Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: The Nigger of the 'Narcissus' (Everyman Paperback Classics) by Joseph Conrad, Alan Simmons ISBN: 0-460-87789-5 Publisher: Unknown Publisher - Being Researched Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $4.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.38 (8 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: depressingly mean-spirited
Comment: This is the first Conrad novel I've disliked for its racism. "Lord Jim" and "Nostromo" were also about the struggle of racial empire, but more complex and rich in feeling. This one, like "The Secret Agent," seems propelled mainly by resentment. Here the "Nigger" of the title, and his white ally on the ship, are despised by the true-hearted English sailors yet have somehow learned to make the modern world work for them. The message seems to be that weak manipulators, racially corrupt, are taking over the empire. The action of the plot is more allegorical then consequential and lacks internal logic.
However the "Nigger" has the seeds of an interesting character, if we could only get to know him -- maybe on shore, and in good health.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Great Work of Literature
Comment: In my opinion, Nigger of the 'Narcissus' by Joseph Conrad is one of the truly great novels in English. It goes on the list with such works as The Great Gatsby, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Passage to India, and Moby Dick. It is fascinating, gripping, deep, and entertaining. It defies description, analysis, or summary. (Nevertheless Doug Anderson in his review has done a pretty good job, so I won't even try.)
I don't feel competent to write reviews of great literary works, but not everyone may be familiar with Conrad's Nigger of the 'Narcissus' and what a wonderful novel it is. ... I had no expectations about it and was taken completely by surprise. Nigger of the 'Narcissus' is not just another good novel. It is a masterpiece of literature.
Rating: 5
Summary: The sea of another time
Comment: Joseph Conrad provides a memory from life of the sea in the waning days of square-rigged ships. How far that age is gone is illustrated by the rebuilt Constitution. When she was gotten out in recent years after her reconstruction she really wasn't put under full sail--you couldn't assemble a crew to do so in the USA.
Conrad suggests he was among the crew but at other times assumes the stance of an omniscient observer (as when he reports that conversation between Donkin and Jim Wait in the closed deck house). Yet he does this in other novels and I can live with it for the reward of his evocation of the sea--at least I think it's a realistic evocation of the sea, I who have voyaged only in air conditioned cruise ships and a small inland sail boat.
More important than Conrad's nautical narration is his penetration into the psyche of nearly everyone on board. The first customer reviewer was wrong to say that "the loathsome Donkin" stands for the crew and to align the novel with political literature. A great humanistic work cannot be demeaned to the status of a political analysis, at least this one can't.
The last pages of the novel are as melancholy a picture of the vanished men of a dead age as I can imagine. They have undergone three fates (except for Donkin, who of course succeeds): death at sea, death by land, and transfer to a steam vessel, the latter equated with a sort of death.
Even the material remnants of that age are fragmentary and unsatisfactory, a few ships in dock as museum specimens and the great East India docks transformed to the trendy "Docklands" development.
 |
Title: Lord Jim (Penguin Classics) by Joseph Conrad, Robert Hampson, Cedric P. Watts ISBN: 0140180923 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: October, 1989 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
 |
Title: Victory by Joseph Conrad ISBN: 0375400478 Publisher: Unknown Publisher - Being Researched Pub. Date: 20 October, 1998 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
 |
Title: Chance: A Tale in Two Parts (20th Century Classics) by Joseph Conrad ISBN: 0140186549 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: January, 1993 List Price(USD): $8.00 |
 |
Title: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad ISBN: 0486264645 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 01 July, 1990 List Price(USD): $1.50 |
 |
Title: Youth, Heart of Darkness, the End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad, John Lyon ISBN: 0140185135 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: November, 1995 List Price(USD): $9.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
