Le Monde selon Joseph Conrad

帝國移民三部曲

by Sylvie Taussig

Quiconque a lu Joseph Conrad n'a pas manqué d'être frappé par sa vision du monde. L'orphelin d'origine polonaise, devenu marin à l'âge adulte, ne s'est pas contenté de parcourir les océans avant de s'installer en Angleterre et de devenir l'écrivain à succès que nous connaissons, il a su lire les ténèbres de son époque et en faire un tableau aussi cruel qu'actuel. Subtil mélange d'histoire, de biographie littéraire et de récit de voyage, cette enquête nous invite à embarquer, avec pour boussole et cartes maritimes les ouvrages mêmes de Joseph Conrad, sur des bâtiments de la marine marchande qui nous conduisent, comme Conrad naguère, aux quatre coins du globe. En retraçant les périples de l'auteur de Lord Jim, de la Malaisie au Congo en passant par les Caraïbes, Maya Jasanoff s'interroge sur la naissance d'une globalisation politique et cynique, expression de la domination sociale et économique d'un Occident prédateur, dont Conrad fut le témoin privilégié à la fin du XIXe siècle. L'impérialisme et  le colonialisme, le capitalisme exacerbé, les flux migratoires, le racisme d'État et le racisme de l'homme blanc, la révolution des communications... sont autant de sujets abordés par le célèbre écrivain dans une oeuvre véritablement visionnaire, dont Maya Jasanoff nous montre qu'elle reflète avec force les problématiques et les défis du monde moderne.

 Professeure d'histoire à Harvard (Empire britannique et Histoire globale), Maya Jasanoff a reçu de nombreuses distinctions pour son oeuvre. Classé parmi les « meilleurs livres de l'année 2017 » par le New York Times, Le Monde selon Joseph Conrad a notamment reçu le prestigieux prix de Littérature historique Cundill 2018 et a été sélectionné la même année pour le grand prix britannique, « The James Tait Black Prize ».

Genres: Biography, History, Nonfiction, Africa, Travel, Literature, Biography Memoir

312 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 19, 2017

Reviews

[Darwin8u · Rating 4 out of 5]

"History is like therapy for the present: it makes it talk about its parents."
- Maya Jasanoff, The Dawn Watch



I should admit I was attracted to the book, while browsing at Las Vegas' fantastic bookstore Writers Block by four things: 1. the art (done by the Bill Bragg), 2. the le Carré blurb (if you don't know, late le Carré has a heavy Conrad flavor, 3. Conrad himself. I've read about 2/3 of what he has produced and love him more with every word, 4. the concept of Conrad as the dawn watch of globalization, and perhaps even modernity. The book was brisk, interesting, and filled with enough Conrad prose to almost dance. Jasanoff's writing is meant more for the New York Times Magazine crowd than the academic crowd, but if you enjoy Conrad this book will not disappoint. It isn't brilliant history or biography, but she manages to blend the edges of history, biography, and literary analysis and keep all three balls afloat. No easy feat. She is also able to thread the needle between cutting Conrad too much slack and too little for his views. Also, no easy feat.

For me Conrad is one of the great writers of the late 19th, early 20th century. He enchants and haunts at the same time. He is a fascinating character, but more than that, he is a damn fine complicated writer. Jasanoff explores Conrad's world, and in this exploration, she attempts to show us another way to view our own. "In all his writing", says Jasanoff, "Conrad grappled with the ramifications of living in a global world: the moral and material impact of dislocation, the tension and opportunity of multiethnic societies, the disruption wrought by technological change." Conrad understood us before there really was an us. Conrad saw us before the sun had even risen on the 20th and 21st centuries.

[Jan-Maat · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, I did not love this book. Perhaps my four humours are out of balance but I was very much tempted to abandon this book, because life is finite and it felt as though this book was standing in the way of reading other, finer books, but other people seem to have liked it well enough so it might well be just be me, but my advice would be to steer clear of this one, it is not so much bad, as not worth while, annoying at times on the horizons I caught glimpses of more flying fish interesting things that Jasanoff chose not to write about.

Let me start by saying what is book is not. It is not a biography, it is not a study of his books, it is not a travelogue, it is not a history, it is not an examination of the forces that shaped Conrad and his fiction or his world. It is none of those things but it has bits of all of them, my overall impression was that it was less than the sum of its parts, and that the parts were not particularly impressive either. The core of the book in my opinion, were extended paraphrases of a few of his works: The Secret Agent, Lord Jim, Heart of Darkness, and Nostromo, added to that a section on his childhood, his last days and death and a holiday to Krakow just as WWI was beginning not a good idea, this why it is worth while paying attention to the news when you are about to travel.

Since Jasanoff repeated the story that the name of the city of Antwerp comes from Hand werpen and links that legend to the practise in the Belgian Congo of chopping off the hands of the Congolese twice in less that forty pages, I assume she wrote the book in bits, starting from the novels and stories of Conrad that she wanted to discuss and then stitched those bits together to make a book, the result is a bit lumpy. We jump abruptly from Conrad and wife living in Brittany after Almayer's Folly was published to them living in Kent with Conrad friends with Henry James - who lived further round the coast at Rye in Sussex and Ford Madox Ford - from whom Conrad rented the house in Kent - as a mild Conrad fan I wanted to know more about how that came about. not for it to be presented as a fait accompli.

Conrad's wife, Jessie George is worth a mention - she was a typist who after marriage typed up Conrad's novels gratis - plainly a great literary match, like Dostoevsky and Maria Isayeva (a Stenographer), Virgina and Leonard Woolf (a publisher). Both prone to ill health they were a perfect couple taking turns to nurse each other when their eldest son married, Jessie complained that she was the wrong sort of working class which pleased me greatly.

