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The Several Lives of Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad's impact has been so profound and far-reaching that, eighty years after his death, he remains an essential cultural reference point. Such phrases as 'heart of darkness' and 'The horror! The horror!' have entered the language, often cited without an awareness of their original contexts. His popular legacy extends to Latin American fiction, to the spy novel, to the terrorist and anarchist character, and to film. The writers he has influenced range from T. S. Eliot to William Faulkner to V. S. Naipaul and John Le Carré. For a writer of 'difficult' fiction he has enjoyed a remarkably wide impact, yet as Marlow proclaims in Lord Jim of the figure whose story he tells, 'he was one of us' and so Conrad remains in fascinating ways.
378 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
December 4, 2009
I picked this up because Stape intentionally wrote a short biography, rather than one of those 900 pages behemoths that are becoming popular; because he's the man when it comes to Conrad scholarship; and because it looked like it wouldn't be too psychologistic. Unfortunately, I have now learned that biographies are long and psychologistic for a reason: because otherwise they're just a listing of facts and factoids. Stape probably wasn't helped by Conrad's life, which sounds exciting - exiled from Poland! sails the world! tragic illness! - but turns out to be immensely dull: Conrad tries to write. He leaves the house, gets gout. His wife is ill. He has no money. These problems are solved. Next chapter, Conrad tries to write, gets gout, ill wife, no money... Which would all be much less absurd if Stape had done a little less work; but thanks to this book I know now that Conrad was at one point in his life spending - not just making, but spending - over a million dollars per year, adjusted for inflation, price of living, pound dollar conversion etc... Imagine the trained carpenter next door complaining about money while also *never getting a job,* and refusing to do any exercise ever at all, and you'll get a flavour of the immense 'tragedy' of Conrad's life. He comes off like Joyce, except that Joyce sees to have lived more or less in genteel poverty, not as a grand country gent.
But you can't lay the dullness of the biography at Conrad's life's door. Stape has to take some blame: why not talk, at least a little, about Conrad's thoughts and books? If nothing else, this book proves that those thoughts and books are what is valuable about the man's life. But they're barely mentioned, except as meal-tickets. This is all very strange, since Stape knows the books and thoughts better than almost anyone. Too bad this book wasn't twice as long and psychologistic. Wouldn't have taken me as long to read as this did. Quite a drag.
June 20, 2012
Conrad was a complex man who created literature of lasting impact and importance as regards the human condition, motivation, and the cross-cultural interaction of the globalised age of late 19th century European imperialism and commerce in Asia and Africa. His capacity for insights into this and his own strange history of uprootedness and family break down that drives him from Russian colonised Poland to exile and new identity in France, and then England is about as compelling a back ground as can be found for any writer.
This book robs the reader of the richness of that experience. It is immensely dull and the cause is not the dullness of Conrad's life. Anyone who can marshall as much pyschological complexity and breadth of life experience and insight as Conrad must have a lot going on upstairs. I read this book and felt more separated from that and from Conrad than before I began reading it.
The book is meticulously researched and that is its failing -- the marshaling of fact and circumstance establishes the chronology of his daily life and interactions of Conrad with other characters: his wife, his agent, his sons, his neigbhours, his literary contempories, plus exactly where he was and what he did from day to day. This is a dis-service to Conrad. Stape is an academic and knows what he is talking about and this well researched book will probably be useful to other academics needing factual accuracy of what Conrad did where and when, how much he earned and what the content of correspondence with publishers was.
Anyone looking for insights about the man himself, his motivations, and the world he inhabited in the late 19th early 20th century will be disappointed by what is incredibly dull writing. There must be some good Conrad bios out there and this dull book motivates the reader to find them.
This book robs the reader of the richness of that experience. It is immensely dull and the cause is not the dullness of Conrad's life. Anyone who can marshall as much pyschological complexity and breadth of life experience and insight as Conrad must have a lot going on upstairs. I read this book and felt more separated from that and from Conrad than before I began reading it.
The book is meticulously researched and that is its failing -- the marshaling of fact and circumstance establishes the chronology of his daily life and interactions of Conrad with other characters: his wife, his agent, his sons, his neigbhours, his literary contempories, plus exactly where he was and what he did from day to day. This is a dis-service to Conrad. Stape is an academic and knows what he is talking about and this well researched book will probably be useful to other academics needing factual accuracy of what Conrad did where and when, how much he earned and what the content of correspondence with publishers was.
Anyone looking for insights about the man himself, his motivations, and the world he inhabited in the late 19th early 20th century will be disappointed by what is incredibly dull writing. There must be some good Conrad bios out there and this dull book motivates the reader to find them.
