Customer Reviews

Typhoon

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This is a gem of a sea story by a master. It may start a little slow, but Joseph Conrad is just laying groundwork. Before long the reader is experencing very good writing about a very bad voyage. This would make a great man against nature movie.

It has been over 30 years since the first time I read this book. Coming back to it after all this time, my overwhelming impression was how much Conrad had compressed into so few pages. TYPHOON can easily be read in a single sitting; but don't plan on going to bed right after. Not without a good stiff drink.

The Nan-Shan, a steamer of Siamese registry but with English officers, and with a cargo of Chinese coolie laborers returning from a stint overseas, encounters a deadly typhoon and somehow survives it. We see the story unfold through the eyes of Jukes, the first mate, who is awed by his stoic Captain MacWhirr's quiet resolve in the face of a storm of the century.

Reading it, I felt transported to the Northridge Earthquake of 1994. A sound as of all the demons of hell -- shaking and rolling in six directions at once -- flashes of light from exploding transformers -- barefooted stumbling for my boots in a world of broken glass and crockery -- found by the police hours later walking down the street, stunned, with blood pouring from my ankle and a gallon jug of water in my hand.

Or, replace it with an equivalent experience of your own. Conrad had looked death in the face and learned how to face it. His Captain MacWhirr stands fast in the fury and doesn't let his imagination of untold horrors interfere with guiding the ship through the storm. At one point, he tells Jukes in the wheelhouse, "We must trust her [the ship] to go through it and come out the other side, That's plain and straight."

Conrad is a wise teacher and a great writer. TYPHOON did more than survive a second reading: It awed me a second time. If I may quote once more from the book: "MacWhirr had sailed over the surface of the oceans as some men go skimming over the years of existence to sink gently into a placid grave, ignorant of life to the last, without ever having been made to see all that it may contain of perfidy, of violence, and of terror."

MacWhirr's initiation into this perfidy, violence, and terror shows us how we might likewise survive the storms and shipwrecks of our own lives. What an incredible book!

This narrative takes you out to sea and throws you about as if you were a cork in a washing machine. Sometimes it's hard to tell if the ship has sunk or not there's so much water everywhere. You better hold on with both hands and hook your feet into something for good measure. All that and some luck will keep you from drowning. I was kidding about the towel, it won't matter. Breathe every chance you get, and pray it'll be enough...

Great narration on the audio book captures the British and Scottish dialects, but it's so smooth that it's easy to be lulled into dreamland. I had to go back to the excerpts on Amazon and replay parts of the tape to catch the true impact of Conrad's words.

Captain Mac Whirr, a short, fat, dull but dependable seaman, commands the Nan-Shan for a Siamese merchant firm. He writes twelve letter a year to his uncaring wife and has two children who barely know him. During typhoon season in the China Sea Jukes the first mate tells the Captain to change course to avoid the looming storm, but Mac Whirr will think of nothing but forging straight ahead. The Captain and Jukes as well as Solomon Rout the chief engineer (Long Sol, Old Sol or father Rout to his shipmates and Solomon Sez to his wife who quotes pearls of wisdom from his letters to anyone who'll listen) and the Bosun are at the center of the crisis that follows.

During a storm like no other the actions of everyman are almost predetermined by their biases, intrenched beliefs and in some cases ability to react. In six short chapters Conrad develops a great story of how different men behave in a fight for survival.

The tale of the last leg is told in pieces from letters home. The Captain's letter is barely read by his wife who has no idea what happened. Solomon's is sentimental and cherished by his beloved. Jukes reveals the most. Unsurprisingly we find that Captain Mac Whirr wasn't so dumb after all.

It would probably be better read than listened to and deserves at least four stars for the classic it is.

Joseph Conrad was a master of language. In a brief but classic book, you will experience the incredible power of a typhoon while on a steamer as if you were there. Especially real is the scene in the chart room after the initial damage. It is very dark, and Captain MacWhirr lights matches to see his surroundings. Conrad's concise descriptions make you feel even the flame of the match as it burns down. If only this book were longer! I would have loved to know more about Captain MacWhirr's adventures. I HIGHLY recommend this book, as well as Conrad's "Heart of Darkness."

This novel is unforgettable. Conrad creates a sense of terror regarding the forces of nature that will stand up to any special effects that Hollywood can produce. The scene describing the panic below deck of the Chinese workers is one of the most powerful in literature. Not to be missed.

Taking maximum advantage from his long years at sea, and from his innate insight into the human soul, Conrad tells an outright and direct story about a huge typhoon in the midst of the Yellow Sea. But the book is not so much about the storm in itself, but about the human character and how it reacts to disaster.

Captain MacWhirr is famous for being an efficient, calm, dull and silent man, someone you would trust but not like. He seems to be rather unbrilliant, though, never understanding why people talk so much. The other characters are also interesting, especially Jukes, the "young Turk", vivid and dynamic; Solomon the head engineer, another wise man from the sea, and the disgusting and repugnant "second officer", the type of coward you don't want to be with in this kind of drama.

