What do you think?
Rate this book
Childhood, Boyhood, Youth #3
Youth: A Narrative
"This could have occurred nowhere but in England, where men and sea interpenetrate, so to speak—the sea entering into the life of most men, and the men knowing something or everything about the sea, in the way of amusement, of travel, or of bread-winning.
"By all that’s wonderful, it is the sea, I believe, the sea itself—or is it youth alone? Who can tell? But you here—you all had something out of life: money, love—whatever one gets on shore—and, tell me, wasn’t that the best time, that time when we were young at sea; young and had nothing, on the sea that gives nothing, except hard knocks—and sometimes a chance to feel your strength—that only—what you all regret?"
"By all that’s wonderful, it is the sea, I believe, the sea itself—or is it youth alone? Who can tell? But you here—you all had something out of life: money, love—whatever one gets on shore—and, tell me, wasn’t that the best time, that time when we were young at sea; young and had nothing, on the sea that gives nothing, except hard knocks—and sometimes a chance to feel your strength—that only—what you all regret?"
64 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1898
216 people are currently reading
2850 people want to read
About the author
Joseph Conrad
3,082 books4,847 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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 417 reviews
July 13, 2024
Youth… The story is based on Joseph Conrad’s personal experience… The tale is written in the very colourful and vivid language and in its tone it is heavy with irony.
The narrator is young but he is already a second mate… The captain is sixty-year-old and he is an inveterate sea dog…
And the boat is a masterwork of shipbuilding… The somewhat fatal name of the ship is Judea and the motto painted on its side reads ‘Do or Die’…
They must deliver a cargo of coal to Bangkok but right away they are caught in the furious gale and are beaten badly… And in the wake of this storm the doom starts chasing them incessantly…
Their vessel develops a monstrous leak… But after the prolonged repair in the dock disasters continue to pursue them mercilessly…
Rats know what lies ahead… Somewhere amidst the ocean the cargo of coal begins to smolder… But youth seems to be invincible…
He who boldly passes through the deadly ordeal in his youth and doesn’t break becomes as tempered as steel.
You fellows know there are those voyages that seem ordered for the illustration of life, that might stand for a symbol of existence. You fight, work, sweat, nearly kill yourself, sometimes do kill yourself, trying to accomplish something – and you can’t.
The narrator is young but he is already a second mate… The captain is sixty-year-old and he is an inveterate sea dog…
He had a nutcracker face – chin and nose trying to come together over a sunken mouth – and it was framed in iron-gray fluffy hair, that looked like a chin strap of cotton-wool sprinkled with coal-dust.
And the boat is a masterwork of shipbuilding… The somewhat fatal name of the ship is Judea and the motto painted on its side reads ‘Do or Die’…
She was all rust, dust, grime – soot aloft, dirt on deck. To me it was like coming out of a palace into a ruined cottage.
They must deliver a cargo of coal to Bangkok but right away they are caught in the furious gale and are beaten badly… And in the wake of this storm the doom starts chasing them incessantly…
And there was somewhere in me the thought: By Jove! this is the deuce of an adventure – something you read about; and it is my first voyage as second mate – and I am only twenty – and here I am lasting it out as well as any of these men, and keeping my chaps up to the mark.
Their vessel develops a monstrous leak… But after the prolonged repair in the dock disasters continue to pursue them mercilessly…
She was recalked, new coppered, and made as tight as a bottle. We went back to the hulk and reshipped our cargo.
Then on a fine moonlight night, all the rats left the ship.
Rats know what lies ahead… Somewhere amidst the ocean the cargo of coal begins to smolder… But youth seems to be invincible…
Oh the glamour of youth! Oh the fire of it, more dazzling than the flames of the burning ship, throwing a magic light on the wide earth, leaping audaciously to the sky, presently to be quenched by time, more cruel, more pitiless, more bitter than the sea – and like the flames of the burning ship surrounded by an impenetrable night.
He who boldly passes through the deadly ordeal in his youth and doesn’t break becomes as tempered as steel.
May 9, 2025
The Summer of 1963 will be forever etched in my memory like the tablet of arcane hieroglyphics which it was: for it was the beginnings of my voyage into the mysterious, outré world of adulthood.
That Summer I was Sinbad the Sailor, sailing uncharted waters into vaguely baroque territory.
For as I reclined on the deck of my grandmother’s en-suite apartment at my parents’ new house, the whole world was rebeginning.
The sultry zephyr of a humid breeze brushed my cheek drowsily, and, as the sounds of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade filled the languid summer air from her screen door, I dreamed dreams of a brave new world of exploration.
Concurrent with this memory, I had taken Conrad’s Youth in its slim, gold-leaf embossed leather, down from her groaning new bookshelves, crammed full with masterpieces.
What a story.
It is a young 19th century mariner’s first glimpse of the perfumed, exotic East.
Yes, you guessed it - the Voyage to the East (and this masterpiece is of utterly comparable stature to Hermann Hesse’s fantastical tale!) is a Symbol of Coming of Age.
What romance!
What wild adventure!
What astoundingly reminiscent memories it calls up in OUR souls of that magical, dangerous time in our untried, ingenuous lives!
It is one of my All-Time Favorites, and it now has a place of honour atop the bookshelves in our living room next to the stereo.
If you are a kid beginning your own version of this voyage, or a busy grown-up who just wants to unwind a bit, or even a grisled old-timer like me who reads books like this slowly, musingly, as one would listen to a sensitively played Chopin Mazurka or sip on a premium cognac (have you ever tried Hennessy’s Paradis?) - you’ll love it!
Coming of age is NEVER easy.
My wise old grandmother knew that, and her two housewarming gifts to me, a 13-year old bookworm:
As she came to them, in sorting through her endless much-travelled shipping containers -
Were a good book of moral guidance for teens -
And a book of inspirational quotations.
You know what?
In my moral torpor I promptly lost track of them.
And now, I rue the day I did.
But this one I Still display PROUDLY!
For to a kid commencing it, it beckons like an exotic aroma of Eastern spices...
It’s a mysterious Orient that promises endless Odysseys of Self-Discovery.
That Summer I was Sinbad the Sailor, sailing uncharted waters into vaguely baroque territory.
For as I reclined on the deck of my grandmother’s en-suite apartment at my parents’ new house, the whole world was rebeginning.
The sultry zephyr of a humid breeze brushed my cheek drowsily, and, as the sounds of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade filled the languid summer air from her screen door, I dreamed dreams of a brave new world of exploration.
Concurrent with this memory, I had taken Conrad’s Youth in its slim, gold-leaf embossed leather, down from her groaning new bookshelves, crammed full with masterpieces.
What a story.
It is a young 19th century mariner’s first glimpse of the perfumed, exotic East.
Yes, you guessed it - the Voyage to the East (and this masterpiece is of utterly comparable stature to Hermann Hesse’s fantastical tale!) is a Symbol of Coming of Age.
What romance!
What wild adventure!
What astoundingly reminiscent memories it calls up in OUR souls of that magical, dangerous time in our untried, ingenuous lives!
It is one of my All-Time Favorites, and it now has a place of honour atop the bookshelves in our living room next to the stereo.
If you are a kid beginning your own version of this voyage, or a busy grown-up who just wants to unwind a bit, or even a grisled old-timer like me who reads books like this slowly, musingly, as one would listen to a sensitively played Chopin Mazurka or sip on a premium cognac (have you ever tried Hennessy’s Paradis?) - you’ll love it!
Coming of age is NEVER easy.
My wise old grandmother knew that, and her two housewarming gifts to me, a 13-year old bookworm:
As she came to them, in sorting through her endless much-travelled shipping containers -
Were a good book of moral guidance for teens -
And a book of inspirational quotations.
You know what?
In my moral torpor I promptly lost track of them.
And now, I rue the day I did.
But this one I Still display PROUDLY!
For to a kid commencing it, it beckons like an exotic aroma of Eastern spices...
It’s a mysterious Orient that promises endless Odysseys of Self-Discovery.
August 15, 2025
I remember scarlet annotations on my school notebooks, like with a hot iron, which told me: too many repetitions!
This book is my revenge, my rehabilitation, because Joseph Conrad uses and abuses it on purpose without appearing indigestible.
It is a miniature book in its format, but a great novel about youth written by an author full of nostalgia for his maritime exploits, like an old oak tree threatened by axes—the axes of time.
This book is my revenge, my rehabilitation, because Joseph Conrad uses and abuses it on purpose without appearing indigestible.
It is a miniature book in its format, but a great novel about youth written by an author full of nostalgia for his maritime exploits, like an old oak tree threatened by axes—the axes of time.
September 26, 2022
'Pass the bottle', please! 🍷
One of Joseph Conrad's early short stories, 'Youth' (1902) tells the tale of Marlow's account of his youthful adventures on board of the Judea, as registered by the narrator of the story, who makes up -- together with Marlow and three other experienced seamen -- the small party gathered around a mahogany table in companionable rapture at Marlow's narration. While drinking glassfuls of claret, of course.
Thematically, the story hinges on two points of interest:
➡️ the shared identification, of those gathered, with the charms and terrors of the Sea, which is considered to be an emblematically English experience or condition.
Their attachment to the sea is such that the latter is equated with ‘life itself’, and this shows emphatically in Marlow’s narration, and through the characters -- of Captain Beard, for instance -- which he portrays as being immanently bound by loyalty and duty to their ship. So much so that they would readily forfeit their lives so long as they do not leave her -- the ship -- unattended in the ‘mysterious’ moment of her ‘magnificent’, graceful death. Indeed, ‘she’ is extendedly personified, and there is touching tenderness in the late moments of Marlow’s narration, particularly when they are saving its remains and watching her go, but also throughout, as attested by their kindness and affection towards her.
Related to the ‘interpenetration’ between sea and its companions is also the idea of the men and the ship's entangled, mutually affecting and mirroring fate:
➡️ through Marlow's story, which takes up the entirety of this narrative space, there is a constant echoing of that sense of naïve anticipation and always forward-looking gaze associated with youth, filtered through a registered sense of knowing and acquired maturity -- but also of nostalgia -- brought on by the twenty years that separate the actual experience on the Judea -- the dream of setting eyes on the East, with Bankok ‘waiting’ for him, as a ‘vision of [his] youth’ -- and the present moment of wistful evocation.
At one point, the crew tirelessly engages in ‘pumping’ water out of the ship for long hours and begins losing heart, but they carry on. Later, Marlow asks himself: was the ‘ship doomed to arrive nowhere?’ Indeed, implicit in all of this is the theme of frustrated hopes; the desire of self-fulfillment and a general sense of loss (of innocence, but also of the possibility of self-fulfillment).
Youth is apostrophised many a time -- ‘O, youth!’ -- and receives a range of adjectival attributions: 'The silly, charming, beautiful youth.' There are recurring allusions to its idealistic visions of ‘glamour’, while references to its ‘fire’ further link the experience of youth -- indeed, 'her youth' (the ship's) is also referenced -- to the image of final death that concerns both ship and seafarers. What to Marlow appeared as a moment in time boundlessly full of possibility proved merely to be ‘the romance of illusions’, punctured by the reality of transience and death.
Conrad's storytelling -- like the sea -- has its charms. I suspect that it is not for everyone -- when I say that the sea dominates, I mean that the sea dominates his literary imaginary -- but the allure is imposing in its subtlety, and it takes us back to the idea of a kind of fine, unembellished storytelling that is perhaps harder to come by today. Conrad is happy to tell the story, and the reader is gently nudged to partake of that. At the same time, the simplicity charts notions that remain relevant to us as human beings, particularly when it comes to our ways of remembering, interpreting, and responding to experiences from our youthful days. Its insights are unassumingly interspersed with the undulations of the sea-narration, with short asides from present-time Marlow, and his requests -- addressed to his fellow seamen -- to be 'passed the bottle'.