But enough, the book is what it is, not what I might have enjoyed more. The things I did like where the details about the originals and actual persons and events that Conrad stories were based on , so Conrad's Kasper Almayer was Charles Olmeijer, the prototype of Conrad's Kurz in Heart of Darkness was Kayerts - one of two white men up country in the Congo who collectively decided that Africa was a lovely place apart from all the Africans and that the only thing to do was to "exterminate all the brutes" fortunately the two gentlemen started their extermination project by killing each other, and had more people throughout history been like them the history of the world would have been happier, but I digress. Jasanoff points out that Conrad was lucky - Heart of darkness was published as atrocities in the Congo including the chopping off of hands for not meeting the rubber collection target were breaking news in Europe, as it happened conditions were not as bad in the Congo when Conrad was there as they would become, but that is maybe besides the point.

The most interesting change I felt was in the story Youth which was based on a voyage that Conrad had made, in the story the crew are entirely Liverpool Scallywags, and it is their qualities, of hard work and level headed effort in the face of continued disasters that allow the ship to reach port. Conrad in his story makes one change - and that is to the crew, in fact and Jasanoff points out this was generally the case at that time, British sailors in the merchant navy were very rare, the majority of the crews were from everywhere but Britain, the crew that brought the ship safely to port in reality was a mixed race, multi-ethnic one. That I thought would be something to explore, and Jasanoff who describes herself as part Asian and part Jewish and a fan of Conrad despite his racial views and anti-semitism could have been the perfect explorer, but like Bartleby the scrivener, she preferred not to. It is interesting that Conrad preferred to present a racist fantasy rather than the multi-cultural reality - but maybe this is just the saddest example of Conrad writing with his readership (or assumed readership) in mind.

Beyond that Jasanoff showed that Conrad marketed himself carefully to his English reading public, toning down his Polishness and his emotion, but for Jasanoff his Polish childhood split between his idealistic nationalist parents (who died young on account of being idealistic nationalists) and his pragmatic, careful uncle Tadeusz Bobrowski were essential in developing Conrad's depression and aversion to idealism (apart from his idealistic attitude towards the British merchant navy), and Jasonoff says that oddly reading The Toilers of the Sea inspired Conrad to become a sailor (p.52), Hugo's book is virtually pure idealism, you need to fortify yourself with plenty of cynicism to be able to read it and not be carried away by a man eating Octopus.

Here I will be racist and ethno-centric, Jasanoff is of the USA, a nation not noted for its cynicism, indeed idealists from around the world still attempt to migrate there constantly which doubtless serves to top up the natural optimism and idealism of that country, I'm exhausted and sour just imaging all that sunny can-do stuff, and as for Conrad, practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine could have milked him for his black bile, of which he had more than a forest full of bears. And the marketing and blurbs on the book are noticeably non-cynical too and so -

review in brief
nicely written it has sentences and paragraphs and all the punctuation money spinner, a few insights and ideas, perhaps in spite of herself.

[Bettie · Rating 4 out of 5]

BOTW

  Anyone could be savage
Everywhere could go dark

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09f2cy1

Description: Joseph Conrad was born Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski in 1857, in a region of Poland then controlled by Russia, Europe's most autocratic empire. By 1862, his father had been arrested for fomenting revolution and his family sentenced to exile, where a series of miserable forced relocations precipitated the illnesses that killed both of Conrad's parents before he was eleven. At sixteen, fleeing an orphan's sadness, he abandoned everything he knew to pursue the unlikely dream of becoming a sailor. From the deck of a ship, he saw the surging, competitive -new imperialism- that placed a flag on every populated part of the world by century's end. He got a close look, too, at the places -beyond the end of telegraph cables and mail-boat lines, - as empires expanded their reach into the so-called dark places of the earth.

Through an expert blend of history, biography, literary criticism, and travelogue, Maya Jasanoff traces the strands of Conrad's experiences and the stories of his four greatest works--The Secret Agent, Lord Jim, Heart of Darkness, and Nostromo. This spellbinding narrative casts new light on his age, and offers fresh insight into our own. Genre-bending, intellectually thrilling, and deeply humane, The Dawn Watch embarks us on a bold expedition to the veritable dark heart of Conrad and our global world.

1. After the death of his father, young Conrad is in the care of his Uncle Tadeuz for some years. One day he announces his plans to go to sea, to travel to the great port of Marseilles and find a ship. How will his uncle react?

2. It's 1878 and that teeming metropolis called London excites Conrad. From here he will board ships. And from other ports of the world he will board other ships, including the Vidar, which will fuel his writing life..

3. He meets Marguerite Poradowski and emotional letters follow - for years. Then his trek through the Congo to secure a posting is nightmarish, but the experience will later fuel his fiction.

4. Recollections of the Congo endure, as does his correspondence with Marguerite. He meets Emilie Briquel, yet marries Jessie George. He produces various work at this time, yet those African memories are indelible and Heart Of Darkness will get written.

5. The late 1890's. He is settled with Jessie at Pent Farm, Kent, rubbing shoulders with various literary greats. His sea-faring days are over but the imaginative adventures continue to flourish and the novel Nostromo begins to take shape..

[Michael Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

A brand spanking biography of my favourite author. What glee, what delight, what anticipation. What a disappointment. Maybe the toe curling use of ‘gotten’ throughout the tome did for me and my English snobbery. I’m no academic but if a book pitched by a Harvard scholar as an examination of ‘Joseph Conrad in a global world’ has got ‘gotten’ peppered through it then its contribution to literature about literature borders on the illiterate. The author takes a cliched sea journey in the wake of Conrad which seems to have no point other than the less than vivid description of a container ship full of cheap Chinese toys. There is certainly more to Conrad than this, even the Congo sounds like Gravesend in the slack, dull prose that chugs what should be a fascinating narrative along. In fact I got the impression that had Conrad not corresponded at length with his overbearing Uncle Tadeus there would have been no book at all. Uncle Tadeus said get a proper job, Uncle Tadeus said I told you so, Uncle Tadeus is dead and the book is over. There is far too much conjecture about what Conrad May or may not have done and the flimsiest of cases for Conrad’s continued relevance. Globalisation, terrorism, abuse of power are all loosely knitted together when they should have been cooked tighter than rope round a capstan. The heart of an immense darkness could easily have conjured the early 21st century but instead Jasanoff leaves us with a void. Avoid.