August 3, 2009
The author did an excellent job with a difficult (for me, not very exciting) subject. I had to push myself hard to finish this book, and in the end remembered why I really really really don't like to read Conrad, either by him or about him, again my own prejudice and no reflection on Professor Stape, whose careful scholarship has led to this insightful examination of the life of Joseph Conrad. So complete is this biography that I don't believe any more could be written on the subject.
April 22, 2012
A strangely arch and bloodless bio of one of the most extraordinary writers ever to put steel nib to paper. The Lord knows what Conrad would have made of it. Conrad seems to have this effect on his biographers, they don't seem quite able what to make of him.
September 22, 2013
I'm not sure if Stape didn't like Conrad, or I didn't, but I found this book long on facts and short on interpretation. Stape gives us a lot of particulars about when and where, but not much insight into his subject's motivations and feelings. Was Conrad really this unknowable? Disappointing.
December 19, 2008
I love it when the lives of seemingly monstrously competent people are revealed to be as untidy as one's own.
The unlikeliness of Conrad: Polish kid who goes to sea on a French ship, learns (eventually) English, becomes a master mariner, and then one day--what? --writes a wonderful book, a most literary book, which at the same time is fresh and concrete, intimate and frank . . .
this bio is a bit pedestrian, bit of a slog, but that is maybe its virtue--the unlikeliness of Conrad can maybe only be understood as a constellation of thousands of particulate fact, a succession of days, a life lived, more than most maybe, in real time. In Conrad ordinary temporality is always charged. So a bio, like this one, that trails you along through real time may be a bit punishing but it is revealing.
No biographer-falling-in-love-with-subject here. Stape treats Conrad a bit like a famous younger sibling who he's memorializing for the last time. Testy at constantly being upstaged by the subject, trying to be fair, recording a life for history, and seeming a bit relieved to be rid of it.
The unlikeliness of Conrad: Polish kid who goes to sea on a French ship, learns (eventually) English, becomes a master mariner, and then one day--what? --writes a wonderful book, a most literary book, which at the same time is fresh and concrete, intimate and frank . . .
this bio is a bit pedestrian, bit of a slog, but that is maybe its virtue--the unlikeliness of Conrad can maybe only be understood as a constellation of thousands of particulate fact, a succession of days, a life lived, more than most maybe, in real time. In Conrad ordinary temporality is always charged. So a bio, like this one, that trails you along through real time may be a bit punishing but it is revealing.
No biographer-falling-in-love-with-subject here. Stape treats Conrad a bit like a famous younger sibling who he's memorializing for the last time. Testy at constantly being upstaged by the subject, trying to be fair, recording a life for history, and seeming a bit relieved to be rid of it.
July 3, 2009
A fairly interesting bio that doesn't focus on his writing so much as the life around his writing. While I'm not all that familiar with Conrad outside of his well-known fiction, it seems like the author did a decent job on research... though at times he can't help but remind us that he's done a better job than anyone else by undercutting everyone else's work. Also, he makes some all to common leaps tha biographers tend to make about artists... while dismissing any leaps that other biigraphers have made.
August 9, 2023
I’ve read several biographies of Conrad, but I thought this one was excellent. In this one I discovered Conrad was friends with the poet, Edward Thomas, and with Edmund Candler, the Daily Mail journalist who was ‘embedded’ in Francis Younghusband’s 1904 military expedition to Tibet.
I've given an honourable mention to Stape's 'The Several Lives ...' along with some other books on Joseph Conrad in my blog post about visiting Conrad's grave, which you can read if you click here.
I've given an honourable mention to Stape's 'The Several Lives ...' along with some other books on Joseph Conrad in my blog post about visiting Conrad's grave, which you can read if you click here.
July 2, 2021
John Stape says one point in this biography that Conrad, in his later life, was defined by his “crankiness and chronic health.” This, coupled with the decline in the quality of his work (after about 1914) does not make the second half of this book very exciting reading. How a writer who lived such an interesting early life and wrote some of the greatest novels and short stories in English fell to such depths (while at the same time becoming more and more popular) is tragic and needed a writer with a greater grasp of what drove him to this end besides a constant need for money. I ended up not liking this Conrad much (he could be imperious, rapacious, and dishonest) and longed to know more about his thinking process, his relationship with his sons (who were not successful), and his feelings for men. He surrounded himself with gay writers and young male friends: Henry James, Andre Gide, Hugh Walpole, Norman Douglas, Roger Casement and his complex sexuality is hinted at but never explored. The book is filled with clichés and any literary analysis is left for the very final page (I would like to have had more of this!). Overall, not a very satisfactory look about this great author.