Conrad's short stories are certainly a very engaging and fulfilling way of exploring this highly acclaimed author. He has much to tell and teach readers and the creatives amongst us. The solidly beautiful and beautifully solid -- dependable almost, I would say -- writing says it all. Indeed, the narrative structure frames and foregrounds the pleasures of storytelling.
Personally, I should also be thanking McEwan and his novel Lessons (2022), whose drawn parallelisms to Conrad’s ‘Youth’, in the early stages of Roland’s narration, convinced me that I was, quite simply, missing out. Indeed, I was.
Note: There are some vague racial undertones, with references to Abraham’s figure as a ‘mulatto’ or ‘brown nations’, for instance. Nevertheless, the story cannot really be held accountable for this, given the time and contexts in which it was written.
One of Joseph Conrad's early short stories, 'Youth' (1902) tells the tale of Marlow's account of his youthful adventures on board of the Judea, as registered by the narrator of the story, who makes up -- together with Marlow and three other experienced seamen -- the small party gathered around a mahogany table in companionable rapture at Marlow's narration. While drinking glassfuls of claret, of course.
Thematically, the story hinges on two points of interest:
➡️ the shared identification, of those gathered, with the charms and terrors of the Sea, which is considered to be an emblematically English experience or condition.
‘This could have occurred nowhere but in England, where men and sea interpenetrate, so to speak--the sea entering into the life of most men, and the men knowing something or everything about the sea, in the way of amusement, of travel, or of bread-winning.’
Their attachment to the sea is such that the latter is equated with ‘life itself’, and this shows emphatically in Marlow’s narration, and through the characters -- of Captain Beard, for instance -- which he portrays as being immanently bound by loyalty and duty to their ship. So much so that they would readily forfeit their lives so long as they do not leave her -- the ship -- unattended in the ‘mysterious’ moment of her ‘magnificent’, graceful death. Indeed, ‘she’ is extendedly personified, and there is touching tenderness in the late moments of Marlow’s narration, particularly when they are saving its remains and watching her go, but also throughout, as attested by their kindness and affection towards her.
Related to the ‘interpenetration’ between sea and its companions is also the idea of the men and the ship's entangled, mutually affecting and mirroring fate:
‘It was our fate to pump in that ship, to pump out of her, to pump into her; and after keeping water out of her to save ourselves from being drowned, we frantically poured water into her to save ourselves from being burnt.’
➡️ through Marlow's story, which takes up the entirety of this narrative space, there is a constant echoing of that sense of naïve anticipation and always forward-looking gaze associated with youth, filtered through a registered sense of knowing and acquired maturity -- but also of nostalgia -- brought on by the twenty years that separate the actual experience on the Judea -- the dream of setting eyes on the East, with Bankok ‘waiting’ for him, as a ‘vision of [his] youth’ -- and the present moment of wistful evocation.
At one point, the crew tirelessly engages in ‘pumping’ water out of the ship for long hours and begins losing heart, but they carry on. Later, Marlow asks himself: was the ‘ship doomed to arrive nowhere?’ Indeed, implicit in all of this is the theme of frustrated hopes; the desire of self-fulfillment and a general sense of loss (of innocence, but also of the possibility of self-fulfillment).
‘You fellows know there are those voyages that seem ordered for the illustration of life, that might stand for a symbol of existence. You fight, work, sweat, nearly kill yourself, sometimes do kill yourself, trying to accomplish something--and you can't.’
Youth is apostrophised many a time -- ‘O, youth!’ -- and receives a range of adjectival attributions: 'The silly, charming, beautiful youth.' There are recurring allusions to its idealistic visions of ‘glamour’, while references to its ‘fire’ further link the experience of youth -- indeed, 'her youth' (the ship's) is also referenced -- to the image of final death that concerns both ship and seafarers. What to Marlow appeared as a moment in time boundlessly full of possibility proved merely to be ‘the romance of illusions’, punctured by the reality of transience and death.
‘youth, strength, genius, thoughts, achievements, simple hearts--all die…No matter.’
‘[…] quenched by time, more cruel, more pitiless, more bitter than the sea--and like the flames of the burning ship surrounded by an impenetrable night.’
‘while it is expected is already gone--has passed unseen, in a sigh, in a flash--together with the youth, with the strength, with the romance of illusions.’
‘with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expires--and expires, too soon--before life itself.’
‘I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any more--the feeling that I could last for ever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort--to death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expires--and expires, too soon--before life itself.’
Conrad's storytelling -- like the sea -- has its charms. I suspect that it is not for everyone -- when I say that the sea dominates, I mean that the sea dominates his literary imaginary -- but the allure is imposing in its subtlety, and it takes us back to the idea of a kind of fine, unembellished storytelling that is perhaps harder to come by today. Conrad is happy to tell the story, and the reader is gently nudged to partake of that. At the same time, the simplicity charts notions that remain relevant to us as human beings, particularly when it comes to our ways of remembering, interpreting, and responding to experiences from our youthful days. Its insights are unassumingly interspersed with the undulations of the sea-narration, with short asides from present-time Marlow, and his requests -- addressed to his fellow seamen -- to be 'passed the bottle'.
Conrad's short stories are certainly a very engaging and fulfilling way of exploring this highly acclaimed author. He has much to tell and teach readers and the creatives amongst us. The solidly beautiful and beautifully solid -- dependable almost, I would say -- writing says it all. Indeed, the narrative structure frames and foregrounds the pleasures of storytelling.
Personally, I should also be thanking McEwan and his novel Lessons (2022), whose drawn parallelisms to Conrad’s ‘Youth’, in the early stages of Roland’s narration, convinced me that I was, quite simply, missing out. Indeed, I was.
Note: There are some vague racial undertones, with references to Abraham’s figure as a ‘mulatto’ or ‘brown nations’, for instance. Nevertheless, the story cannot really be held accountable for this, given the time and contexts in which it was written.
September 20, 2019
Youth by Joseph Conrad is a short, tragi-comic and brilliant portrait of a middle-aged man looking back to the vibrance and enthusiasm of his youthful self. The narrator is none other than Marlowe, Conrad’s intrepid voice from Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim, and the story again finds him gathered with a group of close friends and he is remembering a tale from his youth.
But where Heart of Darkness was a brooding, psychological inspection, Youth is a brief character study of a young man in one of his first voyages on the seas. First published in 1896 and then later as a collection with Heart of Darkness and The End of the Tether, Youth embodies the simplistic vitality and optimism of a young man.
But where Heart of Darkness was a brooding, psychological inspection, Youth is a brief character study of a young man in one of his first voyages on the seas. First published in 1896 and then later as a collection with Heart of Darkness and The End of the Tether, Youth embodies the simplistic vitality and optimism of a young man.
December 11, 2018
Yes, I have seen a little of the Eastern seas; but what I remember best is my first voyage there. You fellows know there are those voyages that seem ordered for the illustration of life, that might stand for a symbol of existence.
How did you imagine your future when you’re young? Did you think then you would achieve something spectacular and flamboyant? Did you think you would change the world? Did you dream of fame and success or perhaps wealth was on your mind? Did you see yourself in distant lands or maybe you nursed other hopes in your heart? Oh, youth!
It is slim novel, barely thirty pages or so. The main protagonist is Marlowe who got just chance to show his skills as a second officer on the ship. This is the same Marlow known to us from some other Conrad’s works. But it is not the same man. It is Marlowe who doesn’t know yet tragic fate of Lord Jim, this is Marlow who hasn’t have yet possibility to immerse in Heart of Darkness. It is very young Marlow, fresh and unexperienced. So, youth.
O youth! The strength of it, the faith of it, the imagination of it! To me she was not an old rattle-trap carting about the world a lot of coal for a freight—to me she was the endeavour, the test, the trial of life.
Youth is a reconstruction of first serious sea journey of young sailor. It seemed doomed from the beginning already, old tub didn’t seem like it would sail for too long but Marlow fell in love with her from the first sight. In her shabbiness and cheap appearance was something that strongly had spoken to his youth and her motto do or die struck the right chord with his romantic nature even if from some point he already knew that he will not see the East the way he dreamt it, that he not enter it in glory, that there wouldn’t be any songs and hosannas on his way. But everything what happened through that voyage, every decision made shaped him. And the way he entered manhood marked him forever.
Moral dilemmas were always in the very core of Joseph Conrad's writing. And it's here too. But Youth lacks this dark essence flowing through Heart of Darkness, we were spared also sadness and disillusionment of Lord Jim. This very novel is more about adventure and innocence, expectations and hope. It is not tainted yet with sinful deeds and dirty motives, it is not polluted with disappointment, it's not infected with cynicism and apathy. Then, youth.
But for me all the East is contained in that vision of my youth. It is all in that moment when I opened my young eyes on it. I came upon it from a tussle with the sea--and I was young--and I saw it looking at me. And this is all that is left of it! Only a moment; a moment of strength, of romance, of glamour--of youth!
August 22, 2018
This could have occurred nowhere but in England, where men and sea interpenetrate, so to speak—the sea entering into the life of most men, and the men knowing something or everything about the sea, in the way of amusement, of travel, or of bread-winning.
By all that’s wonderful, it is the sea, I believe, the sea itself—or is it youth alone? Who can tell? But you here—you all had something out of life: money, love—whatever one gets on shore—and, tell me, wasn’t that the best time, that time when we were young at sea; young and had nothing, on the sea that gives nothing, except hard knocks—and sometimes a chance to feel your strength—that only—what you all regret?”
Youth marks appearance of man in the world, the most alive phase of phase of life, has something enigmatic about itself for it has the base of childhood wherein human beings learn about this magical world; the aspirations of nether world build upon these years wherein life is so alive. The exuberance of life makes you feel that there is no such thing in life which is not possible; you may conquer the whole world as if you’ve dawned on earth for it. It may be said to be an experience that may shape an individual's level of dependency, which can be marked in various ways according to different cultural perspectives. The self-concept of human being is constructed out to vibrancy of youth, the choices made in it shape the future of mankind. The excitement of youth may be delusional at times, for we tend not to accept our limitations in life. Joseph Conrad builds up a tragic story of humanity looking at vibrancy and enthusiasm of itself when it was youthful. The memories of youth always haunt the adulthood, for the free air of youth teases the monotony of middle age. Youth is a feat of memory and a record of experiences rooted in its facts, its inwardness, its outward colouring, beginning and ending in itself. The main themes describe some aspects of human life and behaviour, some of which are idealism versus realism, survival and the trials and tribulations that are encountered through life. Marlow, a middle aged man, tells about his voyage of youth to his friends, when he used his exuberance to overcome vagaries of life. The air of adventure and romance keeps him propelling amidst the hardship of the voyage. The burning and sinking of the ship is an adventure to be savoured, but this also foreshadows his future: the flames of youth are quenched by time, the ship does not reach its destination and Marlow's youthful dreams are not reached.
“And do you know what I thought? I thought I would part company as soon as I could. I wanted to have my first command all to myself. I wasn’t going to sail in a squadron if there were a chance for independent cruising. I would make land by myself. I would beat the other boats. Youth! All youth! The silly, charming, beautiful youth.
Joseph Conrad was a Polish-British writer regarded as one of the greatest novelists to write in the English, instead of the fact that he did not learn as his first language. ‘Youth’ has taken leaf from own experience of Conrad. Marlow, the romantic man, blossoming with youth, falls for Judea the ship despite the obvious challenges of the voyage; rat infestation, crew rebellion, Abraham, the first mate, losing his mind and finally the loss of the ship itself in an explosion, fall out as exciting experiences not so much as tragedies for him. At the heart of 'Youth' lies the moral dilemmas of humankind- in the middle of sea, the fear of forgetfulness surrounds Marlow, for he doesn't feel belonged to the world; however the thrill of seeing east provided him strength to brave the horrors of existence. In his own command of one of the longboats, he sees a ship on the horizon that might as well relieve them of their duty of bringing the boats into port. The Do or Die motto of the ship resonates so well with him, the flair of his youthfulness struck with it. The fire of Judea, more dazzling than the flames of the burning ship, throwing a magic light on the wide earth, leaping audaciously to the sky, presently to be quenched by time, more cruel, more pitiless, more bitter than the sea—and like the flames of the burning ship surrounded by an impenetrable night. But he says nothing for this sees it, the magical East.