[Tristram Shandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uncle Tadeusz and His Nephew

Writing a biography and reading one are probably endeavours requiring just about the same amount of dedication and patience, especially when the object of your interest is a writer, who has, as such, already left a lot of written records from which conclusions as to their life can be drawn. Luckily, Joseph Conrad’s life – unlike, let’s say, Jane Austen’s – offers some points of interest beyond his literary work, and luckily, too, Maya Jasanoff’s book The Dawn Watch is, strictly speaking, not really a biography but an attempt to present Conrad as “the dawn watch” of globalization, i.e. a writer whose topics foreboded and were influenced by the major changes in the 19th century which shaped the world to make it become the place we are living in now.

Jasanoff is anything but a chronicler of Conrad but focuses instead on topics like terrorism, the advance of technology – as can be seen in the change from sailing vessels to steamships that accelerated in the late 19th century –, the rise of imperialism and the emergence of the United States as an imperialistic super-power to whose tune the world was going to dance whether they liked it or not, and she shows how Conrad’s fiction both dealt with and partly even foreboded those developments. Like Conrad’s works, her account of the author’s life is not always linear but settles into side-paths and jumps forward and back although on the whole, it follows the writer’s way towards artistic maturity. What strikes me as odd, however, is that Jasanoff seems to attach nearly as much importance to Conrad’s uncle Tadeusz Bobrowski, a down-to-earth, pragmatical man who had little time for the quixotic idealism of his brother-in-law, Conrad’s father, an inveterate Polish nationalist, and who guided his nephew’s decision more often than not. When Bobrowski dies, Jasanoff seems to have hit a fast-forward key in her account of the author’s life in that suddenly we find events being covered in less detail and with more speed than at the beginning of the book. After the publication of Nostromo, Conrad’s life appears to have lost much of its interest for her, and all at once, we find ourselves in Conrad’s death chamber, learning that he died alone, in his own room, in a house full of his family members, which seems to mirror the perception he had of man’s life as such – you may remember the quotation, We live as we dream, alone.

Nevertheless, I found Jasanoff’s approach of linking Conrad’s works with major developments of the late 19th century very convincing because if anything, it is the broader canvass of an artist’s life that may give us deeper understanding of the works they have created. She works out how these changes have left their traces, or signs, in some of Conrad’s major works, like The Secret Agent, The Nigger of the Narcissus, Youth, Lord Jim, Heart of Darkness and Nostromo, but sometimes I could have done with less of a summary of the works in question (but other readers, less familiar with these tales, may be thankful for them). All in all, I felt confirmed in my appreciation of Conrad as a man who was deeply mistrustful of ideologies of any kind and of attempts at solving problems on a large scale via imposing political systems and that, instead, focused on the individual and its capacity for taking morally commendable (or contrary) decisions. Saying that, I had the impression that for all her insight, Jasanoff still missed the author’s tendency towards pessimism, which is clearly reflected in the quite distanced, at times rather cynical tone he often adopts in his tales.

What made me wince most in a book that, on the whole, I thoroughly enjoyed, was a casual remark on the very last page: Here, Jasanoff implies that the vote for Brexit was mainly fuelled by xenophobia. Not only am I personally weary of this bromidic simplification that fails to take into account the simple, non-xenophobic fact that people in Great Britain might have wanted to have a say in their own affairs instead of being subjected to an increasingly overbearing super-national bureaucracy lacking full democratic legitimization, but, to me, it also seems to go against Conrad’s own distrust of capitalist interests cloaked in sanctimonious phraseology of progress and civilization.


“No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one’s existence--that which makes its truth, its meaning--its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream – alone.”

[Paul Cornelius · Rating 4 out of 5]

Turned out to be rather good, this critical biography of Joseph Conrad. Jasanoff treads new ground when she sees Conrad's work as the first hint in literature of a tendency to globalization in literature, meaning that Conrad, an immigrant, non-native speaker of English, whose appeal deals with the falling away of national identity in favor of worldwide commonality of experience, provides a beacon to the globalized transnational world of the 21st century. I'm not sure I agree with that. And it would be an irony that Jasanoff would come up with that interpretation just as the world is retreating from globalization in 2022. But it's a bold idea. And I like academics who stake out bold new positions about established icons such as Conrad. As a result, she deftly skewers Chinua Achebe's view of him in the most polite but effective way imaginable--through a well written contextualized study of Conrad and four of his major works: The Secret Agent, Almayer's Folly/Lord Jim, Heart of Darkness, and Nostromo. Her nuanced reading of Conrad all but puts paid to Achebe's inability to see Conrad as nothing more than a racist. According to Jasanoff, in fact, he's quite the opposite, despite the harsh language of race and ethnicity the author used in common with the culture of his time.

The weak point of the study is her use of plot summaries of those works. The summary of The Secret Agent is almost unbearable, a short story sized rehash that strings together book quotes unendingly. Fortunately, things improve with the other works, especially Nostromo, whose summary is well integrated into the analysis of the story. Jasanoff also does a solid job of providing historical context, although discussion of English anarchists went on a bit too long, I think. The one thing that does concern me is her citing in the acknowledgments William Dalrymple as "inspiring" in his writing and discussions with her.