Human character, then, is revealed by limit-situations much more than at any other time, as war literature fans know, and this tale will leave you wondering how YOU would react if you had to make decisions in the midst of a horrible, and wonderfully depicted, typhoon.

Re-visiting Conrad, I find that he enchants me more and more. My old impressions and hence my expectations now were totally off. He is so much better and funnier and more interesting.

Typhoon is a funny adventure story. Don't fear you will get cheated on either side of the contradictory promise. The funny side is the social one: the novella or long story is told partly by quoting and summarizing letters that the protagonists write to their families at home or to friends. The writing protagonists: Captain MacWhirr, the man without imagination. First mate Jukes, a bigot with presumptions. First engineer Rout, the man with a Solomonic reputation, at least with wife and mother at home.

The adventure: MacWhirr is not exactly a greenhorn, he has been skipper for a while, and he knows the South China Sea, where he works now, captaining a steamer under Siamese flag. The ship is 'Nan Shan', 'Southern Mountain', recently built in Scotland ; she carries 200 coolies back home to Fuzhou on the Fujian coast of the mainland in the Formosa Channel. They have been working in plantations or similar enterprises and are returning home with their savings in wooden boxes.

The captain has two shortcomings. One is that he never experienced a taifoon. The other is purely subjective on the part of Jukes: the captain has no imagination. He takes everything literally. He runs his ship and his job and doesn't even come near to understanding why Jukes is bothered by the fact that the ship owners changed it to Siamese registration.

Jukes is fully aware of his superiority over the 'passengers'. Or are they freight? They are packaged as such, nearly.
The captain is too much down to earth to bother about such things.
Unfortunately he does not know what a taifoon is. When it comes, he despises advice to steer around it. He goes the straight line, after all he has to justify his coal bill.

The ship barely makes it. The coolies' boxes are smashed about in the storm. Their money is spilled out and fights erupt. The captain re-establishes control and solves the potential big isssue in a wise and shrewd way. Maybe no imagination, but lots of common sense.

Conrad wrote this story after Lord Jim, and the subject has similarities. It was initially published in a magazine, then together with 3 other stories in a collection. It has some similarities with his 'Nigger of the Narcissus', insofar as ships have to survive big storms. But there is a big difference: the Narcissus is a sailing ship of high quality, managed by a top class professional crew. The Nan Shan is a modern steamer, and the crew has no idea what is coming for them, and has no influence on the ship's survival. A part of the plot here is Conrad's revenge against steam ships. They are just chunks of steel and they require little seamanship.

One would not know it from other reviews, but this incredible collection has seven Joseph Conrad stories other than Typhoon: The...Narcissus (Amazon won't allow the full title), "Karain," "An Outpost of Progress," "The Lagoon," "Youth," "Amy Foster," and The Shadow-Line. Those not in quotation marks are of novella or short novel length, as is Typhoon, and some of the others are lengthy short stories. There are just under 450 pages including Conrad's two Narcissus Prefaces (though sadly and inexplicably missing The Shadow-Line's) plus a short Introduction and Bibliography. All the stories are worthy, and most are great; a few are even masterpieces. Simply put, anyone who has not read them - or has only read some - would be well served by this convenient and inexpensive volume, which is well worth tracking down.

Though not in Conrad's top tier, The...Narcissus is an excellent novel that would be most writers' best. Conrad turned to writing when nearly forty after more than twenty years at sea, and his early work is dominated by what he experienced on his many voyages. This is no different but significant in coming after his last trip, thus serving as both a goodbye to the sea and a formal introduction to writing. It is not his first novel but is in many ways his most representative - the culmination of his early sea adventure slant and the real beginning of the dense psychological penetration characterizing his masterpieces. Conrad wrote that it was the book by which he would stand or fall as an artist, and so it is; nearly everything great about his later work is here, and there are bits of excellence to which he rarely or never returned. He stands tall indeed.

Like nearly all Conrad, the book works on two levels. The most obvious is a rollicking sea adventure. Those who love the picaresque voyages so common in nineteenth century literature will hardly find a better one; this has all the excitement, suspense, and drama one could want. The voyage has many trials: grueling challenges, hairs-breadth escapes, great tests of strength and stamina, and more. Nearly everything bad that could happen does, pushing weathered sailors to the max in a way that is both entertaining and a tribute to human will and endurance. Even many who find classic literature boring will be engrossed.

This aspect is also of great historical value as a fascinating peek into a bygone era. Life on a ship was practically its own world, often with little connection or similarity to life on land. Conrad vividly shows what a merchant ship voyage was like, painstakingly detailing every aspect from departure to arrival. We see ship life's ups and downs, its bright and dark sides, and also learn much about sailors; everything from daily routines to customs and speech are memorably and believably dramatized.