Between the darkness of earth and heaven she was burning fiercely upon a disc of purple sea shot by the blood-red play of gleams; upon a disc of water glittering and sinister. A high, clear flame, an immense and lonely flame, ascended from the ocean, and from its summit the black smoke poured continuously at the sky. She burned furiously, mournful and imposing like a funeral pile kindled in the night, surrounded by the sea, watched over by the stars. A magnificent death had come like a grace, like a gift, like a reward to that old ship at the end of her laborious days. The surrender of her weary ghost to the keeping of stars and sea was stirring like the sight of a glorious triumph. The masts fell just before daybreak, and for a moment there was a burst and turmoil of sparks that seemed to fill with flying fire the night patient and watchful, the vast night lying silent upon the sea. At daylight she was only a charred shell, floating still under a cloud of smoke and bearing a glowing mass of coal within. Between the darkness of earth and heaven she was burning fiercely upon a disc of purple sea shot by the blood-red play of gleams; upon a disc of water glittering and sinister. A high, clear flame, an immense and lonely flame, ascended from the ocean, and from its summit the black smoke poured continuously at the sky. She burned furiously, mournful and imposing like a funeral pile kindled in the night, surrounded by the sea, watched over by the stars. A magnificent death had come like a grace, like a gift, like a reward to that old ship at the end of her laborious days. The surrender of her weary ghost to the keeping of stars and sea was stirring like the sight of a glorious triumph. The masts fell just before daybreak, and for a moment there was a burst and turmoil of sparks that seemed to fill with flying fire the night patient and watchful, the vast night lying silent upon the sea. At daylight she was only a charred shell, floating still under a cloud of smoke and bearing a glowing mass of coal within.
I did not know how good a man I was till then. I remember the drawn faces, the dejected figures of my two men, and I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any more—the feeling that I could last for ever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort—to death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expires—and expires, too soon—before life itself.
Conrad weaves the story around sentences which themselves suggest the exhausting, mind-deadening experience of undergoing a relentless storm and the continual, repetitive struggle to stay alive. The experience is evoked by a series of short phrases presented in parallel structure—“It blew day after day: it blew with spite, without interval, without mercy, without rest”—or by rhythms that mirror the endless, mindless tedium of pumping water from the leaking hull. The narrative is framed in multiple layers intertwined with the intimate act of telling and listening to oral stories; the seafaring is told with deception and stabilization we observe in The Old man and the Sea. The traits of post-modernism are at the centre of ‘Youth’ in intimations of the dialogic along with the shifting discourse, intimations of self-reflexivity, inter-textual space, and there is the sense of loss and pointlessness of striving that is fairly common in such writing. He speaks here not at all of the evils of humans, but of the hardness of their lot and the courage with which ordinary people may face the threat of death. More than that, he marvels at the fact that such a life can seem like fun.
“I have known its fascination since: I have seen the mysterious shores, the still water, the lands of brown nations, where a stealthy Nemesis lies in wait, pursues, overtakes so many of the conquering race, who are proud of their wisdom, of their knowledge, of their strength. But for me all the East is contained in that vision of my youth. It is all in that moment when I opened my young eyes on it. I came upon it from a tussle with the sea—and I was young—and I saw it looking at me. And this is all that is left of it! Only a moment; a moment of strength, of romance, of glamour—of youth!... A flick of sunshine upon a strange shore, the time to remember, the time for a sigh, and—good-bye!—Night—Good-bye...!”
4/5
By all that’s wonderful, it is the sea, I believe, the sea itself—or is it youth alone? Who can tell? But you here—you all had something out of life: money, love—whatever one gets on shore—and, tell me, wasn’t that the best time, that time when we were young at sea; young and had nothing, on the sea that gives nothing, except hard knocks—and sometimes a chance to feel your strength—that only—what you all regret?”
Youth marks appearance of man in the world, the most alive phase of phase of life, has something enigmatic about itself for it has the base of childhood wherein human beings learn about this magical world; the aspirations of nether world build upon these years wherein life is so alive. The exuberance of life makes you feel that there is no such thing in life which is not possible; you may conquer the whole world as if you’ve dawned on earth for it. It may be said to be an experience that may shape an individual's level of dependency, which can be marked in various ways according to different cultural perspectives. The self-concept of human being is constructed out to vibrancy of youth, the choices made in it shape the future of mankind. The excitement of youth may be delusional at times, for we tend not to accept our limitations in life. Joseph Conrad builds up a tragic story of humanity looking at vibrancy and enthusiasm of itself when it was youthful. The memories of youth always haunt the adulthood, for the free air of youth teases the monotony of middle age. Youth is a feat of memory and a record of experiences rooted in its facts, its inwardness, its outward colouring, beginning and ending in itself. The main themes describe some aspects of human life and behaviour, some of which are idealism versus realism, survival and the trials and tribulations that are encountered through life. Marlow, a middle aged man, tells about his voyage of youth to his friends, when he used his exuberance to overcome vagaries of life. The air of adventure and romance keeps him propelling amidst the hardship of the voyage. The burning and sinking of the ship is an adventure to be savoured, but this also foreshadows his future: the flames of youth are quenched by time, the ship does not reach its destination and Marlow's youthful dreams are not reached.
“And do you know what I thought? I thought I would part company as soon as I could. I wanted to have my first command all to myself. I wasn’t going to sail in a squadron if there were a chance for independent cruising. I would make land by myself. I would beat the other boats. Youth! All youth! The silly, charming, beautiful youth.
Joseph Conrad was a Polish-British writer regarded as one of the greatest novelists to write in the English, instead of the fact that he did not learn as his first language. ‘Youth’ has taken leaf from own experience of Conrad. Marlow, the romantic man, blossoming with youth, falls for Judea the ship despite the obvious challenges of the voyage; rat infestation, crew rebellion, Abraham, the first mate, losing his mind and finally the loss of the ship itself in an explosion, fall out as exciting experiences not so much as tragedies for him. At the heart of 'Youth' lies the moral dilemmas of humankind- in the middle of sea, the fear of forgetfulness surrounds Marlow, for he doesn't feel belonged to the world; however the thrill of seeing east provided him strength to brave the horrors of existence. In his own command of one of the longboats, he sees a ship on the horizon that might as well relieve them of their duty of bringing the boats into port. The Do or Die motto of the ship resonates so well with him, the flair of his youthfulness struck with it. The fire of Judea, more dazzling than the flames of the burning ship, throwing a magic light on the wide earth, leaping audaciously to the sky, presently to be quenched by time, more cruel, more pitiless, more bitter than the sea—and like the flames of the burning ship surrounded by an impenetrable night. But he says nothing for this sees it, the magical East.
Between the darkness of earth and heaven she was burning fiercely upon a disc of purple sea shot by the blood-red play of gleams; upon a disc of water glittering and sinister. A high, clear flame, an immense and lonely flame, ascended from the ocean, and from its summit the black smoke poured continuously at the sky. She burned furiously, mournful and imposing like a funeral pile kindled in the night, surrounded by the sea, watched over by the stars. A magnificent death had come like a grace, like a gift, like a reward to that old ship at the end of her laborious days. The surrender of her weary ghost to the keeping of stars and sea was stirring like the sight of a glorious triumph. The masts fell just before daybreak, and for a moment there was a burst and turmoil of sparks that seemed to fill with flying fire the night patient and watchful, the vast night lying silent upon the sea. At daylight she was only a charred shell, floating still under a cloud of smoke and bearing a glowing mass of coal within. Between the darkness of earth and heaven she was burning fiercely upon a disc of purple sea shot by the blood-red play of gleams; upon a disc of water glittering and sinister. A high, clear flame, an immense and lonely flame, ascended from the ocean, and from its summit the black smoke poured continuously at the sky. She burned furiously, mournful and imposing like a funeral pile kindled in the night, surrounded by the sea, watched over by the stars. A magnificent death had come like a grace, like a gift, like a reward to that old ship at the end of her laborious days. The surrender of her weary ghost to the keeping of stars and sea was stirring like the sight of a glorious triumph. The masts fell just before daybreak, and for a moment there was a burst and turmoil of sparks that seemed to fill with flying fire the night patient and watchful, the vast night lying silent upon the sea. At daylight she was only a charred shell, floating still under a cloud of smoke and bearing a glowing mass of coal within.
I did not know how good a man I was till then. I remember the drawn faces, the dejected figures of my two men, and I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any more—the feeling that I could last for ever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort—to death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expires—and expires, too soon—before life itself.
Conrad weaves the story around sentences which themselves suggest the exhausting, mind-deadening experience of undergoing a relentless storm and the continual, repetitive struggle to stay alive. The experience is evoked by a series of short phrases presented in parallel structure—“It blew day after day: it blew with spite, without interval, without mercy, without rest”—or by rhythms that mirror the endless, mindless tedium of pumping water from the leaking hull. The narrative is framed in multiple layers intertwined with the intimate act of telling and listening to oral stories; the seafaring is told with deception and stabilization we observe in The Old man and the Sea. The traits of post-modernism are at the centre of ‘Youth’ in intimations of the dialogic along with the shifting discourse, intimations of self-reflexivity, inter-textual space, and there is the sense of loss and pointlessness of striving that is fairly common in such writing. He speaks here not at all of the evils of humans, but of the hardness of their lot and the courage with which ordinary people may face the threat of death. More than that, he marvels at the fact that such a life can seem like fun.
“I have known its fascination since: I have seen the mysterious shores, the still water, the lands of brown nations, where a stealthy Nemesis lies in wait, pursues, overtakes so many of the conquering race, who are proud of their wisdom, of their knowledge, of their strength. But for me all the East is contained in that vision of my youth. It is all in that moment when I opened my young eyes on it. I came upon it from a tussle with the sea—and I was young—and I saw it looking at me. And this is all that is left of it! Only a moment; a moment of strength, of romance, of glamour—of youth!... A flick of sunshine upon a strange shore, the time to remember, the time for a sigh, and—good-bye!—Night—Good-bye...!”
4/5
August 18, 2025
Evocative
"Pour me another glass, will you?"
I went into this one with doubts, but I was blown away by the raw accuracy of its emotions, events, and atmosphere.
The sea is a cruel, merciless beast — striking without warning, battering you alongside the weather in the most random and unforgiving ways. Conrad captures this with such precision that I felt like I was there, standing on that ship.
Life at sea isn’t just a job; it’s a calling, or perhaps a curse. The months of isolation, the meager living conditions, the constant labor, and the ever-present threat of death would break most people. Those who choose this life are built differently. They’re overstimulated, always on edge, walking the razor’s edge between life and death.
It’s hard to imagine anyone enduring it without love for the sea — because it demands more than courage or boldness. It’s as if the sea lures them in, holds them captive, and refuses to let them go. Like moths drawn to a flame, sailors know it could be their death but can’t stay away.
The metaphors Conrad uses to describe youth are spot on — bold, fearless, brimming with life, like a candle illuminating the world. But every candle melts, and its flame eventually disappears, leaving only a wisp of smoke and a faint scent to prove it ever burned. That’s youth: unstoppable in its prime, but fleeting.
This story isn’t just about a voyage — it’s about that intoxicating, reckless phase of life when you believe you can conquer anything, only to learn that time and the elements have the final say. Conrad captured it perfectly.
"Pour me another glass, will you?"
I went into this one with doubts, but I was blown away by the raw accuracy of its emotions, events, and atmosphere.
The sea is a cruel, merciless beast — striking without warning, battering you alongside the weather in the most random and unforgiving ways. Conrad captures this with such precision that I felt like I was there, standing on that ship.