October 17, 2020
Somewhat of a "working" biography, meaning that it took a lot of work to get through this one. It does offer a pretty good overall look into Conrad's lives--seaman, writer, husband and father--with limited critical evaluations of him works. Clearly he was an unhappy and haunted man (if I had a dollar for every instance on gout he had, I could retire happy). He was also broken physically by his employment in the Congo by the Belgian government. Nevertheless, he remains one of my favorite writers.
June 5, 2017
The book was rather unemotional. There was no real passion for the subject exccept to chronologically list events big or small. The rating I gave for this work is generous but not for writing style but for Stape's handing over so much info that I had never known before. Joseph Conrad is still one of the greatest writers of all time. His use of language is essentially the best.
December 5, 2017
B-. Learned a lot about the man...he certainly had his struggles. He was not often happy, according to this book.
January 21, 2021
Ditto to what this guy said:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Do not recommend.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Do not recommend.
August 16, 2015
I had a difficult time getting through “The Several Lives of Joseph Conrad,” John Stapes’ 2007 biography of the Polish-British novelist, short story writer, and essayist.
Stapes is thorough in accounting for Conrad’s day-to-day activity through his life, from 1857 to 1924. Besides the text, the book contains 37 pages of notes, 26 pages of bibliography, a four-page guide to pronunciation of names, 10 pages of biographical summaries of people in Conrad’s life, eight pages of maps, plus several pages of photographs.
However, Stapes rarely gets beyond the “Tuesday, Conrad did this, and Friday, Conrad did that” approach. Among other things, I would have liked to have seen analyses of Conrad’s books, either by Stapes or literary critics. For instance, Stapes says that “Heart of Darkness” contains narrative innovations, but never says what these innovations were.
Of special interest to me was the fact that Conrad, born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski and a native of a carved-up Poland, spoke Polish as a child, later French. English was his third language. Conrad began speaking and writing English only around age 20 and writing fiction when he was in his mid-30s. Stapes mentions that Conrad chose English when he began writing his stories, but we get no idea how this unique language situation shaped Conrad’s writing style. How is Conrad’s approach to English style, vocabulary, and sentence construction different from that of native speakers and writers of English such as Charles Dickens or Virginia Woolf or Henry James or James Joyce?
Dutifully, Stapes enumerates people Conrad met during his life, including prominent writers of the late 19th century and early 20th century. He was friends with Stephen Crane and Bertrand Russell; he met Thomas Hardy. But we get little or no insight into whether he had read any of these authors and what he thought of their writing. Stapes writes that Conrad shared the well-known skepticism of Russell, but what did they agree or disagree about philosophically?
For those who want a nuts-and-bolts approach to Conrad’s life, this biography may be satisfying. But those people wanting a deeper analysis of his life and work, the book probably will leave them wanting more, much more.
Stapes is thorough in accounting for Conrad’s day-to-day activity through his life, from 1857 to 1924. Besides the text, the book contains 37 pages of notes, 26 pages of bibliography, a four-page guide to pronunciation of names, 10 pages of biographical summaries of people in Conrad’s life, eight pages of maps, plus several pages of photographs.
However, Stapes rarely gets beyond the “Tuesday, Conrad did this, and Friday, Conrad did that” approach. Among other things, I would have liked to have seen analyses of Conrad’s books, either by Stapes or literary critics. For instance, Stapes says that “Heart of Darkness” contains narrative innovations, but never says what these innovations were.
Of special interest to me was the fact that Conrad, born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski and a native of a carved-up Poland, spoke Polish as a child, later French. English was his third language. Conrad began speaking and writing English only around age 20 and writing fiction when he was in his mid-30s. Stapes mentions that Conrad chose English when he began writing his stories, but we get no idea how this unique language situation shaped Conrad’s writing style. How is Conrad’s approach to English style, vocabulary, and sentence construction different from that of native speakers and writers of English such as Charles Dickens or Virginia Woolf or Henry James or James Joyce?
Dutifully, Stapes enumerates people Conrad met during his life, including prominent writers of the late 19th century and early 20th century. He was friends with Stephen Crane and Bertrand Russell; he met Thomas Hardy. But we get little or no insight into whether he had read any of these authors and what he thought of their writing. Stapes writes that Conrad shared the well-known skepticism of Russell, but what did they agree or disagree about philosophically?
For those who want a nuts-and-bolts approach to Conrad’s life, this biography may be satisfying. But those people wanting a deeper analysis of his life and work, the book probably will leave them wanting more, much more.