[Joseph Stieb · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not sure I learned much new from this book, but it's nonetheless a brilliant example of how to use biography and vivid writing to make academic history accessible and vibrant for a larger audience. The basic point of this book is to use Conrad's life, especially his international travels and shifting identities, to illustrate the major trends/themes of the first age of globalization. Nationalism: Conrad's parents were Polish exiles in Ukraine who died while he was young, leaving him with a complex attachment to Poland throughout his life. International trade/globalization: Conrad became a merchant mariner, which made him an integral part of an economy of empires and industrialization that was truly global. He also joined the merchant marine just as the transition from sail to steam was made, which made him somewhat romanticize earlier eras of history. Imperialism: Conrad was born and lived in the era of high imperialism, and he saw how it intermixed people, goods, and ideas to an unprecedented level. He also saw its brutal side in places like the Congo. Finally, progress: Conrad's books stand out because they reflect an anxiety, even a pessimism, about whether the modern world is actually one of progress or just more efficient conquest and rapine. Obviously Heart of Darkness most reflects this fear, even though Conrad was actually in the Congo for only a few months.

Overall I enjoyed getting to know Conrad, and I loved Janasoff's beautiful prose. This is a book that doesn't have much of an argument; rather, it has themes that it vividily illustrates through the story of Conrad's life. That definitely makes it worthwhile.

[Antenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beneath Maya Jasanoff’s breezy style, stuffing cash into her shoes for safety as she retraces Joseph Conrad’s route along the River Congo, lies a perceptive portrayal of “what made the writer tick”, although of course we can never really know. She succeeds in distilling from clearly thorough research a telling selection of incidents, quotations, and her own insightful conclusions in a biography of only 315 pages, rather than the ever more frequent 800 plus page doorstopper.

It is unnecessary to have read much Conrad to be fascinated by him: the author admits to having struggled to read what some regard as his work of genius, “Nostromo”, and, years ago, I did not find “The Nigger of the Narcissus”, my English teacher’s improbable choice, a pleasant read, being mainly astounded by Conrad’s fluent grasp of the English language, which he only began to learn when he went to sea as a young man.

What is really interesting about Conrad is his acute observation of human nature in a changing world where the romantic hardship of sail was giving way to the more profitable transport by steam, while European powers and the United States vied for control of resources in “less developed” areas, bringing the hell of exploitation, destruction and corruption with their good intentions to establish Christian culture, education, law and order. Maya Jasanoff finds in his life and fiction, “a history of globalisation seen from the inside out”, a grappling with “the ramifications of living in a global world”.

Conrad’s cynical, questioning approach must have been shaped by the hardship of early childhood in the exile to which his Polish parents, members of the landed gentry, were sentenced for his idealistic and unworldly father’s political activism against Russian domination. Yet it was typical of Conrad’s contradictions that years later he refused to sign the petition against the execution of his onetime colleague the Irishman Roger Casement for his part in the Easter Rising: “by emotional force he has made his way and sheer emotionalism has undone him”.

Being orphaned very young, a solitary only child with no stable home, may have triggered Conrad’s wanderlust, the desire to get as far possible from landlocked eastern Europe onto the open sea. Perhaps because his father had been a writer who taught him reams of patriotic Polish poetry, he developed the motivation to jot down stories about places “beyond the end of telegraph cables and mail-boat lines”…"among human outcasts such as one finds in the lost corners of the world”.

Since Maya Jasanoff is a historian rather than a literary biographer, her main interest is in how he dealt with “the moral and material impact of dislocation, the tension and opportunity of multi-ethnic societies, the disruption wrought by technical change”, with only passing reference to his writing style or any real literary evaluation of his work. Two interesting maps, which could have been superimposed, show the clear overlap between the far-flung countries he visited as a seaman and the settings for his novels: five months spent as captain of a steamship on the Congo inspired “Heart of Darkness”; service as first mate of the steamer Vidar plying between the ports of Borneo and Sulawesi led to “Lord Jim”. Yet, “Nostromo”, set in the imaginary South American republic of Costaguano, was based totally on the knowledge of an obliging friend.

Conrad was a man of strong opinions: although his son only once saw him pray over his own father’s grave, Conrad believed that “even the freest” is to some degree hemmed in by “fate”. Sickened by the fact that his later work, which he regarded as “second rate efforts”, which are no longer read, earned him so much more than such works as “Heart of Darkness”, he refused honorary degrees or a knighthood, but would have valued the reward of the international Nobel Prize, which was never offered. Even his humour was caustic: in his final years of belated fame after years of struggling as a writer, he remarked that Esperanto was “a monstrous jargon” but people could translate his work into it if they so wished.

Despite the earnest bleakness of much of his work, his periods of depression as a struggling middle-aged writer and his frequent illnesses, he clearly possessed a charm which drew a wide circle of friends, including well-known authors. After years of desultory flirting on shore-leave with attractive, highly respectable young women, and an intriguing correspondence with a widowed aunt only a few years his senior, he married a “to tell the truth rather plain” teenage typist called Jessie, perhaps as ever shrewdly realising how she could support him on a practical and emotional level – yet he clearly developed a strong affection for her to the end.

Minor criticisms: most of the historical maps included are too small-scale to be legible, the evocative photos embedded in the text would have been better if larger. Maya Jasanoff’s long, somewhat clunky resumés of Conrad’s better known works seem like padding, questionable since they include too many “spoilers” for those wishing to go on to read them. Although the chapters are mainly in chronological order, the thematic approach fragments Conrad’s life story so that a time-line would be useful. Despite all these reservations, this is an absorbing and very readable treatment of a complex and interesting man, flawed yet impressive.

[Mary Jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book can be described in just one word: brilliant! Maya Jasanoff takes the life and work of novelist Joseph Conrad and uses them as a lens to peer into the heart of international capitalism in the nineteenth century. Conrad was a sailor before he became a novelist and his voyages form both the spine of the book and the core of his writing. According to Jasanoff his vision was both bleak and prescient. As she notes: "Today's hearts of darkness are to be found in other places where civilizing missions serve as cover for exploitation. The heirs of Conrad's technologically displaced sailors are to be found in industries disrupted by digitization. The analogues to his anarchists are to be found in Internet chat rooms or terrorist cells. The material interests he centered in the United States emanate today as much as from China."

