “’The Captain's letting them out!'”
Jukes flew on deck and distributed rifles to the hands. They all rushed to the chart-room. There MacWhirr was with one of the Chinese who was a clerk and interpreter from the Bun Hin company. MacWhirr--surprised by the rifles--ordered Jukes to take the guns away and to return to help count the money. They would divide the cash equally among the Chinese.
The captain’s plan came to him hours before, when the ship was in the typhoon's center. It was then he had the “Bun Hin fellow” tell the Chinese they'd get their money back as long as they didn't cause trouble.
The chief engineer wrote to his wife that the captain, a rather simple man, "has done something rather clever.’”
Jukes’ letter closed, "'I think that he got out of it very well for such a stupid man.'"
In Joseph Conrad’s Typhoon (1902), a captain of a ship changes from “having just enough imagination to carry him through each successive day” to doing “something rather clever.”
Early in the story, first mate Jukes updates the log. “Swell increasing. Ship labouring and taking water. Battened down the coolies for the night.”
The coolies were two-hundred men with "yellow faces and pigtails" who worked for years in colonies around the China seas. Now, the Bun Hin company was sending them home by way of cargo steamer, the Nan-Shan. Locked below, each Chinese had his wooden chest "containing the savings of his labours: clothes of ceremony, sticks of incense, a little opium, and a small hoard of silver dollars."
The swell that Jukes noted was from a nearing storm; the barometer confirmed it. But when he suggested steaming around, Captain MacWhirr refused. "’Three hundred extra miles to the distance, and a pretty coal bill to show. I couldn't bring myself to do that.’" And, "’How can you tell what a gale is made of till you get it?’"
Jukes thought the captain stupid. The first mate once wrote a friend: "’He's so jolly innocent that if you were to put your thumb to your nose and wave your fingers at him he would only wonder gravely to himself what got into you. He's too dense to trouble about, and that's the truth.’"
The storm increased and tossed the ship so severely that everyone onboard struggled to hang on. Below deck the Chinese were hurled about and their chests tumbled and broke. The coins rolled and the confined men fought over them. The boatswain discovered the chaos and the captain wouldn't have it. Jukes and the hands--while the storm was quite violent--invaded the hold and took the men's silver. The taking was ordered by MacWhirr.
The captain was "glad the trouble in the 'tween-deck had been discovered in time. If the ship had to go after all, then, at least, she wouldn't be going to the bottom with a lot of people in her fighting teeth and claw. That would have been odious. And in that feeling there was a humane intention and a vague sense of the fitness of things.”
Despite six hours of rocking and flooding, the Nan-Shan reached the calm of the typhoon's center. The relief was temporary; soon the storm would batter again. What's more, Jukes feared mutiny by the Chinese to take back their silver. Before the trip, the Nan-Shan's owners transferred her to the Siamese flag. This increased the mate's concern. He warned the captain, "’Let them only recover a bit, and you'll see. They will fly at our throats, sir...she isn't a British ship now.’”
MacWhirr agreed, then told Jukes to watch the ship while he took time in the chart-room.
"In the solitude and the pitch darkness of the cabin, he spoke out as if addressing another being awakened within his breast. ‘I shouldn't like to lose her,’ he said half aloud. A moment passed, of a stillness so profound that no one could have guessed there was a man sitting in that cabin. Then a murmur arose. ‘She may come out of it yet.’"
The captain returned to the bridge as increasing wind, waves, and darkness threatened the ship. He told Jukes, "'Keep her facing it—always facing it—that's the way to get through.’”
<><><>
The Nan-Shan did get through. On a bright sunshiny day she arrived in Fu-chau. How they avoided the mutiny was revealed in letters that the captain and crew wrote home.
Jukes wrote that the Chinese were still locked below when the typhoon ended. With fifteen hours to port he suggested the captain throw the coins into the hold to let them "fight it out amongst themselves.'” MacWhirr disagreed. “’He wanted as little fuss made as possible, for the sake of the ship's name and for the sake of the owners.’”