Life at sea isn’t just a job; it’s a calling, or perhaps a curse. The months of isolation, the meager living conditions, the constant labor, and the ever-present threat of death would break most people. Those who choose this life are built differently. They’re overstimulated, always on edge, walking the razor’s edge between life and death.
It’s hard to imagine anyone enduring it without love for the sea — because it demands more than courage or boldness. It’s as if the sea lures them in, holds them captive, and refuses to let them go. Like moths drawn to a flame, sailors know it could be their death but can’t stay away.
The metaphors Conrad uses to describe youth are spot on — bold, fearless, brimming with life, like a candle illuminating the world. But every candle melts, and its flame eventually disappears, leaving only a wisp of smoke and a faint scent to prove it ever burned. That’s youth: unstoppable in its prime, but fleeting.
This story isn’t just about a voyage — it’s about that intoxicating, reckless phase of life when you believe you can conquer anything, only to learn that time and the elements have the final say. Conrad captured it perfectly.
February 9, 2021
"O youth! The strength of it, the faith of it, the imagination of it! To me she was not an old rattletrap carting about the world a lot of coal for a freight - to me she was the endeavour, the test, the trial of life. I think of her with pleasure, with affection, with regret - as you would think of someone dead you have loved. I shall never forget her... Pass the bottle.""Youth" is a great gateway drug into the heady world of Joseph Conrad. this compact little story about a young man (Marlow from Conrad's Heart of Darkness) and his commission on an ill-fated ship named the Judea made me eager to read more by this intriguing, controversial author. his descriptive prowess is highly impressive: the story is filled with so many little details, enough to put the reader right on that ship, but not so much that the story felt weighed down. this story is richly textured with all of those details, and brief and surprising moments of philosophizing, and the ongoing, rather yearning depiction of how it feels to be a young man on an adventure - and confident of many more adventures to come. all told as a story coming from an older, wiser, altogether more cynical and salty version of that young man... but an old man who still loves that part of his life - and even more, respects it, naivete and all. this could have been a tragic tale if it had been told in a certain way. but at the end of the story, I felt refreshed and invigorated.
"One was a man, and the other was either more - or less. However, they are both dead and Mrs. Beard is dead, and youth, strength, genius, thoughts, achievements, simple hearts - all dies... No matter."there was one part that genuinely disturbed me, occurring after yet another disaster on the ship, and after the crew has rallied successfully:
"No; it was something in them, something inborn and subtle and everlasting. I don't say positively that the crew of a French or German merchantman wouldn't have done it, but I doubt whether it would have been done in the same way. There was a completeness in it, something solid like a principle, and masterful like an instinct - a disclosure of something secret - of that hidden something, that gift of good or evil that makes racial difference, that shapes the fate of nations.I didn't know what to make of that so I decided to consult the experts.
Harold Bloom from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness:
"The sailors' very Englishness, a force beyond their understanding or control, makes them act nobly in an emergency. Yet here Marlow's belief in the existence of a 'hidden something' does not amount to any sort of racial theory of history. The uneven distribution of character appears to him as an inexplicable secret, and it just so happens that the English have more of it than other people. Marlow's pride in his Englishness does not lead him to pronounce race a 'key to history'; even he feels threatened by the biological definition of national character..."
Frances Singh from Postcolonial Whiteness:
"At the same time, he hints at an idea which transcends this narrow racist point of view. Conrad also writes that it is service at sea that brings out the 'right stuff' in men. In the final analysis, then, Conrad seems to be suggesting that the highest race one can belong to is not the English race but the transnational, miscegenated Sailor Race, which men belong to after a period of perilous training and collaborative service. It is a race whose highest moral principle is that all must pull together for the common good."
Michael North from The Dialect of Modernism:
"But Conrad wants his crews to manifest that phatic communion that exists far below the level of discourse, that comes from national and racial commonality, and so he makes them all... more English than they were."
Peter Edgerly Firchow from Envisioning Africa:
"At the same time it must be remembered to his [Conrad's] credit that he consistently mocked notions of white superiority in his fiction, in both its Pacific and its African settings. Where Conrad was demonstrably racist (in the older, more inclusive sense of the word race) is in his belief in the superiority or inferiority of the European "races" or nations in relation to each other -" (boldface is mine)
personally, I'm most inclined to agree with Peter Firchow's interpretation. particularly because, on the one hand, the European captain of another ship is portrayed as absurd and offensive - specifically to Englishmen. and on the other hand, I did not notice a whiff of racism or condescension in Conrad's descriptions of the Malay reacting to the foundering Judea or the Javanese reacting to the crew that has finally reached their shores, bereft of ship.
10 of 16 in Sixteen Short Novels
November 26, 2017
Judea faces a storm. It is a "Do or Die" situation for the crew.
JOSEPH Conrad was a Polish-British writer regarded as one of the greatest novelists to write in the English language. He joined the French merchant marine in 1874 and the British one in 1878. His merchant-marine career lasted 19 years, which is why most of his stories and novels have a nautical setting, depicting trials of the human spirit. In fact, many of their characters were also drawn from his seafaring career and persons whom he had met or heard about. He often borrowed the authentic names of actual persons like Captain Beard and Mr. Mahon in 'Youth' (1898), the short story under review.
Writing in the heyday of the British Empire, Conrad created short stories and novels that reflected aspects of a European-dominated world — including colonialism and imperialism.
'Youth' deals with the story of a cargo ship called Judea which carries the slogan “Do or Die” on its stern. However, the ship seems to be jinxed. Each trip that its crew starts on seems to end in a fiasco with the ship having to return to dock at London. Even the crew gets changed each time with the exception of the captain, Mahon and the narrator (who tells the story in flashback).
Joseph Conrad in bowler hat.
“We left London in ballast—sand ballast—to load a cargo of coal in a northern port for Bankok. Bankok! I thrilled. I had been six years at sea, but had only seen Melbourne and Sydney, very good places, charming places in their way—but Bankok!”
I was surprised to find out how Bangkok was spelt in the 19th Century. Even my city Karachi was spelt Kurrachee those days before the British Raj changed its spelling to the present-day one. Many countries which now don’t like the Brits’ interference are reverting back to their old spellings/names like Kolkata for Calcutta, Mumbai for Bombay, Chennai for Madras, Dhaka for Dacca, etc.
'Kurrachee: Past, Present and Future' was published from Calcutta in the 19th Century.
I am reproducing some extracts so that you can realise what an expert Mr. Conrad was on ships, knowing them like the back of his hand. Here he describes about a gale which the crew has to face for several days.
“We were a week working up as far as Yarmouth Roads, and then we got into a gale—the famous October gale of twenty-two years ago. It was wind, lightning, sleet, snow, and a terrific sea. We were flying light, and you may imagine how bad it was when I tell you we had smashed bulwarks and a flooded deck. On the second night she shifted her ballast into the lee bow, and by that time we had been blown off somewhere on the Dogger Bank. There was nothing for it but go below with shovels and try to right her, and there we were in that vast hold, gloomy like a cavern, the tallow dips stuck and flickering on the beams, the gale howling above, the ship tossing about like mad on her side; there we all were, Jermyn, the captain, everyone, hardly able to keep our feet, engaged on that gravedigger's work, and trying to toss shovelfuls of wet sand up to windward. At every tumble of the ship you could see vaguely in the dim light men falling down with a great flourish of shovels. One of the ship's boys (we had two), impressed by the weirdness of the scene, wept as if his heart would break. We could hear him blubbering somewhere in the shadows.
“On the third day the gale died out, and by-and-by a north-country tug picked us up. We took sixteen days in all to get from London to the Tyne! When we got into dock we had lost our turn for loading, and they hauled us off to a pier where we remained for a month. Mrs. Beard (the captain's name was Beard) came from Colchester to see the old man. She lived on board. The crew of runners had left, and there remained only the officers, one boy, and the steward, a mulatto who answered to the name of Abraham. Mrs. Beard was an old woman, with a face all wrinkled and ruddy like a winter apple, and the figure of a young girl. She caught sight of me once, sewing on a button, and insisted on having my shirts to repair. This was something different from the captains' wives I had known on board crack clippers. When I brought her the shirts, she said: 'And the socks? They want mending, I am sure, and John's— Captain Beard's— 5 things are all in order now. I would be glad of something to do.' Bless the old woman. She overhauled my outfit for me, and meantime I read for the first time 'Sartor Resartus' and Burnaby's 'Ride to Khiva'. I didn't understand much of the first then; but I remember I preferred the soldier to the philosopher at the time; a preference which life has only confirmed. One was a man, and the other was either more—or less. However, they are both dead, and Mrs. Beard is dead, and youth, strength, genius, thoughts, achievements, simple hearts—all die . . . . No matter.”
For those who might not be knowing, a mulatto is a person of mixed white and black ancestry, especially a person with one white and one black parent.
By the way, what a kind-hearted and loving woman that Mrs. Beard is! Few of her kind are left in this present-day New World Order.
It is the first time that I have heard of books like 'Sartor Resartus' and Burnaby's 'Ride to Khiva'. Maybe some of my goodreads friends already know about these books and might have even read them. Ships those days were stocked with the best of books in their libraries or the captain’s cabin. Later, the narrator of 'Youth' while on a five-day leave goes to London where he buys a complete set of Lord Byron's works to read on the ship. People then truly loved reading books and had excellent choice.
Lord George Gordon Byron in Albanian dress painted by Thomas Phillips in 1813. The painting hangs in Venizelos Mansion, Athens (the British Ambassador's residence).
Once I visited a friend of mine at the Gidyani Shipbreaking Yard in 1978 who took me aboard a huge ship which was being stripped down. Later, he gave me several books which he had got from the ship's library, including William Peter Blatty's 'The Exorcist'. I was on cloud nine.
By the way, 'The Exorcist' is the only film that truly scared me after I had watched a late night show at the Palace cinema hall in Karachi in 1976 or 1977. I kept thinking about it during the entire night. The same thing repeated itself when I had watched it a second time. My elder sister went through similar emotions when she watched it. One more thing: The film had stupendous theme music called 'Tubular Bells' by Mike Oldfield. His top-selling album was titled the same. Mr Oldfield was only 19 when he recorded it in 1972. He was only 20 when the album was released in 1973.
Film poster of William Friedkin's 'The Exorcist' (1973).
'Tubular Bells' by Mike Oldfield from the soundtrack of 'The Exorcist'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FN6jI...
Some of Mr. Conrad’s paragraphs read just like poetry, making you want to read them again and again. Check out the following two extracts:
“Oh the glamour of youth! Oh the fire of it, more dazzling than the flames of the burning ship, throwing a magic light on the wide earth, leaping audaciously to the sky, presently to be quenched by time, more cruel, more pitiless, more bitter than the sea—and like the flames of the burning ship surrounded by an impenetrable night.”
“And this is how I see the East. I have seen its secret places and have looked into its very soul; but now I see it always from a small boat, a high outline of mountains, blue and afar in the morning; like faint mist at noon; a jagged wall of purple at sunset. I have the feel of the oar in my hand, the vision of a scorching blue sea in my eyes. And I see a bay, a wide bay, smooth as glass and polished like ice, shimmering in the dark.”
A superb Joseph Conrad quote.
Many films have been adapted from, or inspired by, Joseph Conrad’s works. 'Youth' was adapted into 'The Young One' by Director Julien Samani in 2016.
Trailer of French film 'The Young One'. No English trailer is available at present.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGjVt...
You can read 'Youth' here on pdf. Do let me know what you think of it. Thank you.
http://www.lonestar.edu/departments/e...
November 13, 2021
Since Youth is included in an anthology which I’m currently reading in Spanish, I was wondering if I should type a brief review just for this one. At the end, I decided to do so because I had read it in its original language as one friend of mine advised me: “you might read your first Conrad in English if you want”. By the way, and just for the record, this book that I’m reading now is a collection of sixty or so short stories named Viajeros: de Jonathan Swift a Alan Hollinghurst (Travelers: From Jonathan Swift to Alan Hollinghurst), each of which has at least one thing in common with the other ones: there is a travel, an emotional, and/or a physical journey as part of the plot.