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

From BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week:
The story of Joseph Conrad, abridged in five parts by Katrin Williams. He was the author of Heart Of Darkness, Lord Jim, and sailed the seas..

1. After the death of his father, young Conrad is in the care of his Uncle Tadeuz for some years. One day he announces his plans to go to sea, to travel to the great port of Marseilles and find a ship. How will his uncle react?

2. It's 1878 and that teeming metropolis called London excites Conrad. From here he will board ships. And from other ports of the world he will board other ships, including the Vidar, which will fuel his writing life..

3. He meets Marguerite Poradowski and emotional letters follow - for years. Then his trek through the Congo to secure a posting is nightmarish, but the experience will later fuel his fiction.

4. Recollections of the Congo endure, as does his correspondence with Marguerite. He meets Emilie Briquel, yet marries Jessie George. He produces various work at this time, yet those African memories are indelible and Heart Of Darkness will get written.

5. The late 1890's. He is settled with Jessie at Pent Farm, Kent, rubbing shoulders with various literary greats. His sea-faring days are over but the imaginative adventures continue to flourish and the novel Nostromo begins to take shape..

Reader Laurel Lefkow

Producer Duncan Minshull.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09dtdds

[Chris Wharton · Rating 5 out of 5]

A critical examination of Conrad’s life and writings in their late 19th-, early 20th-century historical contexts, when the Polish immigrant‒turned‒British seaman‒turned‒writer lived, sailed, and wrote through political, socioeconomic, and technological changes that presaged the modern interconnected global world. In fluent, pleasure-to-read prose, unstilted and not at all academic (though thoroughly sourced), Jasanoff, a Harvard professor of history and literature, shows how Conrad’s writings derived from his life experiences: upbringing in an educated Polish noble class suppressed by Russian occupiers, solitary migration to Europe and then to Britain in 1878 at age 20, then 18 years at sea and on rivers in the British and Dutch empires in Southeast Asia and the Belgian in Africa. Written in Conrad’s third language (after Polish and French), the novels that followed (and now considered English classics, including Lord Jim, Heart of Darkness, The Secret Agent, and others) portray characters contending with new global forces, whether knowingly or not, to various personal outcomes. Jasanoff expertly weaves detailed discussions of the novels into her narrative of Conrad’s journeys and involvements in the places he set his novels. The book is organized in four parts (Nation, Ocean, Civilization, Empire) and superbly written and presented, with excellent maps and photographs.

[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

This isn’t really a full biography as much as a reflection on Conrad’s life and several of his major works. Jasanoff is driven to understand the world that shaped a writer she loves including both the romance and the workaday world of the sea, the sense of alienation and otherness that permeates his work and his ability to put us into worlds that are both unfamiliar and frightening. Conrad’s fiction often focuses on characters who confront some critical choice only to face consequences more far-ranging than they could ever imagine. They live in a global world dealing with the moral and material impacts of dislocation and the tension and opportunities of a multi-ethnic society. Jasanoff makes the point that for all of Conrad’s untethered cosmopolitan travels he still sees the world through the eyes of a European An example are his works set in Asia, especially the Malay archipelago--he wrote as he saw it, from the deck of a steamship. HIs fiction rarely ventured outside the heads of his European characters.

This is a terrific book, beautifully written and ably showing how the various aspect of Conrad’s life influenced his novels and short stories. You don’t have to have read any of Conrad’s works to enjoy this book but Jasanoff may well lead you to read them for the first time or to re-read them. Highly recommended

[Naeem · Rating 5 out of 5]

This biography of Conrad emphasizes his ability to anticipate the technological developments of the future. It recounts four of his novels: Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, Nostromo, and The Secret Agent by grounding their plots in Conrad's experience. Jasanoff never directly addresses the current controversy over Conrad's work. Namely whether Conrad is part of a Eurocentric and racist literary canon or whether his role is best seen as the critical apex of the Western critique of colonialism. Jasanoff smartly provides the deeper context and leaves the conclusions up to the reader. Sven Lindqvist's Exterminate All the Brutes is much better on Conrad's intellectual bearings. But Jasanoff provides the full context of Conrad's life, travels, and struggles.

[Glenda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maya Jasanoff delves into the world of Joseph Conrad, the immigrant from Poland to England, and the literary giant whose “Heart of Darkness” challenges both students and teachers, in this biographical (and historical) analysis of Conrad’s place in Western literature.

I found this work of nonfiction insightful and relevant to my teaching and student’s reading of Conrad. We see Conrad struggle w/ experimental narrative forms, and we see the ways Conrad’s own seafaring informs his texts. Additionally, for readers of HoD Jasanoff offers commentary for framing Conrad’s obvious racist images into his themes of universal savagery of which we’re all capable.

Additionally, the book offers insights into our own country’s nationalistic and isolationist policies grounded in greed and desires for monetary gain at the expense of other cultures, important topics for discussion in coffee houses and classrooms.

[Mommalibrarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am aware of the criticism of Conrad by Africans. I found this book immensely helpful in understanding the good and bad of the man and his work. One quote from Conrad:

There is a bond between us and that humanity so far away, I am content to sympathize with common mortals no matter where they live; in houses or in tents, in streets under a fog, or in the forest behind the dark line of dismal mangroves that fringe the vast solitude of the sea.

On p.224 I recorded: "What made the difference between savagery and civilization, Conrad was saying transcended skin color, it even transcended place. The issue for Conrad wasn't that 'savages' were inhuman. It was that any human could be savage."

Should Conrad still be read? I say yes. But like all authors it is good to have a sense of their time.