It wasn’t long until Jukes became aware of the captain's solution. It began when the ship's steward roused him from sleep. “’The Captain's letting them out!'”
Jukes flew on deck and distributed rifles to the hands. They all rushed to the chart-room. There MacWhirr was with one of the Chinese who was a clerk and interpreter from the Bun Hin company. MacWhirr--surprised by the rifles--ordered Jukes to take the guns away and to return to help count the money. They would divide the cash equally among the Chinese.
The captain’s plan came to him hours before, when the ship was in the typhoon's center. It was then he had the “Bun Hin fellow” tell the Chinese they'd get their money back as long as they didn't cause trouble.
The chief engineer wrote to his wife that the captain, a rather simple man, "has done something rather clever.’”
Jukes’ letter closed, "'I think that he got out of it very well for such a stupid man.'"
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 7, 2025
Just to set the record straight: I have only read Typhoon, and not the other tales in the collection. I was glad to have splurged for the Oxford edition, b/c without a working knowledge of commercial sailing, I had to refer to many of the footnotes.
The story of Typhoon itself is not that thrilling, although you are convinced they're all going to die in the storm. What is FASCINATING, though, is Conrad's description of the characters, particularly the Captain, McWhirr and his first mate. Conrad is an amazing writer...every sentence a masterpiece. I know I always privilege Heart of Darkness over his other work, simply because, well, it's Heart of Darkness and it's clearly one of the most important and best written novels EVER. But I'm also a big fan of The Secret Agent. I'm trying to expand my reading of him just because I want to read good writing. I'm going to tackle Nostromo soon, but not today...Anyway, this isn't going to appeal to a great number of people...but if you like sea tales and you like excellent writing and quirky characters and characterization, this one's for you.
The story of Typhoon itself is not that thrilling, although you are convinced they're all going to die in the storm. What is FASCINATING, though, is Conrad's description of the characters, particularly the Captain, McWhirr and his first mate. Conrad is an amazing writer...every sentence a masterpiece. I know I always privilege Heart of Darkness over his other work, simply because, well, it's Heart of Darkness and it's clearly one of the most important and best written novels EVER. But I'm also a big fan of The Secret Agent. I'm trying to expand my reading of him just because I want to read good writing. I'm going to tackle Nostromo soon, but not today...Anyway, this isn't going to appeal to a great number of people...but if you like sea tales and you like excellent writing and quirky characters and characterization, this one's for you.
February 7, 2025
Mình đọc cuốn này sau "Giữa đất và nước" và vẫn thích cuốn này hơn. Nói đơn giản trong khi "GĐVN" là cuốn lấy bối cảnh biển, phân tích ranh giới giữa đất và nước - giữa tự do và khốn nạn, giữa phóng túng và tính toán, có tính nghệ thuật cao; thì "Bão lớn" lấy bối cảnh đất liền nhiều hơn, vẫn cho thấy cõi người nguy nan và hơi hiện thực. Điều này làm mình giảm sự yêu thích so với trước đó.
Truyện mình thích nhất là cái cuối cùng "Ngày-mai", rất nhiều dồn nén, rất nhiều ẩn ức từ chối thực tại. Nó vượt thời gian như 2 truyện đầu trong "GĐVN" ấy, 100 năm sau đọc vẫn giá trị.
Truyện mệt nhất là "Falk" và cũng như "Bảy đảo" trong "GĐVN", chủ đề hơi cũ và trong thời buổi này cũng không còn phù hợp mấy. Ngoài ra truyện đầu cũng khá gian nan, phục sát đất chị Anh Hoa vì kiên trì dịch, là mình thì chạy mất dép.
Và cũng cầu mong FORMApubli lần sau ra sách khổ 20.5 đi ạ. Chừa lề theo tỉ lệ vàng cũng được, nhưng xin chữ hãy to hơn, cầm chắc tay hơn để cái sự đọc không bị ảnh hưởng.