October 14, 2023
¡Qué pesado se me hizo este libro! Uno lee y lee, esperando a que el autor diga algo de interés, y por momentos, bastante lejanos y escasos algo llega a brillar, pero por lo general, todo es aburrido, datos y más datos que en realidad no dicen nada. Vidas, ¿cuáles vidas según el autor? O tanto peor, ¿cuál vida? La vida de una ostra está más llenas de emociones que la "vida" que relata Stape sobre Conrad, es que ni juega caballos, gallos de pela, cartas, o practica crochet, ¡nada! Todo se va en viajes de los que no se relata casi nada. Se llega a saber más sobre la gente que rodeó a Conrad que sobre él mismo, o tanto peor, sobre los lugares, o sobre la esposa.
Lo que más se repite es la depresión de Conrad, los ataques de gota, y las presiones que ejercían los editores a los que, Conrad, si se quiere, les mentía: Siempre estaba al borde de la quiebra... y así, hasta que llega el momento en el que el autor muere solo en su habitación.
No hay duda de lo difícil que tuvo que ser para Stape leer y recolectar tanta información, pero, hombre, mi vecina con muchos menos datos cuenta mejor un chisme. ¿En realidad Conrad era tan mojigato como lo pinta/decolora Stape? Es que no se cree que entre tantas páginas no haya algo interesante, ¿o es que trata de proteger su imagen? ¿Era homosexual Conrad que Marlow, en busca de Jim, no era más que una extensión encubierta de sí mismo? ¿Fue alguna vez infiel? ¿Cuáles eran sus miedos reales? Aquí falla, no hay profundización en Conrad, todo es plano, superficial.
¿Cuáles fueron las dificultades que tuvo para escribir tal cuento o tal novela? ¿En qué parte se quedó? ¿Cómo resolvió el problema? Nada, tampoco se sabe, o sí: "Estaba teniendo dificultades".
Perdí mucho tiempo. Si el autor, u otra persona me dice que Conrad padecía ataques de gota, depresión, y que las deudas eran las que lo llevaban a escribir y al mismo tiempo se lo impedían, me ahorraría horas y horas de esta lectura lenta y sin sabor.
Tal vez rescataría las fotografías, pero, el que las quiera ver, ahí tiene Internet.
Lo que más se repite es la depresión de Conrad, los ataques de gota, y las presiones que ejercían los editores a los que, Conrad, si se quiere, les mentía: Siempre estaba al borde de la quiebra... y así, hasta que llega el momento en el que el autor muere solo en su habitación.
No hay duda de lo difícil que tuvo que ser para Stape leer y recolectar tanta información, pero, hombre, mi vecina con muchos menos datos cuenta mejor un chisme. ¿En realidad Conrad era tan mojigato como lo pinta/decolora Stape? Es que no se cree que entre tantas páginas no haya algo interesante, ¿o es que trata de proteger su imagen? ¿Era homosexual Conrad que Marlow, en busca de Jim, no era más que una extensión encubierta de sí mismo? ¿Fue alguna vez infiel? ¿Cuáles eran sus miedos reales? Aquí falla, no hay profundización en Conrad, todo es plano, superficial.
¿Cuáles fueron las dificultades que tuvo para escribir tal cuento o tal novela? ¿En qué parte se quedó? ¿Cómo resolvió el problema? Nada, tampoco se sabe, o sí: "Estaba teniendo dificultades".
Perdí mucho tiempo. Si el autor, u otra persona me dice que Conrad padecía ataques de gota, depresión, y que las deudas eran las que lo llevaban a escribir y al mismo tiempo se lo impedían, me ahorraría horas y horas de esta lectura lenta y sin sabor.
Tal vez rescataría las fotografías, pero, el que las quiera ver, ahí tiene Internet.
December 24, 2015
The Several Lives of Joseph Conrad is a rather dry telling of Conrad's life that places too much emphasis on the letters of Conrad and too little on the fiction. A biography should be more than an accounting for the daily activities of a man and instead should attempt to penetrate a person's essence. With writers, we can often learn more about their truest self through the fictional stories they tell than by an accounting of the finances, logistics, and pure drudgery of daily life.
November 16, 2014
I love Heart Of Darkness but nothing else of Joseph Conrad's However, I know nothing at all about him so I thought I'd take a look at this bio. It's well written and only has three stars because his life was a bit boring. Unfortuneately he was also a bit tragic and there is enough to interest, even if just a bit.