[Monika · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kapitalna biografia Josepha Conrada, albo Józefa Teodora Conrada Korzeniowskiego, jednego z najbardziej znanych polskich pisarzy. Bardziej znanego za granicą niż w Polsce (bo, trzeba przyznać, pisał po angielsku). Uwielbiali go Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Faulkner, Virginia Woolf. A w Polsce znany jest co nie bądź.
To biografia pełna fragmentów listów do Conrada i od Conrada. Jeśli nie czytaliście książek Conrada, to w niczym to nie przeszkadza, bo autorka opisuje fabułę większości jego powieści dość szczegółowo. Pokazuje także powiązania między powieściami a życiem pisarza oraz światowymi wydarzeniami. Książka ta jest także wnikliwym opisem zmian świata z początków XX wieku - kolonizacji Afryki, Azji, Ameryki Południowej i zmian geopolitycznych. A wszystko to opisane językiem przystępnym, ciekawym i absorbującym.
Zdecydowanie polecam.

[James Carter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply put, this is one of the best books I have read in a long while.

Jasanoff manages to put Conrad's work and life--each of which is complex, fascinating, and sometimes troubling--in context. Most impressive to my mind were the ways that she wove his fiction and his life together. Sometimes, his life influenced what he wrote (though seldom directly). Other times, she used his stories to explain his actions or fill gaps in the biographical record.

I was captured at the start when Jasanoff noted how her own travels, in pursuit of Conrad, mirrored the novelist's journeys from the late 19th century. The similarity, she suggests, was not because little hand changed, but because Conrad lived at the vanguard of his age. The connections between the late 19th-century and the early 21st are clear and instructive.

And a tremendous story, well told. I came away from this learning a lot about world history, about Conrad's biography, and about his fiction. Highly reommended.

[Mishehu · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a disappointing book. For the most part it's a straight up biography (or literary biography). I'm no Conrad expert, but I'm hard pressed to think the overwhelming bulk of this book hasn't been told a thousand times elsewhere. As to what I take for the original bits, they're at the margins of the book: the introductory and closing sections. One of the cover blurbs, if I recall, characterized the book as a blend of travel memoir, literary criticism, etc. There's virtually no travel writing in this book, and the little there is serves no particular purpose other than to establish the author's attempts to see what Conrad saw and to note why that's no longer quite possible. As to the author's thesis re Conrad as globalist and mirror/critiquer of globalism, I can't imagine this theme hasn't been done to death elsewhere in the popular and scholarly literature on this extraordinary writer. In short, I can't figure what this book's contribution is.

That said, Jasanoff writes well. And her book is a solid enough intro to Conrad the man and Conrad the author. So, if you're going to read only one book about Conrad, it could just as well be this one. One annoyance I'll note, and one disappointment. Annoyance: too much page count in this book is dedicated to precis summaries of Conrad novels and short stories. These could have been pithier. Disappointment: Jasanoff does not convincingly explain why Conrad took up the pen so (relatively) late in life. Perhaps there's no answering this question, but I wish she had considered it more thoroughly. Oh well, creative genius and its sparks always have a whiff of mystery. And so this aspect of Conrad's personal and professional story will continue to confound, fascinate, and inspire.

In sum: if you've read a lot about Conrad in the past, I doubt you'll find much new here. If you haven't, you might enjoy this read.

[Michael David Cobb · Rating 4 out of 5]

What's rather astounding about this book is that it contains the antidote to the hysteria surrounding 'dead white European males' and their influence on Western thought by using the typical rhetoric used to charge the 'global white supremacist movement' and investigates it all. It's hardly the point of understanding Joseph Conrad, the author which this book provides ample to study. But that such notions of toxicity are handled in detail is what made this something of a surprise to me.

I've only read and been bored by 'The Secret Sharer', expecting more of a nautical yarn than it delivered (as compared to Aubrey-Maturin), but the biographical and historical context of Conrad's travels and experiences and motivations has opened up a world to me.

What I see is something we must all see, which is our attraction to the abstract perfection of the British cosmopolitan empire and open culture in the context of the failure of our own ethnic dreams. This is something that personally weds me to Conrad's life, and an important lesson to us all. It's a must read book on globalization, which is older than we might think.

[Gregory Lamb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jasanoff's passion for detail in this captivating non-fictional presentation of Joseph Conrad's life, his work, and the character of his environment during times of change, comes through on every page.

"The Dawn Watch" is dense with detail, but not in any way tedious. As an avid reader of Conrad's classics, I was drawn to this book and believe no fan of Conrad's should miss at the chance to gain further insights about his life and times by reading it. Readers with an interest in history would agree that Jasanoff is a true master. Her research is thorough and her presentation is spot on.

[Frank Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joseph Conrad has long been one of my favorite authors. From "The Heart of Darkness" to "Lord Jim" his magical portrayal of far-off, dark places and the men who lived in them grabbed my imagination and awe. In her magical biography, Maya Jasonoff gives us part literary criticism, part thrilling travel journal (of Conrad as well as herself!), part history of a time and world long gone. This is a page-turner, riveting the reader with the many lives lived by Conrad - a mysterious man unto himself. Whether you like Conrad's works or not, this is a great and truly fun read.

[Aaron Jette · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is neither for those who have read much Conrad not for those who have read much world history. It provides synopses of his major books and the historical and personal events that informed them. The main advantage this book has over other biographies or histories of the period, or for that matter most of Conrad's books is that it is readable and relatively brief. Otherwise it provides little insight of psychological, literary, or historical interest.

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sympathetic, beautifully written, thought-provoking reading of Conrad in the context of globalization.

[Wojciech Szot · Rating 5 out of 5]

Biografia Josepha Conrada autorstwa Mai Jasanoff to dowód na to, że można o autorze “Jądra ciemności” napisać książkę wciągającą i przybliżającą tak autora jak i jego dzieło współczesnym czytelnikom i czytelniczkom bez uproszczeń, ale i bez nadmiaru słów.

