Hold On...It Gets Better...And Really Good in the End... | Nostromo (Konemann Classics)

Conrad's Greatest Novel | Nostromo (Konemann Classics) | Joseph Conrad

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	• Nostromo (Konemann Classics) Joseph Conrad Konemann, 1998 - 534 pages average customer review:based on 38 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Lord Jim Meets the Heart of Darkness [47]

Protagonist Nostromo experiences the life which the author seeks for the reader to envy - or does he or she?

Living amid the fictional South American country torn with civil war and military coup's strife, Nostromo works for foreign miners whose ill begotten gain is admonished by the countrypeople and the leaders of the coup. Eventually, even the loyal and most helpful to the English Nostromo must concede that his purpose should be more than aiding the rich to extract his country's riches for their personal financial gain.

Conrad is a master of telling great stories in incredible detail. And "Nostromo" is his only novel set on land - although a great amount involves a boat pulling off shore to an island not far away from the site of the majority of the novel. And, quite candidly, the boat parts of this book are the most gripping in detail and style.

Conrad's other great novels have dealt with great characters of the sea: the almost perfection of man with "Lord Jim" ; or the eery recantations of the life in the third world where people would kill another for nickels and dimes in "Heart of Darkness." This novel mixes the greatness of "Lord Jim" in the character of Nostromo and encircles him in a world of relative anarchy as the warring coups' leaders and the old government involve serious and severe physical harm to all.

The major theme of the story is about the cache of silver derived from the foreign man's efforts in the town in which Nostromo lives. Those involved must ask: Let the military leaders come in an take the silver or save it for the old rule or for those who mined it? Not previously involved in the politics of his own country which are grotesquely intertwined and muddied by foreign money or manipulation, Nostromo becomes very much involved in politics with his handling of the hiding of the silver ingots. People are subsequently tortured to death for information about the silver. But, only one man knows what happened to it and where it lies. Is this good? Conrad described Nostromo as "The slave of the San Tome silver [who] felt the weight of the chains upon his limbs. . . " He was fettered by the knowledge and being involved with the hiding of the silver. Before he became involved, life was good. After the hiding, life remained good - until he suffers an unfortunate disruption with a woman scorned.

Like a Greek tragedy, this novel laments the hero for his humanity and human weaknesses. Unlike a Greek tragedy, this is a long and drawn out struggle involving a great amount of reading.

Conrad learned English after the age of 21, and when he wrote, he wished to convey to the reader his knowledge of the vocabulary of the English language. In short, Conrad writes in a style that is neither quick paced nor easily absorbed as many uncommon words are shoehorned into certain sentences for what can commonly be proclaimed as affectation or even grandiloquence. Regardless of this truism, this book should be read.

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Hold On...It Gets Better...And Really Good in the End...

Don't give up on this book, especially if you are reading it for fun. If you are reading it as an assignment, you don't have that choice, but either way, don't give up on the book. The first 126 or so pages can be hard and difficult to follow, but when a character named Decoud comes in, the whole plot, the characters and the thrust of the book come together. Seemingly little things and small characters in the first 100 pages take on epic proportion for the remaining pages. Once Decoud is in the story, it takes off, to a surprising and unexpected conclusion. How we react to that conclusion tells us, the reader, how we view ourselves and the world around us. Good book.

The story takes place in a Latin American country torn by revolution and counterrevolution. It is not about war and revolution, however. It is about the people who live through those revolutions, what kind of lives they have, what kind of lives they seek, what kind of lives have meaning for them.

It is about the corruptibility and incorruptibility of man, even good men. Every man has his price, even in pursuit of good causes. What do we value, what do we care for, to what extent would even the best of us use others to further our own ends, interests, ambitions and values.

Follow Nostromo's venture as he found out about the good and bad in his country,the people he trusted and cared about. It is a good and fascinating story. But it does take some time, 100 or so pages, to get there.

A memorable thought from the book, from Donna Gould at the end of Chapter 11, Part III, The Lighthouse: "For Life to be large and full, it must contain the care of the past and of the future in every passing moment of the present. Our daily work must be done to the glory of the dead, and for the good of those that come after..."

The question becomes: "What part of the past is worth honoring; what part of the future is worth having?"

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Conrad's Greatest Novel

Nostromo is simultaneously a great political novel and a great psychological novel. A large part of Conrad's achievement is his fusion of these 2 elements into one seamless narrative. Nostromo describes the penetration of a Latin American country by European/North American capitalism and the ensuing revolution. All the characters in Nostromo are engaged in the intensely political acts carrying the plot forward. Conrad based his narrative on a considerable amount of research on contemporary Latin America and the articulation of the plot elements is elegantly realistic and gripping. The psychological elements concern characters' motivations for their acts. A recurrent ironic theme is that important characters are driven to act by motivations that have nothing to do with political objectives or economic gain per se. Unlike most of his other novels which offer a psychological portrait primarily of a single character, Nostromo features several characters whose motivations and actions are explored by Conrad. The focus shifts from character to character is a way that consistently advances the plot, a brilliant piece of formal construction. Finally, Nostromo features some of Conrad's best descriptive writing. Because of the complexity of the plot and characterization, Nostromo is not the easiest of Conrad's novels to read. Nostromo is ultimately well worth the effort expended.