April 14, 2013
I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/11832777
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/11832777
April 20, 2017
Review title: Sailing several seas
Joseph Conrad is in the second tier of classic authors, not Dickens or Hugo, but still read and respected nearly a century after his last writings and his death. Most remarkably, of course, was his transition from landlocked central Europe where he was born and grew up speaking Polish, to apprentice sailor from the French port of Marseilles where he became fluent in Frsnch, and to ship's officer of increasing rank in the main ports of England where he learned the mother language well enough to become a writer-craftsman with its tools. Stape shapes his biography of this remarkable character around these several lives.
Stape sticks very close to his documentary sources, which apparently are either sparse or suspect, leaving his account making frequent corrective references to previous biographies and qualifying his statements. While this makes for an apparently more accurate account, it also makes for pedestrian reading. And it feels by the end as if we know all the statistics and vital data about Conrad, we don't quite know the man in three dimensions.
Part of the problem is the subject; Conrad was a difficult man to know, as he made those amazing transitions but used them to shelter his personality from public view and deep scrutiny even by those who knew him best. As we learn about his wife Jessie and sons Borys and John, Conrad's relationships with them seem to be guarded and lacking in the elixir of human warmth. We also see him not only transitioning from the continent of Europe to the Empire of England, we see him sublimating his "Polish"-ness (in his defense, Poland did not then exist as an independent nation) and becoming more British than the British. And even after decades of writing, he still made his living off of his few years at sea. Conrad lived several lives, but never seemed comfortable in the one he was in.
But at his best he was a great writer especially in his favorite "long short story" format. "Heart of Darkness" ranks among the greatest of modern tales, forming the backbone of movies, popular culture, and after the horrors of the 20th century, of the human experience itself. While he was popularly associated with tales of the sea, he was never a bestselling author, even when critically acclaimed, and some of his best writing (Nostromo, The Secret Agent) was set on land. Writing was always difficult work for Conrad, especially as he aged and his health failed, a condition exacerbated by his habit of living beyond his means which resulted in the need to produce for money under looming financial deadlines; these circumstances are reflected in the common assessment that his later writing was not nearly as powerful and lasting as his earlier, even as his income from writing rose and he escaped financial worries late in life.
After his death in 1924, his critical reputation declined, in part because of that late-career decline in quality, but his best continued to be bought and read, and his legacy has stood the test of time. Just like his writing, his life is not always easy to read, but worth the effort. Stape has established a baseline from which to understand the several seas of Conrad.
Joseph Conrad is in the second tier of classic authors, not Dickens or Hugo, but still read and respected nearly a century after his last writings and his death. Most remarkably, of course, was his transition from landlocked central Europe where he was born and grew up speaking Polish, to apprentice sailor from the French port of Marseilles where he became fluent in Frsnch, and to ship's officer of increasing rank in the main ports of England where he learned the mother language well enough to become a writer-craftsman with its tools. Stape shapes his biography of this remarkable character around these several lives.
Stape sticks very close to his documentary sources, which apparently are either sparse or suspect, leaving his account making frequent corrective references to previous biographies and qualifying his statements. While this makes for an apparently more accurate account, it also makes for pedestrian reading. And it feels by the end as if we know all the statistics and vital data about Conrad, we don't quite know the man in three dimensions.
Part of the problem is the subject; Conrad was a difficult man to know, as he made those amazing transitions but used them to shelter his personality from public view and deep scrutiny even by those who knew him best. As we learn about his wife Jessie and sons Borys and John, Conrad's relationships with them seem to be guarded and lacking in the elixir of human warmth. We also see him not only transitioning from the continent of Europe to the Empire of England, we see him sublimating his "Polish"-ness (in his defense, Poland did not then exist as an independent nation) and becoming more British than the British. And even after decades of writing, he still made his living off of his few years at sea. Conrad lived several lives, but never seemed comfortable in the one he was in.
But at his best he was a great writer especially in his favorite "long short story" format. "Heart of Darkness" ranks among the greatest of modern tales, forming the backbone of movies, popular culture, and after the horrors of the 20th century, of the human experience itself. While he was popularly associated with tales of the sea, he was never a bestselling author, even when critically acclaimed, and some of his best writing (Nostromo, The Secret Agent) was set on land. Writing was always difficult work for Conrad, especially as he aged and his health failed, a condition exacerbated by his habit of living beyond his means which resulted in the need to produce for money under looming financial deadlines; these circumstances are reflected in the common assessment that his later writing was not nearly as powerful and lasting as his earlier, even as his income from writing rose and he escaped financial worries late in life.
After his death in 1924, his critical reputation declined, in part because of that late-career decline in quality, but his best continued to be bought and read, and his legacy has stood the test of time. Just like his writing, his life is not always easy to read, but worth the effort. Stape has established a baseline from which to understand the several seas of Conrad.
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