Customer Reviews

The Secret Sharer and Other Stories (Dover Thrift Editions)

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In THE SECRET SHARER, Joseph Conrad posits an interesting choice for the Captain protagonist: should he follow maritime law and return a self-confessed murderer to his ship to face justice or should he allow his personal feelings to intrude and harbor a fugitive and let him escape? On the surface, this seems like a fairly routine choice, but in the world of Joseph Conrad no choices are ever easy. Readers who come to this novella from HEART OF DARKNESS are well aware that Conrad likes to place hesitancies in the minds of readers, most of which are couched in symbolic language which suggest a tapping into their psyches. In the case of the Captain, his choice is confounded by his perception of the man Leggatt who climbs aboard his ship. As the Captain sees Leggatt, he sees a man who is described in terms of one who is physically incomplete. Leggatt appears to be headless and as he ascends the rope from water to deck, Conrad's imagery suggests a watery re-birth. The Captain sees Leggatt and in the pages that follow calls him terms that circle back to himself: my double, my secret sharer, and my other self. It is clear that in Leggatt the Captain sees more than just a little bit of himself. They went to the same school with the Captain graduating only a few years prior. At this point, Conrad suggests that the Captain's decision not to hand Leggatt over to justice may not be simply a matter of identifying with Leggatt on a superficial level in that they merely share some common traits. With the Captain's heavily symbolic language, Conrad probes more deeply in the Captain's psyche and by extension in the reader's psyche by suggesting that the Captain's willingness to protect Leggatt even at the cost of his own career and the safety of his ship and crew lies in his subconscious linking of himself to Leggatt. For the Captain to hand over Leggatt to the law and to possible execution would be tantamount to being complicit in his own doom. To further complicate matters, on an even more subconscious level, Conrad raises the possibility that there is no Leggatt at all and that their entire relationship, replete with conversation, mutual interaction, and hiding Leggatt in his bathroom may have existed only within the Captain's mind. If this latter interpretation holds water, then in order for the Captain to maintain the illusion of Leggatt's existence, he had to act as if Leggatt truly existed, even to the point of endangering his ship by approaching too close to shore to allow Leggatt to jump off and swim to safety to a nearby isle. Conrad leaves the reader to ponder the state of mind of the Captain. When the Captain sees a floating hat at the end when Leggatt has jumped ship, that hat serves to remind the Captain and possibly the reader as well that the difference between reality and illusion may be no more significant than whether an abandoned hat floats or sinks in a stormy sea.

Conrad knew how to pack a punch in a small number of pages. He knew how to evoke dread. And he knew how to tell a story of the sea. It's not as involved or incredible as Heart of Darkness (but few things written in the English language have ever been)-- this little story about a stowaway is tightly told. Still, it will leave you with an appreciation of the abilities of a master.

The Secret Sharer was one of the best books I've read in a long time. Even though it is really short there is a large amount of importance in every line. Whether its symbolism or some type of hidden meaning its there and it is what makes the book great.
Conrad puts you in the mind of of his characters and you seem to experience what they are going through. It gives you the sense that you are right there on the boat with the captain and his hidden passenger. You feel as if your the only one in on there little secret and if they are found out you will be too. Conrad then puts so much description into his characters you can actually get a feeling of what they look like and the way they act. The similarities between the two main characters is so great that at points you can't see a difference between them. This constantly keeps you on your toes and thinking about what is going on.
What makes the book though is the symbolism and how much meaning each little thing holds. You can read a paragraph and just take it s a regular story or you can think more into it and it holds so much more. It almost completely changes the way you look at what is happening.
This book is definitely worth reading. It makes you appreciate the genius that some people hold in there writing abilities. You will come out of this book with a changed perspective on the way things happen in life.

Great book...good overlying story, but there's so much more, dealing with the Captain's "Id" and his initiation (which Conrad believed everyone went through). Good read -- great descriptions!

Contrary to what other reviewers imply, this excellent collection has three of Joseph Conrad's most acclaimed shorter works: The Secret Sharer, Youth, and Typhoon. Anyone who does not have them would do well to get this; it is convenient, and the price is near-unbelievable.

"The Secret Sharer" is one of Conrad's final works of major short fiction and one of his best. It finds him returning to the sea after a long absence and has much of the suspense and adventurous spirit of his early works. Indeed, it may well be his most suspenseful and conventionally entertaining work of all; its influence on later writers is easy to see. This is so much so that it can be enjoyed by nearly anyone on this surface level, but as always with Conrad, there is deep symbolic value. "The Secret" again dramatizes outsider status, though more subtly and ambiguously than prior works. It also deals with other important themes, including the clash of rules and personal morality, authority vs. individualism, etc.

"Youth" is one of Conrad's most famous and acclaimed stories but is in my view the weak link. Like the better-known "Heart of Darkness," it is told by the character Marlow through another first-person narrator, but the plot is more akin to the symbolic, adventure-esque seafaring stories of prior Conrad. There is more traditional excitement and suspense than in most Conrad, especially later work, which may attract those who usually dislike his fiction. However, as nearly always with him, symbolism is the real point. As the title suggests, this is a tale about youth and all it stands for and arguably one of its best literary representations. Marlow recalls the excitement and elation he felt when he first captained a ship, fondly recalling exuberance and naïveté long since lost. However, as so often in such situations, nearly everything goes wrong, and youthful ideals are put to experience's harshly dramatic test. "Youth" is thus a sort of mini-bildungsroman, though Marlow's mad rush for the symbolic finish at the end of his story proper shows he learned very little at the time. However, he is now wiser and older, and retelling the old story brings several ambivalent feelings. He sees how much he has conventionally grown and learned but cannot help lamenting the loss of idealism that is possible only in youth and that steadily dissipates with age to the extent that it becomes hardly recognizable. Many will unfortunately relate strongly to this, and there is a good dose of Conrad's always beautiful prose and, very unusually for him, even a little humor. "Youth" would easily be most writers' masterpiece but lacks the scope, ambition, and style of Conrad's best works.