Youth has been both a beautiful and a nostalgic journey for me, since I was able to feel a real connection with the memorable, main character, Marlow, and his story as an adventurous young man on the sea.
In short, Marlow kicks off with his story talking about his first voyage as a second mate on an old ship named the Judea, whose adventures took place when he was younger, approximately twenty years before his narrative.
The story itself is fairly compelling, since you don’t know whether the ship and the crew will be able to reach their final destination or not, or whether they will get through their whole journey. Besides, it’s really amazing how much story Conrad covers in so few pages, just as the atmosphere or suspense during the voyage, which is quite a bit impressive and ominous – especially this characteristic makes you enjoy the reading even more.
In addition, and from my point of view, the best element of this short novella (or long tale) is the concept of youth based on Marlow’s experience, for instance, the consequences of his own decisions aboard twenty years ago, the face of danger in the middle of the ocean being an inexperienced and young sailor, and so on.
Lastly, needless to say that I felt completely excited throughout the whole story, because somehow it reminded me of my own youth, my own life; feel something like that, it’s definitely priceless. And no, I have never been on a boat in the way Marlow was, but I believe if you’re capable of joining him on his journey, you’ll also be able to start your own and personal journey next to him, a journey towards youth.
“O youth! The strength of it, the faith of it, the imagination of it! To me she was not an old rattle-trap carting about the world a lot of coal for a freight – to me she was the endeavor, the test, the trial of life.”
Youth has been both a beautiful and a nostalgic journey for me, since I was able to feel a real connection with the memorable, main character, Marlow, and his story as an adventurous young man on the sea.
In short, Marlow kicks off with his story talking about his first voyage as a second mate on an old ship named the Judea, whose adventures took place when he was younger, approximately twenty years before his narrative.
The story itself is fairly compelling, since you don’t know whether the ship and the crew will be able to reach their final destination or not, or whether they will get through their whole journey. Besides, it’s really amazing how much story Conrad covers in so few pages, just as the atmosphere or suspense during the voyage, which is quite a bit impressive and ominous – especially this characteristic makes you enjoy the reading even more.
In addition, and from my point of view, the best element of this short novella (or long tale) is the concept of youth based on Marlow’s experience, for instance, the consequences of his own decisions aboard twenty years ago, the face of danger in the middle of the ocean being an inexperienced and young sailor, and so on.
Lastly, needless to say that I felt completely excited throughout the whole story, because somehow it reminded me of my own youth, my own life; feel something like that, it’s definitely priceless. And no, I have never been on a boat in the way Marlow was, but I believe if you’re capable of joining him on his journey, you’ll also be able to start your own and personal journey next to him, a journey towards youth.
“O youth! The strength of it, the faith of it, the imagination of it! To me she was not an old rattle-trap carting about the world a lot of coal for a freight – to me she was the endeavor, the test, the trial of life.”
September 7, 2025
A pleasant surprise, light as true tiramisu after a heavy meal. My Vintage classics edition stuck this at the end of Heart of Darkness and thought so little of it they never mentioned it was there. Nothing on the front cover said "Youth." They just slipped it in as some publishers do a wad of blank pages to bulk up a book. But this story is much more than that.
With the wisdom of age and experience, a man called Marlow tells a story from his youth. Would he have told it the same way back then? I doubt it. The years bring perspective not only distance. What brings us close to tears at first can produce another effect as time goes on. This story of a voyage from London to Bangkok is full of dreams of adventure against a reality of mishaps. They made me exclaim out loud more than once and even laugh.
Life, this author reminds us, is for taking chances when we are young. If we do, then in our golden years we can have stories to amuse companions. We can sit around a table, saying "Pass the bottle" at intervals and feel like we, too, are Marlow.
With the wisdom of age and experience, a man called Marlow tells a story from his youth. Would he have told it the same way back then? I doubt it. The years bring perspective not only distance. What brings us close to tears at first can produce another effect as time goes on. This story of a voyage from London to Bangkok is full of dreams of adventure against a reality of mishaps. They made me exclaim out loud more than once and even laugh.
Life, this author reminds us, is for taking chances when we are young. If we do, then in our golden years we can have stories to amuse companions. We can sit around a table, saying "Pass the bottle" at intervals and feel like we, too, are Marlow.
September 20, 2025
پنج رفیق که هرکدام به میانسالی رسیده و زندگی همگیشان با دریا گرهخورده دور میز نشستهاند. درحالیکه صورتهاشان روی لیوانهای شراب قرمز منعکس میشود و بطری دستبهدست میشود. مارلو خاطرهای تعریف میکند از بیستودوسال قبل، زمانی که تنها بیستسال داشت و برای اولینبار کمکناخدا شده بود.
زمانی که جوان بود.
تجربهٔ مارلوی جوان از اولین سفر دریاییاش با کشتی جودا بیشباهت نیست به زندگی ما که جوانیمان را در این جغرافیا گذراندهایم.
مارلوی کمکناخدا نسبت به سایر ملوانان سن کمتری دارد. پس مجبور است بیش از توان خود تلاش کند. تا خودش را به ناخدا، به دیگران و مهمتر از همه به خودش ثابت کند. ثابت کند که ضعیف نیست. ما نیز با رقابتهای نابرابر ناآشنا نیستیم.
جملهٔ «یا انجامش بده یا بمیر» با حروف طلایی بزرگ روی بدنهٔ قدیمی و زخمیِ کشتی جودا که مارلو برای غرقنشدن آن سگدو میزند، حک شده است. این جمله نشان از روزهای اوج جوداست. اما مارلو آنروزها را ندیده. ما نیز روزهای شادابی این خاک را ندیدهایم. ما فقط رنج و اشک را تجربه کردهایم.
روزهایی بود که مارلو تمام روز مشغول خالیکردن آب کشتی بود. تا زنده بماند. روزهایی که از فرط تلاش دیگر به رسیدن اهمیت نمیدهی. اصلاً مقصد و هدفت را فراموش میکنی. انگار احساس خود را از دست دادهای. فقط باید زنده بمانی. یا انجامش بده یا بمیر.
با وجود تمام اینها، با وجود تمام تلاشهایت اما تو نمیتوانی جبر را کنترل کنی. یک موج، یک طوفان، یک صخره، یک جنگ، یک تحریم، یک موشک میتواند تمام اندوختهی تو را هیچ کند. شاید مجبور شوی مانند مارلو به بقایای متلاشیشدهٔ زحمتهایت خیره شوی.
مارلو خودش را به آب نیانداخت. میتوانست اما تسلیم نشد. مارلو رسید. خسته شد اما رسید. مارلو بعد از بیستدوسال این خاطرات سخت را با لذت تعریف میکند. باشد که ما نیز روزی جامهایمان را به سلامتی روزهای سختی که گذراندهایم بالا ببریم. به سلامتی روزهایی که جوان بودیم.
🥂
زمانی که جوان بود.
تجربهٔ مارلوی جوان از اولین سفر دریاییاش با کشتی جودا بیشباهت نیست به زندگی ما که جوانیمان را در این جغرافیا گذراندهایم.
مارلوی کمکناخدا نسبت به سایر ملوانان سن کمتری دارد. پس مجبور است بیش از توان خود تلاش کند. تا خودش را به ناخدا، به دیگران و مهمتر از همه به خودش ثابت کند. ثابت کند که ضعیف نیست. ما نیز با رقابتهای نابرابر ناآشنا نیستیم.
جملهٔ «یا انجامش بده یا بمیر» با حروف طلایی بزرگ روی بدنهٔ قدیمی و زخمیِ کشتی جودا که مارلو برای غرقنشدن آن سگدو میزند، حک شده است. این جمله نشان از روزهای اوج جوداست. اما مارلو آنروزها را ندیده. ما نیز روزهای شادابی این خاک را ندیدهایم. ما فقط رنج و اشک را تجربه کردهایم.
روزهایی بود که مارلو تمام روز مشغول خالیکردن آب کشتی بود. تا زنده بماند. روزهایی که از فرط تلاش دیگر به رسیدن اهمیت نمیدهی. اصلاً مقصد و هدفت را فراموش میکنی. انگار احساس خود را از دست دادهای. فقط باید زنده بمانی. یا انجامش بده یا بمیر.
با وجود تمام اینها، با وجود تمام تلاشهایت اما تو نمیتوانی جبر را کنترل کنی. یک موج، یک طوفان، یک صخره، یک جنگ، یک تحریم، یک موشک میتواند تمام اندوختهی تو را هیچ کند. شاید مجبور شوی مانند مارلو به بقایای متلاشیشدهٔ زحمتهایت خیره شوی.
مارلو خودش را به آب نیانداخت. میتوانست اما تسلیم نشد. مارلو رسید. خسته شد اما رسید. مارلو بعد از بیستدوسال این خاطرات سخت را با لذت تعریف میکند. باشد که ما نیز روزی جامهایمان را به سلامتی روزهای سختی که گذراندهایم بالا ببریم. به سلامتی روزهایی که جوان بودیم.
🥂
July 10, 2020
I am writing this, just having read the last page of Joseph Conrad's"Youth" and I feel myself awakening gradually, slowly, deliberately from a trance.
I cannot express in mere words how sublimely beautiful this tale - this mere novella of about a quarter of the length of Conrad's other novels - has turned out for me; even going by the extraordinary expectations that one holds from a writer and storyteller of his stature, this is something else, it is as extraordinary and life-altering an experience as the first time I read "A Tale Of Two Cities" in my boyhood, "Swami And Friends" as school came to an end, "Watchmen" as I came of age and became aware of the dark side to the swagger of bombastic heroism and, as one will know best, many a novel by Graham Greene whenever life became too difficult to face alone.
And so, I finished reading "Youth" at the age of nearly 28 years, just a couple of years shy of turning 30 and finally putting on that cloak of "new responsibilities" and a "new-found maturity" that is to be expected from a man of my age. And my marriage this year has already ushered in a new time for me to become, in the eyes of the discerning, critical world, a little more responsible and behave a little more like an adult. All the frivolity and frolic of my own youth looks like a brief illusion that might last for another couple of years at best and then would dissolve in the frenetic haze of people and faring up to their expectations.
So, what does one look back at as one feels youth, idealism and the hope, that once made a heart throb with passion, fade away?
"Youth" is essentially about finding the answer to that question and it is this universal aspect of its narrative, its simple but profound idea that makes this the most endearing and enduring of all the three works from Conrad that I have read so far. It is, at heart, about a young seaman, none other than our very own Charles Marlow, the world-weary, even disillusioned narrator of many of Conrad's more intense narratives set in sea, setting out to the East in an ill-fated ship bound for Bankok carrying an incendiary cargo of coal.
And that's it - except that this also becomes that one encapsulated moment representative of one's youth, awash in both excitement and danger, both misfortunes and miracles, both the heart-breaking feeling of defeat and the fleeting but memorable thrill of victory.
And so, I leave the uninitiated reader to discover this little marvel on her or his own - a novel that also showcases a different side to Conrad - surprisingly brisk, economical and still evocative and emotionally profound - and sign off with this quote that particularly affected me so much:
"...and I remember my youth and the feeling that could last forever, outlast the sea, the earth and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort - to death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small and expires - and expires, too soon, too soon, before life itself."
Read this little sliver, among many, of simple, profound and poetic wisdom and you will know what this book and what our life is all about.
I cannot express in mere words how sublimely beautiful this tale - this mere novella of about a quarter of the length of Conrad's other novels - has turned out for me; even going by the extraordinary expectations that one holds from a writer and storyteller of his stature, this is something else, it is as extraordinary and life-altering an experience as the first time I read "A Tale Of Two Cities" in my boyhood, "Swami And Friends" as school came to an end, "Watchmen" as I came of age and became aware of the dark side to the swagger of bombastic heroism and, as one will know best, many a novel by Graham Greene whenever life became too difficult to face alone.