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A Tough Slog

"Nostromo" takes too long to get started, never really gels into anything worthwhile, and sputters out like a Roman candle in mud. Other than that, I guess I liked it.

Near the western coast of the Latin American country of Costaguana is a vast silver mine owned by one Charles Gould, an English expatriate who enjoys near-kingly powers over the nearby port town of Sulaco. When revolution threatens Gould's empire, "Don Carlos" gets his doughty employee Nostromo to spirit away his silver reserves. That help comes at a price, though, to Gould, to Nostromo, and all who covet the silver.

Many call "Nostromo" Conrad's masterpiece, saying it challenges readers to accept a bleak vision of a world where all are damned by greed or apathy. I agree it's challenging; it took me long enough to read through it. But it doesn't instill the same kind of awe in me Conrad classics like "Lord Jim" and "Heart of Darkness" did.

I think the problem lies in part with a plot that is all over the place, starting with a lengthy inventory of the topography around Sulaco, then an opening episode which occurs about 30% into the story, which Conrad presents at length before rewinding the plot spool to the actual beginning. Time shifts are Conrad's thing, he uses them effectively in "Lord Jim" and they are one of his principal contributions to the post-modern literary vocabulary. But as he does this over and over, the mind swims for no good reason, looking in vain for some chronology to sink its teeth into.

The other problem is the message of the book. Judging from its many champions, "Nostromo" is about the evils of colonialism. But I wonder how much of that mindset is being imported from the less ambiguous "Heart Of Darkness."

We do see how the mine is being used to enrich a distant North American tycoon, and one of our earliest images of Nostromo shows him pulling local peasantry out of their humble huts to work at the mine. But are the peasants really being exploited any more than if they were working a mine in Kentucky? They think enough of Gould to rally around him when his empire is threatened, and one of the few non-European characters we hear from calls him "a just man." The revolution Gould and his cronies snuff out is a bloody farce, and the people of Costaguana, nearly mute in Conrad's narrative, seem to deserve no better than they get.

"Stratagems, providing they did not fail, were honorable; the easy massacre of an unsuspecting enemy evoked no feelings but those of gladness, pride, and admiration," Conrad writes by way of explaining the endless parade of revolutions that rowel Costaguana. (The country's name is about the only tinge of humor in the book.)

Conrad does score better in presenting the human condition as a thing of wretched glory, of transitory pleasures and interludes of seeming value trickling restlessly toward pointlessness. If he was a rock band, Conrad would have been Pink Floyd. He's always lifting the veils of appearances to expose people's base selves.

Even love is phony: "She was incapable of sustained emotion. She was sincere in what she said, but she slept placidly at night...For her soul was light and tender with a pagan sincerity in its impulses."

There's also Dr. Monygham, a sardonic character who sees through everything with his bitter, gimlet eye. His relationship with Nostromo is the closest the book gets to a synthesis of ideas, of the value of living entirely through thought or action. But like everything else in "Nostromo," this never quite gels.

I admire Conrad, and see in "Nostromo" a book that advanced the conception of the novel, with its wide scope, multiple story arcs, time shifts, and resolute presentation of happiness as an illusion. But those same strengths keep the book from being as comprehensible or enjoyable as it could be.

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Money corrupts once again

An "incorruptible" man (Nostromo) becomes corrupted by the dishonest acquisition of "filthy lucre" (silver ingots) when the lighter (barge) he is operating with the silver on it sinks; he is able to hide the ingots on an island for his later personal gain. His impeccable reputation allows the citizens to believe the silver is actually on the bottom of the sea. Nostromo justifies his actions by concluding that he was duped and used by the silver company - the self-deluded victim. In the last section, considered the weakest by some critics but magnificent all the same, Nostromo falls in love with two sisters (Giselle and Linda) and they with him; he chooses falsely by choosing Giselle: it is Linda at the novel's end who cries her heart out for him after his death. But by now Nostromo, once hero to all, is making very bad decisions.

Many consider this Conrad's greatest novel, and in it he paints a very large picture of corruption, revolution, love, and material gain; as in all his novels the writing is suspenseful and dramatic. Nostromo, on his death-bed, confesses to the kindly Mrs. Gould (the mine owner's wife) how he had stolen the silver, but she refuses to let him tell her where he hid it: "Isn't there enough treasure without it to make everybody in the world miserable?" Indeed. Money is the destructive force here: only Linda's love for the man is worth praising.

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Set in the imaginary South American republic of Costaguana, this work is an illustration of the impact of foreign exploitation on a developing nation. As Sulaco, site of an English/American controlled silver mine establishes its independence, its ideals are inevitably compromised.

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