To nie jest wielka biografia cytująca setki listów, wertująca zdania w książkach, szukająca potomków świadków czy nadmiernie filozofująca. To nie ten typ lektury, to raczej sprawna, bardzo dobrze napisana, opowieść o czasach, w których żył Conrad. Z perspektywy zmian w globalnej historii Jasanoff pokazuje nam Korzeniowskiego - twórcy uwikłanego w przemiany, tak dziejowe jak i technologiczne. Przyjęcie tej optyki pozwala na stworzenie nowego obrazu Conrada, twórcy, który najpierw opływał świat, a później go opisał. Poznajemy żeglarza, który podróżował po Europie, Azji i Afryce w dobie przemian, powstawania nowych potęg (Stany!), czy kuriozalnych, prywatnych imperiów (Kongo). Mocno pogubionego w życiu prywatnym, ratowanego przez wuja, depresyjnego wrażliwca. Conrad z perspektywy statków obserwował, że grabieżcza polityka nastawiona na wyzysk i maksymalizację zysków, rodzący się nowy, globalny kapitalizm, nie tylko niszczy tubylców, ale i wykańcza samego najeźdźcę.

Jasanoff zwraca szczególną uwagę na fakt, że Korzeniowski jako potomek ludzi walczących o niepodległość Polski był wyczulony na kwestię władzy i poddaństwa, był dość wyjątkowym (choć nieosamotnionym, ani nie najbardziej walecznym) przypadkiem białego człowieka, który mimo swojej kolonialnej postawy, potrafił dostrzec, że rzeczy nie dzieją się dobrze, biali są źródłem zła, a jego jądro nie tkwi wcale w kongijskiej dżungli, a w świecie “cywilizowanym”, który tylko zagarnia dla siebie kolejne przestrzenie. Conrad u Jasanoff jest człowiekiem nie wolnym od uprzedzeń i stereotypów, depresyjnym i lękowym twórcą, który dzięki byciu Polakiem, a jednocześnie - na ile można tak powiedzieć o przełomie wieków - obywatelem świata, potrafił połączyć powieść przygodową z metaforyczną historią o obcości.

Jasanoff prowadzi nas też przez dzieła Conrada. I jest w tym fantastyczną przewodniczką. Otóż jeśli martwicie się, że Conrada nie czytaliście, to mam dla was dobrą wiadomość - jeszcze nie musicie, możecie zacząć po lekturze tej książki. Autorka bardzo celnie streszcza większość ważnych dzieł Korzeniowskiego, pokazując ich czasem dzisiaj niewidzialne sensy, oczywiście dopasowując je do swojej tezy o tym, że dzieło Conrada ukazuje przemianę mentalności człowieka i globalizację jego świata na przełomie wieków.

Z jednej strony o Conradzie można pewnie napisać kilka tomów, a książki o jego dziele to na pewno bogata biblioteczka, z drugiej można postąpić jak autorka książki wydanej przez Wydawnictwo Poznańskie - opowiedzieć o świecie, w którym przyszło żyć jej bohaterowi, tak by nie zanudzić, ale poszerzyć naszą wiedzę zarówno o biografię Conrada, jego dzieła jak i losy kolonii, czy historię żeglugi.

Mnie Conrad zawsze przerażał, był niezrozumiałym klasykiem, którego wizerunek przytłoczyło słynne ‘jądro ciemności”. Bałem się o nim czytać, bo znowu ta polskość, te powstania, tęsknoty, a do tego rozterki etyczne i świat pachnący naftaliną. Po latach z większą przyjemnością podczytuję “Tajnego agenta”, ale chyba dopiero lektura książki Jasanoff pokazała mi, jak fascynujące są niektóre wątki z jego biografii i jak wiele możemy teraz zacząć odkrywać. Przystępnie o Conradzie i jako wstęp do odkrywania tego niezwykłego autora. Naprawdę warto.

Napisałbym to samo bez patronatu, który objęliśmy nad książką. A ponieważ patronujemy, to zapraszamy do Krakowa na spotkanie z autorką, w ramach Festiwalu Conrada, w piątek, 26 października. Godzina 13:00, Pałac Czeczotka. Relacja lajf na Kurzojadach.

Ps. Znaleziono jeden błąd. Otóż pisze Jasanoff, że “Conrad nie umieścił w kolonii imperium akcji ani jednej książki”. To nie do końca prawda, gdyż akcja jednego z opowiadań tomu “Między lądem a morzem” dzieje się też w imperialnych koloniach.

[Linn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't sure what to expect with this book. I wasn't familiar with Conrad or his works, other than having heard of two or three. The author does a good job of sharing the essence of this man in an engaging way.

[Jake Goretzki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely readable and nicely uncluttered (sticking to Heart of Darkness, Nostromo, Lord Jim and a few other titles helps). Not sure how far this goes to being proper biography though - but perhaps that wasn't the mission.

Full of cracking anecdotes and some utterly knockout Victorian superheroes: I mean Cunninghame-Graham, man. Jesus, what an amazing life. Fascinating too to see how JC knew Roger Casement; the observation that he was 'all emotion' is so smart - one gets the impression that Casement was a sort of decent, non-cuntish Galloway or suchlike. And Conrad himself: what a remarkable life too. I find it incredibly useful to know about the ex-szlachta background: that will explain a ton of outsider spirit.


And Congo. Some fine focus on this fascinating, ghoulish chapter. I can't wait for the Tevuren African museum to open in Brussels - I'm hoping for a massive wing to be dedicated to Leopold's mutilation and murder hustle. Not a big fan of statue removal outside former dictatorships, but next time I see a statue of him in Brussels (I think there aren't many left), I am definitely going to micturate on it.

Splendid work. Joy to read.