And so, I finished reading "Youth" at the age of nearly 28 years, just a couple of years shy of turning 30 and finally putting on that cloak of "new responsibilities" and a "new-found maturity" that is to be expected from a man of my age. And my marriage this year has already ushered in a new time for me to become, in the eyes of the discerning, critical world, a little more responsible and behave a little more like an adult. All the frivolity and frolic of my own youth looks like a brief illusion that might last for another couple of years at best and then would dissolve in the frenetic haze of people and faring up to their expectations.
So, what does one look back at as one feels youth, idealism and the hope, that once made a heart throb with passion, fade away?
"Youth" is essentially about finding the answer to that question and it is this universal aspect of its narrative, its simple but profound idea that makes this the most endearing and enduring of all the three works from Conrad that I have read so far. It is, at heart, about a young seaman, none other than our very own Charles Marlow, the world-weary, even disillusioned narrator of many of Conrad's more intense narratives set in sea, setting out to the East in an ill-fated ship bound for Bankok carrying an incendiary cargo of coal.
And that's it - except that this also becomes that one encapsulated moment representative of one's youth, awash in both excitement and danger, both misfortunes and miracles, both the heart-breaking feeling of defeat and the fleeting but memorable thrill of victory.
And so, I leave the uninitiated reader to discover this little marvel on her or his own - a novel that also showcases a different side to Conrad - surprisingly brisk, economical and still evocative and emotionally profound - and sign off with this quote that particularly affected me so much:
"...and I remember my youth and the feeling that could last forever, outlast the sea, the earth and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort - to death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small and expires - and expires, too soon, too soon, before life itself."
Read this little sliver, among many, of simple, profound and poetic wisdom and you will know what this book and what our life is all about.
June 26, 2025
'wasn’t that the best time, that time when we were young at sea…'
I confess to finding Conrad hard to read, in the same way that Virginia Woolf can be hard to read Mrs. Dalloway, or Norman Douglas South Wind. Each is rewarding in their different way though.
Like Heart of Darkness, Youth is told in retrospect by Conrad regular Marlow to a captive audience, in this case three fellow sailors drinking claret round the table ('pass the bottle, please’), each of them understanding the relationship between Englishmen and the sea.
Marlow remembers his voyage as a young (twenty) second officer on an old freighter, the Judea bound for Bangkok, which suffers from lengthy breakdowns, a fire in the cargo hold, (they are carrying coal, possibly the worst consignment in the days of bulk cargo, the same with rice if it gets wet, swells and starts to burst the rivets), general disintegration and finally a spectacular explosion with a pyrotechnical display in the sunset as the ship dies. The crew ends up in the boats and they terminate in Singapore. They were never going to make it to Bangkok. Youthful dreams can sometimes come true but usually not.
What characterises Marlow’s youthful spirit is his unwavering, but unrealistic belief that that ship will make it, which is both the strength and weakness of the young. He has a belief that the ship is somehow alive, and must be saved whatever. It is a romantic illusion, which like other youthful characteristics, disappears over time.
He might be hard to read, but Conrad sure sticks in the memory, like one’s youth, like endless summers spent sunning and swimming at Williamstown beach.
I confess to finding Conrad hard to read, in the same way that Virginia Woolf can be hard to read Mrs. Dalloway, or Norman Douglas South Wind. Each is rewarding in their different way though.
Like Heart of Darkness, Youth is told in retrospect by Conrad regular Marlow to a captive audience, in this case three fellow sailors drinking claret round the table ('pass the bottle, please’), each of them understanding the relationship between Englishmen and the sea.
Marlow remembers his voyage as a young (twenty) second officer on an old freighter, the Judea bound for Bangkok, which suffers from lengthy breakdowns, a fire in the cargo hold, (they are carrying coal, possibly the worst consignment in the days of bulk cargo, the same with rice if it gets wet, swells and starts to burst the rivets), general disintegration and finally a spectacular explosion with a pyrotechnical display in the sunset as the ship dies. The crew ends up in the boats and they terminate in Singapore. They were never going to make it to Bangkok. Youthful dreams can sometimes come true but usually not.
What characterises Marlow’s youthful spirit is his unwavering, but unrealistic belief that that ship will make it, which is both the strength and weakness of the young. He has a belief that the ship is somehow alive, and must be saved whatever. It is a romantic illusion, which like other youthful characteristics, disappears over time.
He might be hard to read, but Conrad sure sticks in the memory, like one’s youth, like endless summers spent sunning and swimming at Williamstown beach.
August 17, 2025
An ocean voyage to Bangkok
21 February 2015
Well, if anybody can write and adventure story about a journey by ship it would have to be Joseph Conrad – he ought to know since he spent a lot of his life as a sailor. In fact, it is suggested that this story is based upon Conrad's own experiences which suggests that he had some pretty harrowing experiences during his time on the high seas, especially considering the constant problems that seem to perpetually plague the unfortunate Judea. The story is about a smallish ship in its attempts to take a cargo of coal from England to Thailand, with Bangkok being that goal that forever seems to be out of reach. Even before the Judea leaves England it is hit by a steamer, has the ballast shift, and is also abandoned by the rats (which, while sounding like a good thing, is actually a really bad omen, so the Judea then has to waste even more time hiring a new compliment of crew since sailors will not sail on a ship that has been abandoned by rats).
The story is structure similarly to 'Heart of Darkness' in that it begins with a group of ex-sailors sitting around a table, drinking and retelling stories from their youth. The story of the Judea's fateful journey is recounted by the character Marlowe, who in a way is Conrad's alter-ego, and is the story of his first commission as a mate. While he has had experience on ships previously, this is the first time that he held a senior role, and it is also the first time that the captain, John Beard, had captained a boat.
Mind you, even when the Judea finally manages to leave England (the journey was supposed to take five months, but due to all the problems that plagued the unfortunate ship, it end up taking much, much longer) the problems aren't over. Well, they do manage to reach the coast of Western Australia before the cargo catches alight (and considering that they are carrying coal, that is not really a good thing) and they must then resort to various attempts to put it out, though from what I gather it is not a raging fire because they are able to hitch a ride with the steamer so that they might get to the harbour and then sink the ship in an attempt to extinguish the blaze.
I probably shouldn't say too much more because I have probably given away too much already, but the one thought that was going through my mind as I was reading this little narrative was what Bangkok was like back in those days. My experiences of Bangkok is that it is a city of contrasts, but I suspect back in Conrad's days it would have been one of those exotic destinations, but hardly the tourist attraction that it is today (though I while they did have a tourism industry back in those days I suspect that you wouldn't have the globe trotters that you have today, and anyway, it probably was not the sort of place that you would go and take your family (though unlike these days, only the wealthy would have the money to travel).
Bangkok 1895
Bangkok today.
21 February 2015
Well, if anybody can write and adventure story about a journey by ship it would have to be Joseph Conrad – he ought to know since he spent a lot of his life as a sailor. In fact, it is suggested that this story is based upon Conrad's own experiences which suggests that he had some pretty harrowing experiences during his time on the high seas, especially considering the constant problems that seem to perpetually plague the unfortunate Judea. The story is about a smallish ship in its attempts to take a cargo of coal from England to Thailand, with Bangkok being that goal that forever seems to be out of reach. Even before the Judea leaves England it is hit by a steamer, has the ballast shift, and is also abandoned by the rats (which, while sounding like a good thing, is actually a really bad omen, so the Judea then has to waste even more time hiring a new compliment of crew since sailors will not sail on a ship that has been abandoned by rats).
The story is structure similarly to 'Heart of Darkness' in that it begins with a group of ex-sailors sitting around a table, drinking and retelling stories from their youth. The story of the Judea's fateful journey is recounted by the character Marlowe, who in a way is Conrad's alter-ego, and is the story of his first commission as a mate. While he has had experience on ships previously, this is the first time that he held a senior role, and it is also the first time that the captain, John Beard, had captained a boat.
Mind you, even when the Judea finally manages to leave England (the journey was supposed to take five months, but due to all the problems that plagued the unfortunate ship, it end up taking much, much longer) the problems aren't over. Well, they do manage to reach the coast of Western Australia before the cargo catches alight (and considering that they are carrying coal, that is not really a good thing) and they must then resort to various attempts to put it out, though from what I gather it is not a raging fire because they are able to hitch a ride with the steamer so that they might get to the harbour and then sink the ship in an attempt to extinguish the blaze.
I probably shouldn't say too much more because I have probably given away too much already, but the one thought that was going through my mind as I was reading this little narrative was what Bangkok was like back in those days. My experiences of Bangkok is that it is a city of contrasts, but I suspect back in Conrad's days it would have been one of those exotic destinations, but hardly the tourist attraction that it is today (though I while they did have a tourism industry back in those days I suspect that you wouldn't have the globe trotters that you have today, and anyway, it probably was not the sort of place that you would go and take your family (though unlike these days, only the wealthy would have the money to travel).
Bangkok 1895
Bangkok today.
January 31, 2019
"I learnt then that the mere fact of giving utterance to a good intention often makes it difficult, nay, impossible, to carry that good intention into effect."
- Leo Tolstoy, Youth.
Youth, published in 1856, is Tolstoy's third novel(la) and the third of his autobiographical trilogy (Childhood, Boyhood, Youth). Youth begins with the narrator's friedship with Dmitri (who the narrator meets through his brother Volodya). The arc of the story mostly starts and finishes with his entrance and exit examinations for University. He experiences religious, social, dreams, and education struggles; falls easily in and out of love; and begins to emerge as someone who is both independent of others, but still struggling to objectively rise above his class and social constraints.
The book is also "bookended" by the narrator talking about his “Rules of Life”. Writing down lists of his tasks, summarizing a statement of his life’s aim and the rules by which he intended "unswervingly to be guided", reminded me of my own youth. I still return at 44 to my own goals, lists, inner constraints. Many of these rules I set when I was 16, 21, 23 and looking back, many seem silly, presumptuous, and a bit absurd and sad. They do, however, also remind me of how ambitious I was, how wide-open the world looked, and just how little I understood of my own ignorance. Again, like the previous two books in this series, this one felt both at home and seemed also to reflect other books that later writers would write concerning their own growth. That said, it wasn't my favorite of the trilogy and obviously doesn't hold a candle to Tolstoy's later, great, ambitious novels.
- Leo Tolstoy, Youth.
Youth, published in 1856, is Tolstoy's third novel(la) and the third of his autobiographical trilogy (Childhood, Boyhood, Youth). Youth begins with the narrator's friedship with Dmitri (who the narrator meets through his brother Volodya). The arc of the story mostly starts and finishes with his entrance and exit examinations for University. He experiences religious, social, dreams, and education struggles; falls easily in and out of love; and begins to emerge as someone who is both independent of others, but still struggling to objectively rise above his class and social constraints.
The book is also "bookended" by the narrator talking about his “Rules of Life”. Writing down lists of his tasks, summarizing a statement of his life’s aim and the rules by which he intended "unswervingly to be guided", reminded me of my own youth. I still return at 44 to my own goals, lists, inner constraints. Many of these rules I set when I was 16, 21, 23 and looking back, many seem silly, presumptuous, and a bit absurd and sad. They do, however, also remind me of how ambitious I was, how wide-open the world looked, and just how little I understood of my own ignorance. Again, like the previous two books in this series, this one felt both at home and seemed also to reflect other books that later writers would write concerning their own growth. That said, it wasn't my favorite of the trilogy and obviously doesn't hold a candle to Tolstoy's later, great, ambitious novels.
March 6, 2019
“[…] the feeling that I could last for ever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort – to death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expires – and expires, too soon – before life itself.”