Truyện mình thích nhất là cái cuối cùng "Ngày-mai", rất nhiều dồn nén, rất nhiều ẩn ức từ chối thực tại. Nó vượt thời gian như 2 truyện đầu trong "GĐVN" ấy, 100 năm sau đọc vẫn giá trị.
Truyện mệt nhất là "Falk" và cũng như "Bảy đảo" trong "GĐVN", chủ đề hơi cũ và trong thời buổi này cũng không còn phù hợp mấy. Ngoài ra truyện đầu cũng khá gian nan, phục sát đất chị Anh Hoa vì kiên trì dịch, là mình thì chạy mất dép.
Và cũng cầu mong FORMApubli lần sau ra sách khổ 20.5 đi ạ. Chừa lề theo tỉ lệ vàng cũng được, nhưng xin chữ hãy to hơn, cầm chắc tay hơn để cái sự đọc không bị ảnh hưởng.
December 2, 2020
I liked the collection of stories. I was obviously drawn to the book by Typhoon but Falk and The Secret Sharer are good too. Typhoon and Falk both take a while to get going. I can accept it in typhoon because it is a more substantial story but Falk meanders about aimlessly with the Hermann's from Hamburg before getting down to the main character. The Secret Sharer is probably the most gripping and Amy Foster the least well realized. The Amy foster character isn't developed well enough in my opinion to make the story believable.
Perhaps in their day the sailing terminology was familiar to many people but it washed over me, pun intended.
These stories would encourage me to read more by Conrad.
Perhaps in their day the sailing terminology was familiar to many people but it washed over me, pun intended.
These stories would encourage me to read more by Conrad.
January 21, 2021
"Typhoon" is the main act in this book of short stories, at about 75 pages. All of the four pieces, including "Falk", "Alice Foster", and "The Secret Sharer"examine themes of being The Outsider, superficial judgment and re-evaluation, and surviving against difficult odds. They're all written close to the turn of the 20th century. The setting is mostly Conrad's milieu of the sea. Conrad, though born in Poland in 1857, is one of the greatest English-language novelists, so they're each great fun to read.
This is a nice compilation that contains a chronology of his life events, bibliography, glossary,notes, and a brief note by the author.
"Life, for most of us, is not so much a hard as an exacting taskmaster".
April 24, 2021
"Tajfun" - zmiata z nóg. "Jutro" - ściska w środku. Pozostałe opowiadania ciekawe, spójne, inne, ale nie zapadają w pamięć, nie zostawiają czytelnika w swoim świecie na długie godziny po ostatnim słowie.
Niemniej, po raz kolejny przekonuję się, że na Conrada warto poświęcać wieczory. Lubię pisarzy, którzy nie spieszą się we własnych książkach, którzy czują się w nich komfortowo.
Niemniej, po raz kolejny przekonuję się, że na Conrada warto poświęcać wieczory. Lubię pisarzy, którzy nie spieszą się we własnych książkach, którzy czują się w nich komfortowo.
March 21, 2025
I enjoyed this collection of short stories. Like most of Conrad's work, I will re-read at a later date.
"Typhoon" and "The Secret Sharer" were outstanding.
"Falk" was excellent.
"Amy Foster" was all that kept me from a five-star rating for the collection, Maybe I'll amend the review after re-reading.
"Typhoon" and "The Secret Sharer" were outstanding.
"Falk" was excellent.
"Amy Foster" was all that kept me from a five-star rating for the collection, Maybe I'll amend the review after re-reading.
June 28, 2024
Trying to work on a few classics I neglected. I can't say that this was a satisfying read00The Secret Sharer was probably the most interesting of the tales. Very dark, lots of description, lots and lots of angst.
However, the stories do stay with you after you read them and make you think.
However, the stories do stay with you after you read them and make you think.
August 31, 2017
Some helpful advice -you should take some dramamine before reading Typhoon. My head is still spinning.
September 25, 2017
If you can flow with the archaic references and style, Conrad is so worth a read...
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