Though not Joseph Conrad's most ambitious or important work, Typhoon is a strong short novel that fans will like. Like nearly all Conrad, it can be enjoyed on a very basic level as an exciting adventure. As the title suggests, the majority of the action describes a typhoon's monumental effects, specifically how it impacts a ship. The extended scene portraying it is one of the best of its kind, recalling a similarly strong depiction in The...Narcissus (Amazon won't allow the full title.) We get a powerful impression of nature's astounding force and just how insignificant humanity and its creations can be in the face of it.

Engrossing as this is, it is of course really just fodder for Conrad's larger themes, the most immediate being the vast amount of things beyond humanity's control; for all our arrogance, there are many situations where we can do little or no more than sit back - or, in this case, hold on - and hope for the best. Typhoon is also in part a bildungsroman, though a somewhat unconventional one. The middle-aged Captain Macwhirr is ostensibly the protagonist, but the young Chief Mate Jukes takes center stage here. He enters the voyage with a considerable ego and pokes much fun at the literal-minded Macwhirr but comes to see that, for all his eccentricities, the latter's simple practicality, level-headedness, and strict determination are not without worth. Hapless as Macwhirr may be in numerous ways, he succeeds where many - perhaps most - ostensibly more intelligent people would fail. Jukes comes to see his value even if he cannot bring himself to give all deserved credit. The same is true of other characters to a lesser degree. Macwhirr himself also learns something in the course of the tale; though experienced and in many ways competent, he had never sailed through harsh weather and is tested in a way he never thought he would be. His near-surreal stubbornness means he perhaps did not learn nearly as much as he should have, but he made it through after all. Conrad leaves it open whether this is due to subtle strength or pure luck; it is certainly debatable whether Macwhirr is capable and even heroic in his own way or simply a fool. In any case, he and other characters find that, as he repeatedly says, you can't learn everything from books; Conrad leaves no doubt that there is often no substitute for experience.

The setting and some of the action are very similar to several other Conrad works, but Typhoon also has its own strengths and is in some ways unusual. For example, characterization is very strong - not in the sense of being rounded, Macwhirr in particular being almost a Dickensian caricature, but in being simply memorable. The characters may be archetypes but are very entertaining - and many readers will see people they know in them. Typhoon is also quite humorous, which is surprising in an author whose humor is nearly always black in the rare cases where it exists at all. Macwhirr is of course the butt of much comic fodder, but there is a light-heartedness to many descriptions outside the central scene. Some, such as those in the sailors' households, have satirical bite, which will please those who miss Conrad's cynicism, but those who normally find him too dark may well be pleasantly surprised overall.

This is certainly not Conrad's strongest story; the frustratingly abrupt way in which the storm's second half is passed over even seems to suggest he grew bored with the work and rushed toward the end. I personally think further storm descriptions would have simply been too much, and he perhaps thought so too, but there certainly should have been a less jerky transition. Some will also dislike the indirect narration toward the end, but I found it a successful, if not overly ambitious, experiment from an author renowned for constantly pushing narrative's proverbial envelope. More fundamentally, Typhoon lacks the astonishing psychological depth and dense philosophical dramatization that were always Conrad's top strengths. The latter is here to a certain extent but far less so than elsewhere, automatically putting the book below his best, though some of the other elements partly atone.

Anyone at all interested in Conrad should certainly read these works, whether here or elsewhere.

Conrad, once again, out does himself with his insights into the human psyche. Second only to "Heart of Darkness," this thrilling short novel delves deep into the protaganists mind and leaves the reader questioning his own capabilities. Fanatstic character developement defines this piece of work and his constant reference to the main characters similarities keeps the reader thinking with every turn of the page. Conrad is able to capture human emotions in a clear manner that is normally hard to articulate. A brilliant novel that left me wanting more...

I've been on a recent binge, reading authors from the late 1800s--Wells, Conrad, Stevenson, Crane, and so on. "The Secret Sharer," like the stories of these others, is surprisingly readable. It is also full of internal searching and psychological exploration.

The story, in a linear sense, tells of a new captain on a ship in the Far East. He is not yet familiar with his vessel or crew. Instead of establishing rigid routine and discipline, as one would expect, he starts his leadership off with some bending of the rules and norms. This allows him to then discover what he believes to be a headless corpse floating alongside his boat. The corpse is, in fact, a living man, who comes on board, and under the captain's protection finds some reprieve from his sin.

On the surface, one would think this story an adventure yarn with some vague psychological elements. In reading about Conrad's life and demeanor, though, it is clearly about much more. Conrad, himself, was born in Poland, lived on the high seas, and took up residence in England. He was a man caught between different worlds, different standards. He seems to deal with some of this as he compares the loose-cannon captain with the questionable stowaway. They are ghosts of each other, he implies, doubles in many ways. Is Conrad questioning his own moral nature? The darkness within? Is he pondering leadership and manhood and how it is defined by capricious decisions? Why is the captain willing to risk the lives of his entire crew for the sake of one somewhat guilty man?

There are many questions amidst this fun read. I enjoyed the writing, the story--even if it has the late 1800s tendency to tell such tales secondhand, through a removed storyteller.

The Secret Sharer is a good novelle about an English sea captain on his first command. It deals with his "double" and the mental strain put on him by the "double".

Just to clarify: English was Conrad's third language. Polish and French preceded it.

Excellent book. Had to read it for class and loved it. Would recommend to anyone.