This is one of the diverse comments the seafaring Marlow makes about the days of his youth in a short story written by Joseph Conrad in 1898 and aptly and surprisingly named Youth. The story witnesses the first appearance of Marlow, one of Conrad’s recurring characters, and after its first publication in “Blackwood’s Magazine”, it was included in a three-story volume in 1902, together with Heart of Darkness, in which Marlow recounts a story of his manhood years, and The End of the Tether, which is about a captain who has grown old and realizes that nothing falls into place as he had planned it to do.
In Youth Marlow tells a story to four other men – probably middle-aged – who are in some way or other connected with the sea, the story of his first voyage as a second mate. Signing up on board the Judea to carry a cargo of coal to Bangkok, Marlow gets a lot more than he bargained for because the ship seems to be a star-crossed vessel: Everything that can possibly go wrong does so, and so the voyage becomes a concatenation of disasters, some of them menacing, others rather more of a nuisance and humiliation than a real threat, thus adding insult to injury. Young Marlow, however, bears all these blows with good grace and, what’s more, with an unbroken and curious spirit because there is hardly anything he wouldn’t do to see Bangkok, to see the East. Apart from that, he is chuffed to bits about his first command (even if it is only one as a second mate), and when later – after the Judea has fallen prey to a freak disaster – he is even in charge of one lifeboat with two sailors on board, his pride and confidence in his own strength know no boundary. He even fails to inform his men of a ship he catches sight of lest the days of his modest captainship be over to soon and the ship return him to England before he reaches the longed-for shores of the East.
Since the two other stories in the collection deal with man’s middle years and his old age respectively, it has often been said that Youth completes this gamut of a man’s circle of life, but it should not be forgotten that, strictly speaking, we do not have a young man speaking first-hand but rather view this period of unbound optimism, confidence and carefreeness through the eyes of a considerably older man, one whose range of experience also makes him comment on the exuberance of youth with a certain regret, as can be seen from the quotation with which I introduced this little text. Thus, our narrator even offers some quite cynical reflexions, like the following:
In a similar vein, the optimism connected with the prime of life is seen by the more worldly-wise older self of the protagonist as something small and inconsequential in a world of gloom:
In the light of these reflections, it will probably not be very surprising that in the mixture of tragedy and comedy characterizing most events depicted by Marlow, the tragic tones seem to prevail in the end, especially if you consider that this ill-starred command is the first (and probably the last) the 60-year old Captain Beard ever received. If we see Youth in the context of the two other pieces of the collection, particularly in connection with the very pessimist The End of the Tether, the regretful and nostalgic, albeit slightly sceptical tone of our narrator makes even more sense. In other words, it’s, once again, Conrad at his finest!
This is one of the diverse comments the seafaring Marlow makes about the days of his youth in a short story written by Joseph Conrad in 1898 and aptly and surprisingly named Youth. The story witnesses the first appearance of Marlow, one of Conrad’s recurring characters, and after its first publication in “Blackwood’s Magazine”, it was included in a three-story volume in 1902, together with Heart of Darkness, in which Marlow recounts a story of his manhood years, and The End of the Tether, which is about a captain who has grown old and realizes that nothing falls into place as he had planned it to do.
In Youth Marlow tells a story to four other men – probably middle-aged – who are in some way or other connected with the sea, the story of his first voyage as a second mate. Signing up on board the Judea to carry a cargo of coal to Bangkok, Marlow gets a lot more than he bargained for because the ship seems to be a star-crossed vessel: Everything that can possibly go wrong does so, and so the voyage becomes a concatenation of disasters, some of them menacing, others rather more of a nuisance and humiliation than a real threat, thus adding insult to injury. Young Marlow, however, bears all these blows with good grace and, what’s more, with an unbroken and curious spirit because there is hardly anything he wouldn’t do to see Bangkok, to see the East. Apart from that, he is chuffed to bits about his first command (even if it is only one as a second mate), and when later – after the Judea has fallen prey to a freak disaster – he is even in charge of one lifeboat with two sailors on board, his pride and confidence in his own strength know no boundary. He even fails to inform his men of a ship he catches sight of lest the days of his modest captainship be over to soon and the ship return him to England before he reaches the longed-for shores of the East.
Since the two other stories in the collection deal with man’s middle years and his old age respectively, it has often been said that Youth completes this gamut of a man’s circle of life, but it should not be forgotten that, strictly speaking, we do not have a young man speaking first-hand but rather view this period of unbound optimism, confidence and carefreeness through the eyes of a considerably older man, one whose range of experience also makes him comment on the exuberance of youth with a certain regret, as can be seen from the quotation with which I introduced this little text. Thus, our narrator even offers some quite cynical reflexions, like the following:
”’And after some more talk we agreed that the wisdom of rats had been grossly overrated, being in fact no greater than that of men.’”
In a similar vein, the optimism connected with the prime of life is seen by the more worldly-wise older self of the protagonist as something small and inconsequential in a world of gloom:
”’[…] Oh, the glamour of youth! Oh, the fire of it, more dazzling than the flames of the burning ship, throwing a magic light on the wide earth, leaping audaciously to the sky, presently to be quenched by time, more cruel, more pitiless, more bitter than the sea – and like the flames of the burning ship surrounded by an impenetrable night.’”
In the light of these reflections, it will probably not be very surprising that in the mixture of tragedy and comedy characterizing most events depicted by Marlow, the tragic tones seem to prevail in the end, especially if you consider that this ill-starred command is the first (and probably the last) the 60-year old Captain Beard ever received. If we see Youth in the context of the two other pieces of the collection, particularly in connection with the very pessimist The End of the Tether, the regretful and nostalgic, albeit slightly sceptical tone of our narrator makes even more sense. In other words, it’s, once again, Conrad at his finest!
January 23, 2024
Decided to read this short story by Joseph Conrad before I dived into Heart of Darkness! Whilst very different in plot from Heart of Darkness, it is similar in themes and some ideas as well. Youth follows our character, Marlow, as he recounts his journey on a boat called the Judea over two decades prior. Filled with horror aspects as the boat is damaged and the threat of death looms on the horizon, Conrad does a great job with tension, but overall I was not invested.
June 22, 2023
Per la prima volta con “Gioventù” del 1898, Joseph Conrad [1857-1924] introduce nei suoi racconti il personaggio narrante di Marlow, che entrerà di forza nella letteratura mondiale con l’indimenticabile “Cuore di Tenebra”.
“Gioventù” narra, a distanza di venti anni dai fatti, il battesimo come ufficiale proprio di Marlow che appena ventiduenne viene chiamato, con sua grande emozione, a far parte dell’equipaggio del brigantino “Judea” come secondo ufficiale, per un trasporto di carbone da caricare a Londra e sbarcare a Bangkok. Sarà un viaggio sfortunato ma ugualmente indimenticabile per il giovane ufficiale che ne conserverà un fiero ricordo che a distanza di anni condividerà con gli amici più cari.
Anche in questo bel racconto marinaresco rifulge la prosa pulita e impeccabile di Conrad che sa narrare con dosata suspense le peripezie e le sfortune di una nave il cui porto di attracco finale sembra allontanarsi piuttosto che avvicinarsi, mettendo in risalto con le parole più toccanti l’abnegazione dell’equipaggio, la sua fedeltà al dovere e al comandante con una resistenza psicofisica che sembra superare ogni limite umano.
“Gioventù” narra, a distanza di venti anni dai fatti, il battesimo come ufficiale proprio di Marlow che appena ventiduenne viene chiamato, con sua grande emozione, a far parte dell’equipaggio del brigantino “Judea” come secondo ufficiale, per un trasporto di carbone da caricare a Londra e sbarcare a Bangkok. Sarà un viaggio sfortunato ma ugualmente indimenticabile per il giovane ufficiale che ne conserverà un fiero ricordo che a distanza di anni condividerà con gli amici più cari.
Anche in questo bel racconto marinaresco rifulge la prosa pulita e impeccabile di Conrad che sa narrare con dosata suspense le peripezie e le sfortune di una nave il cui porto di attracco finale sembra allontanarsi piuttosto che avvicinarsi, mettendo in risalto con le parole più toccanti l’abnegazione dell’equipaggio, la sua fedeltà al dovere e al comandante con una resistenza psicofisica che sembra superare ogni limite umano.
August 10, 2015
I was expecting to have to wait in line for a lecture (by sculptor Richard Serra), I hate to waste time, I hate to hold heavy books in my lap, so I grabbed this Penguin 60 off my self to pass the time.
Reading this, I realized that male psychology hasn't changed much in a century. Conrad expresses basic male heroic yearnings, youthful enthusiasms and a poignant understanding of their eventual decline that seems as valid today as when they were written.
I also wondered if there is a relationship between specialized lingos and the development of the novel. Conrad, Melville, and Twain write about seamanship and use the language of seamanship in a casual way--as if we should know what all these terms mean. How many people wrote novels after having lived adventurous youths? Is this a 19th century thing?
Conrad's narrator--the young midshipman Marlow--speaks rapturously of his encounter with the East (specifically, Java):
"This was the East of the ancient navigators, so old, so mysterious, resplendent and sombre,living and unchanged, full of danger and promise."
This reminded me of a famous passage in "The Great Gatsby":
"Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity to wonder."
This passage suggests that the discovery of America by Europeans was the last great moment in human history. Everything after that is decline. Indeed, "The Great Gatsby" can be read as a summary of American history from the pioneer days to the modern age. Gatsby is a second-hand, self-consciously contrived version of an earlier, authentic American greatness. Nick Carraway praises Gatsby for his powers of self-invention, implying that Gatsby is not the real thing, that he is trying to be something he can never be.
The passage from "Youth: A Narrative, " however, describes just the sort of experience Carroway claims is in the past. The East is fully commensurate with Marlow's capacity to wonder. But now, wonder is directed not at the New World, but the Old World.
Which leads me to the topic of Orientalism. Is Marlow's fascination with the East complementary to Carroway's sense of lost enchantment? Is Orientalism--from the paintings of Gerome to New Age spirituality--a symptom of the modern West's sense of agedness?
Which leads me to Slavoj Zizek, and his concept of "The Raped Jewel." Western cultures often tell stories in which our spiritual truth lies forgotten and buried in some Third World nation (which is also being colonized by the West). The recent movies "The Fountain" and "A Night in the Museum" employ this motif.
Which leads me one of my favorite topics: decadence, which a professor of mine once described as a state in which a society has lost faith in its future. Do Conrad and Fitzgerald exhibit signs of decadence: a belief that the best part of life--for an individual or a nation--has passed, that we live in a degraded, exhausted state and seek fresh sources of inspiration and vitality--including the primitive and mysterious--in the very parts of the world we outwardly claim to have surpassed?
Reading this, I realized that male psychology hasn't changed much in a century. Conrad expresses basic male heroic yearnings, youthful enthusiasms and a poignant understanding of their eventual decline that seems as valid today as when they were written.
I also wondered if there is a relationship between specialized lingos and the development of the novel. Conrad, Melville, and Twain write about seamanship and use the language of seamanship in a casual way--as if we should know what all these terms mean. How many people wrote novels after having lived adventurous youths? Is this a 19th century thing?
Conrad's narrator--the young midshipman Marlow--speaks rapturously of his encounter with the East (specifically, Java):
"This was the East of the ancient navigators, so old, so mysterious, resplendent and sombre,living and unchanged, full of danger and promise."
This reminded me of a famous passage in "The Great Gatsby":
"Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity to wonder."
This passage suggests that the discovery of America by Europeans was the last great moment in human history. Everything after that is decline. Indeed, "The Great Gatsby" can be read as a summary of American history from the pioneer days to the modern age. Gatsby is a second-hand, self-consciously contrived version of an earlier, authentic American greatness. Nick Carraway praises Gatsby for his powers of self-invention, implying that Gatsby is not the real thing, that he is trying to be something he can never be.
The passage from "Youth: A Narrative, " however, describes just the sort of experience Carroway claims is in the past. The East is fully commensurate with Marlow's capacity to wonder. But now, wonder is directed not at the New World, but the Old World.