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book that amply demonstrates that globalization is not a new phenomenon. Jassanoff’s project is clever and illuminating. She examines Joseph Conrad’s life before he became a best-selling author. This in light of the experiences that formed the themes of his book. For example, in 1890 Conrad began work for the Belgium trading company and his observation of the cruelties being inflicted in the Congo by Europeans informed Heart of Darkness. Conrad vigorously campaigned against the abuses, described by many today as genocide, a story I was unaware of. That Heart of Darkness is criticized today as racist illustrates one of the perplexities of our age. The book with this approach illustrates many of the significant episodes of Conrad’s life and an interpretation of many of his novels. It’s not comprehensive but neither is it an 800 page tome.

[Scott Pomfret · Rating 2 out of 5]

This work is an odd amalgam of pointless personal travelogue (which feels like padding to make the work history length); summaries and excerpts of certain of Conrad's novels; a brief Conrad biography; and a very slim history of Conrad's world. No clear thesis emerged, either situating the material in Conrad's time or situating it in the present. Indeed, the epilogue seemed to suggest the world's are so different in fact if not in theme as to make them virtually incomparable. Worst of all, none of the author's professed love of Conrad's writing feels visceral here, perhaps on account of the apparently uneventful personal travelogue with which the author pads and bookends this history. Her writing seems more animated when she is talking about herself.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not having read very much Conrad (Heart of Darkness and The Secret Agent) this turned into a bit of a slog and I skimmed the second half. But that's more my problem than Jasanoff's who clearly worked to the bone to gain more insight into the socio-political world which gave Conrad such insight into our own.

[Mark Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maya Jasanoff’s 2017 book The Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World, is a fascinating examination of Conrad’s major writings. Focusing on Heart of Darkness, Nostromo, Lord Jim, and The Secret Agent, Jasanoff makes the argument that Conrad’s writings contain themes that speak deeply to our own era, as well as Conrad’s.

Joseph Conrad had a fascinating life: born Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski to Polish parents in Berdychiv, in what was then the Russian Empire, and is now part of Ukraine. His parents were staunch Polish nationalists and were sent into exile by the Russian government. Jozef was 7 when his mother died, and just 11 when his father died. Sent to live with his uncle Tadeusz Bobrowski, Jozef dreamed of becoming a sailor, and he joined the French merchant marine at age 16.

Korzeniowski eventually moved to England and joined the British merchant marine, becoming a British citizen and passing the master mariner examination—the highest examination level—in 1886. It would be nine more years before he published his first novel, Almayer’s Folly, written in English, his third language. It was not much of a change to go from Jozef Konrad to the Anglicized pen name Joseph Conrad.

Conrad had a unique viewpoint through which to view the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His career in the merchant marine had taken him to Australia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Congo, to name just a few of his journeys. Conrad was better traveled than perhaps any other writer of his era, and his novels were set throughout the world.

During his lifetime, Conrad’s world was becoming more interconnected. One of the major concerns of his fiction is what happens when different societies and cultures comes into contact with each other. You could argue that Conrad was not sufficiently attuned to indigenous peoples, but it’s clear that he was critical of European imperialism and colonialism.

The Dawn Watch is a good book, but it’s a little odd. It’s part biography, part literary examination, but it might not be enough of either part to satisfy readers. You’d better make sure you’ve read all four of the major works that Jasanoff discusses, as she will take you through painstakingly detailed plot summaries. Jasanoff spends too much time detailing the plot points, and not enough time analyzing what makes Conrad’s writing great. I suppose that I am the target audience for The Dawn Watch: I’ve read the four books by Conrad, but I haven’t read any biographies of him.

The narrative is not chronological, which fits with Conrad’s own writings, as they often jump forwards and backwards in time, but in a biography, the non-linear approach is tricky. For example, The Secret Agent is discussed first in the book, when it actually comes last in the chronology of the four major works that Jasanoff discusses.

Conrad did not write much about his own childhood, which makes sense, given how painful the losses of his parents must have been. While I was reading The Dawn Watch, I happened to page through a novel by Dick Francis, the British mystery writer. Francis wrote in the foreword to the novel that people often speculated about his relationship with his parents, because so often his characters had difficult family lives. Francis wrote that he had a good relationship with his parents and enjoyed a good relationship with his two sons. He wrote, and I’m paraphrasing here, that because he had such good family relationships, he was able to write about dysfunctional families in his fiction. If he would have had bad family relationships, it would have been too painful to write about. That made me think of Conrad: he probably didn’t write about his parents because it would have been difficult.

Conrad’s sailing career bridged the time between sail and steam, and he clearly preferred the former, which was quickly becoming a relic of the past. Conrad lived his life in a middle zone: the Polish side of him pined for a country that did not exist, and the English part of him perhaps sensed that he would never be “truly” English. Perhaps it was this push and pull that made Conrad such a great writer—he understood the displacement that all of his characters in Nostromo felt, for example.

Conrad’s trip as a captain up the Congo River in 1890 was awful, and it provided much of the inspiration for Heart of Darkness. After his return to England, Conrad was still plagued by nightmares and poor health. He wrote in a letter: “I am still plunged in densest night and my dreams are only nightmares.” (p.215)

Jasanoff pinpoints Conrad’s clear vision about the horrors of colonialism and imperialism in this passage: “What made the difference between savagery and civilization, Conrad was saying, transcended skin color; it even transcended place. The issue for Conrad wasn’t that ‘savages’ were inhuman. It was that any human could be a savage.” (p.224-5) This is exactly the point of Heart of Darkness: that Kurtz has been corrupted, not by the Africans, but by power, by the whole corrupt system of colonialism and imperialism.

The Dawn Watch is a fascinating glimpse into the life and times of Joseph Conrad. After I finished reading The Dawn Watch, I pulled out my old Encyclopedia Britannica to read the entry on Conrad. The end of the first paragraph struck me as a wonderful summation of his talents: “A writer of complex skill and striking insight, but above all of an intensely personal vision, he has been increasingly regarded as one of the greatest English novelists.”