luka

Well-known member
"I've just remembered that I was unable to get past about page 100 of 'Lord Jim' - I found it uniquely tedious" Craner.
 

version

Well-known member
I've only read Heart of Darkness, but I got Lord Jim, Nostromo and The Secret Agent from a charity shop just before the first lockdown.
 

STN

sou'wester
Hello!
I always think Lord Jim is a bit like Heart of Darkness... I dunno why cos HofD is the one I haven't read.
Hello!
They’re both narrated by Marlow and are about people being dicks on a steamship (well Lord Jim is about the fall out from being a dick on a steamship). Someone’s probably written a thesis about how sail is virtuous and steam is sinister in Conrad’s novels.
 

version

Well-known member
Hello!
They’re both narrated by Marlow and are about people being dicks on a steamship (well Lord Jim is about the fall out from being a dick on a steamship). Someone’s probably written a thesis about how sail is virtuous and steam is sinister in Conrad’s novels.
Which one's set first?
 

STN

sou'wester
Which one's set first?
I don’t know, I think they’re both set at the time they were written, and they were written around the same time (I think). The incident that Lord Jim is based on occurred in 1890 though, so maybe that’s set first.
 

luka

Well-known member
Things have changed while you've been away, no more music chat, loads if Americans
He's been away since October 2019 when he commented on the what is the first thing you remember sticking up your bum thread. A memorable occasion.
 

jenks

thread death
I think Lord Jim is a masterpiece (though he lets the ending get away from him), and only an ‘outsider’ could have written it - that obsession with the idea that ‘he was one of us, you know’ is (probably accidentally) extremely revealing. He was captivated by this idea of being an English gentleman, but of course he wasn’t allowed to be one.
Incidentally, his first registered address in this country is (judging by the photo from your window thread) very close to where woops lives.
He lived not far from here for a while - Stanford-le-Hope. Ford Maddox Ford used to come down to visit him which I always find comic
 

woops

is not like other people
Incidentally, his first registered address in this country is (judging by the photo from your window thread) very close to where woops lives.
wow your right just round the corner no plaque no nothing.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Been reading some of the critical discourse around heart of darkness, particularly Achebe's accusation of racism against Conrad/the book


And responses for and against.

One of the articles defending the book argues that in the concluding paragraph, the narrator sees that the river is flowing into the 'heart of darkness' which is London. But to me, this reads as 'the tranquil waterway leading to uttermost ends of the earth' flowing into the sea ('offing'), barred by a black bank of clouds, which is where the heart of darkness is to be found.

"Marlow ceased, and sat apart, indistinct and silent, in the pose of a meditating Buddha. Nobody moved for a time. “We have lost the first of the ebb,” said the Director suddenly. I raised my head. The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky—seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness."

One piece defending HoD was written in a style that made me fall to my knees and thank God I'm not doing a PHD:

"As I weighed this charge in my own mind, I began to sense a certain incomprehension in Achebe's analysis of the pressure of form that engaged Conrad's imagination to transform biases grounded in homogeneous premises."
 

luka

Well-known member
all the white men I know of my generation and younger who did arts degrees are absolutely furious about having had all that stuff shoved down their throats. Craner, woops, corpse etc.
 
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luka

Well-known member
They're like we just wanted to read Shakespeare why can't I read Shakespeare. I'm not a queer why do I need a queer theory?
 
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