Which leads me to the topic of Orientalism. Is Marlow's fascination with the East complementary to Carroway's sense of lost enchantment? Is Orientalism--from the paintings of Gerome to New Age spirituality--a symptom of the modern West's sense of agedness?
Which leads me to Slavoj Zizek, and his concept of "The Raped Jewel." Western cultures often tell stories in which our spiritual truth lies forgotten and buried in some Third World nation (which is also being colonized by the West). The recent movies "The Fountain" and "A Night in the Museum" employ this motif.
Which leads me one of my favorite topics: decadence, which a professor of mine once described as a state in which a society has lost faith in its future. Do Conrad and Fitzgerald exhibit signs of decadence: a belief that the best part of life--for an individual or a nation--has passed, that we live in a degraded, exhausted state and seek fresh sources of inspiration and vitality--including the primitive and mysterious--in the very parts of the world we outwardly claim to have surpassed?
November 9, 2023
Juventud. El título ya es toda una declaración de intenciones. La obra es una oda al entusiasmo, al idealismo, a la aventura. Sin valorar riesgos, despreciando el peligro y enorgulleciéndose de ese espíritu impulsivo. En una palabra, creo que es el sentimiento de muchos de nuestros hijos adolescentes y jóvenes, que valoran todas esas virtudes, y desprecian lo que consideran temor o prudencia de sus provectos padres y madres (que bien eso de provectos ¿ehh?).
De nuevo Conrad, de nuevo su alter ego Marlow narrando una aventura marítima, uno de sus primeros viajes reales. Usa el viejo sistema del grupo de oyentes a su alrededor, esta vez en la taberna, tomando unos tragos y sin quitar el oído a una buena historia. ¡Que delicia! Además, una historia con moraleja, como las de antes. Que grande, cada pocos párrafos ese latiguillo del narrador tras contar parte de la historia: “¡pasen la botella!”, nos va llevando del mar a la taberna, del pasado al presente al momento.
“(…) leí por primera vez Sartor Resartus y Viaje a Khiva, de Burnaby. No entendí mucho del primero en ese momento, pero recuerdo que en aquel entonces prefería, el soldado al filósofo, preferencia que la vida no hizo sino confirmar. Uno era un hombre y el otro era algo más o menos. Sin embargo, ambos están muertos ahora y la Sra. Beard está muerta, y la juvenutd, la fuerza, el genio, los pensamientos, los logros, los corazones sencillos, todo muere... No importa.”
Se ve desde la primera línea el entusiasmo en la narración, un hombre maduro cuenta las aventuras de cuando era un muchacho joven, él propio autor de joven. Como decía, el propio título condensa toda la historia, aquí son tan importantes las incontables aventuras que le ocurren a Marlow en el océano en esa primera travesía a Bangkok, como la propia presencia de la juventud como algo tangible que todo lo impregna, todo lo allana y todo lo arrasa; la poca importancia que los años jóvenes otorgan a casi todo; la vida puesta en juego sin apenas darse cuenta ni darle importancia por esa juventud loca.
“Todos ustedes, todos sacaron algo de la vida: dinero, amor, lo que se obtiene en la costa, sea lo que fuere y díganme, ¿acaso la mejor época no fueron aquellos tiempos cuando éramos jóvenes en el mar?; éramos jóvenes y no teníamos nada, en el mar que no da nada, excepto golpes fuertes, y a veces una oportunidad de probar la propia fuerza, ¿no es acaso eso lo único que extrañan?” Aquí la palabra MAR se podría sustituir por cualquier otra a interés: VIDA, BATALLA, etc.
Llegué a este cuento por medio del último libro de I. McEwan, Lecciones, que lo refiere como una micro-novela dentro de su libro, quiero decir, que ya conocía prácticamente todos sus detalles, ya que que McEwan se extiende bastante y lo hace con tanto entusiasmo como el propio Conrad en su narración. Aún a pesar de eso no me importó y me lo he leído disfrutando como un chiquillo.
Pues eso, divina juventud…divino Conrad.
De nuevo Conrad, de nuevo su alter ego Marlow narrando una aventura marítima, uno de sus primeros viajes reales. Usa el viejo sistema del grupo de oyentes a su alrededor, esta vez en la taberna, tomando unos tragos y sin quitar el oído a una buena historia. ¡Que delicia! Además, una historia con moraleja, como las de antes. Que grande, cada pocos párrafos ese latiguillo del narrador tras contar parte de la historia: “¡pasen la botella!”, nos va llevando del mar a la taberna, del pasado al presente al momento.
“(…) leí por primera vez Sartor Resartus y Viaje a Khiva, de Burnaby. No entendí mucho del primero en ese momento, pero recuerdo que en aquel entonces prefería, el soldado al filósofo, preferencia que la vida no hizo sino confirmar. Uno era un hombre y el otro era algo más o menos. Sin embargo, ambos están muertos ahora y la Sra. Beard está muerta, y la juvenutd, la fuerza, el genio, los pensamientos, los logros, los corazones sencillos, todo muere... No importa.”
Se ve desde la primera línea el entusiasmo en la narración, un hombre maduro cuenta las aventuras de cuando era un muchacho joven, él propio autor de joven. Como decía, el propio título condensa toda la historia, aquí son tan importantes las incontables aventuras que le ocurren a Marlow en el océano en esa primera travesía a Bangkok, como la propia presencia de la juventud como algo tangible que todo lo impregna, todo lo allana y todo lo arrasa; la poca importancia que los años jóvenes otorgan a casi todo; la vida puesta en juego sin apenas darse cuenta ni darle importancia por esa juventud loca.
“Todos ustedes, todos sacaron algo de la vida: dinero, amor, lo que se obtiene en la costa, sea lo que fuere y díganme, ¿acaso la mejor época no fueron aquellos tiempos cuando éramos jóvenes en el mar?; éramos jóvenes y no teníamos nada, en el mar que no da nada, excepto golpes fuertes, y a veces una oportunidad de probar la propia fuerza, ¿no es acaso eso lo único que extrañan?” Aquí la palabra MAR se podría sustituir por cualquier otra a interés: VIDA, BATALLA, etc.
Llegué a este cuento por medio del último libro de I. McEwan, Lecciones, que lo refiere como una micro-novela dentro de su libro, quiero decir, que ya conocía prácticamente todos sus detalles, ya que que McEwan se extiende bastante y lo hace con tanto entusiasmo como el propio Conrad en su narración. Aún a pesar de eso no me importó y me lo he leído disfrutando como un chiquillo.
Pues eso, divina juventud…divino Conrad.
December 27, 2018
Entre uma rodada e outra de vinho ,Marlow conta sua primeira experiência no mar com 20 anos na época. Conta sua inexperiência a bordo do navio judea , onde tinham que levar uma carga de carvão até ao oriente. Mas devido as constantes intempéries do tempo, acidentes , incêndios , o navio começa a se deteriorar , tornando se uma banheira ,cheia de ferrugem, contudo Marlow e seus companheiros permanecem firmes , mesmo sem a expectativa de sucesso da missão, sem até mesmo receber seus salários...qual será então a força motriz desses jovens??? Ah a juventude!! É fazer ou morrer !( Inscrição no casco do judea) É a juventude , a chama da vida, é ela que é a fonte de tudo! A fonte dos sonhos, da vida!!
Um conto excepcional, a experiência de Joseph Conrad na marinha mercante por quase vinte anos, suas viagens para os mais variados destinos do Ocidente ao Oriente faz toda diferença em termos da fidelidade da narrativa. Ah a esplêndida juventude...
Um conto excepcional, a experiência de Joseph Conrad na marinha mercante por quase vinte anos, suas viagens para os mais variados destinos do Ocidente ao Oriente faz toda diferença em termos da fidelidade da narrativa. Ah a esplêndida juventude...
April 25, 2025
Oh man, can a Polish guy prove to be such a word-smith of English language? Such lucidity, such craft, such force of imagination...can one read him and fail to see the image he intends to interweave with 26 dumb symbols...pass the bottle.
October 13, 2017
Recordo os rostos exaustos, as figuras abatidas dos meus dois homens, e recordo a minha juventude e uma sensação que nunca mais tive – a sensação de que viveria para sempre, que sobreviveria ao mar, à terra e a todos os homens; a sensação enganosa que nos conduz a alegrias, a perigos, ao amor, ao esforço inútil – à morte; a triunfante convicção de pujança, o calor da vida numa mão cheia de pó, a chama do coração que ano após ano se esvai, esfria, encolhe e se extingue – e extingue-se demasiado cedo, tão cedo – antes da própria vida.
June 26, 2019
Afoguei-me a meio da viagem...
February 2, 2021
definitely my least favorite in the trilogy but I still enjoyed Tolstoy's writing!
3🌟-----------------------------
3🌟-----------------------------
April 20, 2022
“Youth, strength, genius, thoughts, achievements, simple hearts – all dies… No matter.”
July 27, 2020
116th book of 2020.
Conrad and Melville are masters of the sea in literature. This small tale is a story of, firstly, youth, but also of a journey to the East. Interestingly, the narrator is Marlow - the narrator of Heart of Darkness and (though I'm yet to read it) Lord Jim. This is Marlow's first tale, chronologically, of the stories in which he appears.
Not much is to be said without spoiling it. A good adventure, not without setbacks, on the sea. Conrad's writing is skilful, but not quite to the awe-inspiring level of Heart of Darkness.
O youth! The strength of it, the faith of it, the imagination of it!
This is said to be an autobiographical story of Conrad's, which makes it more interesting; so though Marlow has this thought, maybe it is truly Conrad having this thought:
And there was somewhere in me the thought: By Jove! this is the deuce of an adventure - something you read about: and it is my first voyage as second mate - and I am only twenty - and here I am lasting it out as well as any of these men, and keeping my chaps up to the mark. I was pleased. I would not have given up the experience for worlds. I had moments of exultation.
For me, it is incredible to think that a twenty-year-old Marlow (Conrad) could have had the adventure written here - O, are lives less interesting now? Is safer always better?
Conrad and Melville are masters of the sea in literature. This small tale is a story of, firstly, youth, but also of a journey to the East. Interestingly, the narrator is Marlow - the narrator of Heart of Darkness and (though I'm yet to read it) Lord Jim. This is Marlow's first tale, chronologically, of the stories in which he appears.
Not much is to be said without spoiling it. A good adventure, not without setbacks, on the sea. Conrad's writing is skilful, but not quite to the awe-inspiring level of Heart of Darkness.
O youth! The strength of it, the faith of it, the imagination of it!
This is said to be an autobiographical story of Conrad's, which makes it more interesting; so though Marlow has this thought, maybe it is truly Conrad having this thought:
And there was somewhere in me the thought: By Jove! this is the deuce of an adventure - something you read about: and it is my first voyage as second mate - and I am only twenty - and here I am lasting it out as well as any of these men, and keeping my chaps up to the mark. I was pleased. I would not have given up the experience for worlds. I had moments of exultation.
For me, it is incredible to think that a twenty-year-old Marlow (Conrad) could have had the adventure written here - O, are lives less interesting now? Is safer always better?
May 3, 2022
I always wish to be on board a ship after reading him! Not that I ever was shipping, only one, it was more like a boat, wasn't that much too, more like a small motorboat and the beach still was on sight, and for sure it wasn't on fire and hadn't been attacked by mouses!
Youth! All youth! The silly, charming, beautiful youth.
4.5⭐️
Lord Jim
لرد جیم
4.5⭐️
The Nigger of the Narcissus
کاکا سیاه کشتی نارسیسوس
Heart of Darkness to-read
Youth! All youth! The silly, charming, beautiful youth.
4.5⭐️
Lord Jim
لرد جیم
4.5⭐️
The Nigger of the Narcissus
کاکا سیاه کشتی نارسیسوس
Heart of Darkness to-read
Displaying 1 - 30 of 417 reviews