Here we come to the more important part - the book's dark symbolism. Oscar Wilde said that all art is at once surface and symbol and that those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril; this proves it. Few writers - nay, few people - have been as pessimistic as Conrad, and this lays bare much of his dark vision. While he clearly shows that people are capable of bravery, remarkable feats, and other conventional virtues, he also unflinchingly displays human nature's dark side. As he was always ready to reveal, this lurks always beneath even an ostensibly calm or formidable surface and can jump out without warning - often destructively. Moral ambiguity was his favorite subject, and this explores it profoundly. Specifically, it shows how a single dying black sailor unnerves a white crew - not because of the xenophobia one might expect but ironically because he elicits sympathy. This is in one sense moving, a tribute to human empathy that in many ways shows what is best in people - that, indeed, even the most outwardly selfish and shallow have latent humanity that can come out in extremity. However, the seemingly paradoxical fact that the same stimulus leads to arguments, fights, and near mutiny hints at the other pole of existence that Conrad never lets us forget. One of his great strengths is that, while he dramatizes a wealth of weighty issues, he never stoops to the heavy-handedness so common in writers handling such material and nearly always fatal. He raises the difficult question of empathy vs. unmoved strength and the consequent one of whether the former, however otherwise sublime, has any place in situations like ship life, where truly only the strong survive and even a tinge of weakness may prove disastrous.

This hints at some of the more notable ship life aspects that are still largely unknown - namely that, as in military life, a rare camaraderie is achieved among people who are often very different and would perhaps hardly get along otherwise or even have anything to do with each other. Also noteworthy is just how cosmopolitan ships were, making general concord all the more incredible. However primitive ship life was beside land life in many ways, it was certainly well ahead here.

Inevitably, this brings up the issue of the title, which seems not only politically incorrect but thoroughly perverse. Much has been written on Conrad's race views, and the issue is of great interest and relevance not merely to scholars but to anyone interested in his work. There are of course many who understandably will take the ostensible high road and refuse to read anything with such a title, and probably at least as many apologists are ready to defend Conrad against claims of racism or anything else. However, it is important to avoid knee-jerk reactions and recall a few essential facts. First, it is important to realize that the term as then used in England referred not to Africans or African Americans but West Indians; the character in question is from St. Kitts. Second, though it clearly had racist overtones, it was often used without conscious racism - perhaps even a majority of the time - as a way of designating race or nationality, much as one might say "Irishman" or "Yankee." That said, later sensitivity to the word and all it stands for is a positive development, and we must not excuse Conrad or the book as the product of an era, since there were after all even then some aware of the harm that could come from the word and its significations.

With this in mind, we can proceed to how things work in context. It is certainly true that James Wait, the titular personage, is presented in a way that is often clearly racist; such a characterization would now be near-unpublishable. However, there is far more going on than it first appears. Wait enters the story as an enigma, and the various whites view him with unsurprising distrust and suspicion. Yet it soon becomes clear that he is the subtlest character; though often described as variously primitive, he may well be the most intelligent and well-spoken and is certainly the most resourceful. This is reflected in how the narrator refers to him. The title slur is first used near-ubiquitously, and he is described in overtly racist ways. However, his real name or neutral references are used once his individuality becomes known; the pejorative and racist descriptions are almost gone by the middle of the book, never to return. This suggests that racism and xenophobia generally stem mainly from ignorance and gradually recede with familiarity, the outsiders in question becoming individuals rather than racial cutouts. Regardless of how far Conrad meant this to extend, Wait is anything but a Victorian stereotype and has many traditionally admirable qualities. Even so, like the other characters, we are never quite sure what to make of him. Is he sincere or a fraud? Loathsome and despicable or sympathetic and misunderstood? Conrad has no easy answers, but his nuanced portrait of a true Victorian outsider earns both our sympathy and our fascination and is remarkably subtle for its time despite the title.

Perhaps the foremost thing to remember is that the titular epithet refers specifically to Wait; the book makes no sweeping claims about race or anything else. Indeed, for what it is worth, many ethnic groups and nationalities are disparaged with pejoratives and other condemnations, all others being white. This may be a sign of Conrad's misanthropic streak but is above all simply realistic; he was devoted to realism however harsh the subject and would not have shrunken from showing how sailors really thought, acted, and spoke, however unwholesome to Mrs. Grundy. We can easily and legitimately debate his motives in using the title as well as insisting on it despite controversy. Perhaps he wanted attention or was being provocative, but it was again most likely a realist instinct. Even knowing all this, some may find it hard to buy or read a book with such a title, especially to keep it on their bookshelf - perhaps even only because of what the uninitiated may say. Those who like the book or want to read it but just cannot make the plunge can, if they choose, take the easy way out by getting one of many collections containing the work without including it in the title.

Wait is in any event not the only interesting character. This has one of Conrad's largest and most diverse casts, and all are drawn with memorable vigor. As anyone at all familiar with him would expect, he puts none on a pedestal. Most are indeed at least partly vile, again showing human nature's dark side, but there is something courageous or otherwise admirable - even noble - about most of them as well, giving further nuance. The penetrating psychological characterization of a single character so characteristic of Conrad is not here, but he distributes his artistry more evenly, which is about equally compelling.

Conrad certainly wrote many more seagoing tales, and themes dealt with for the rest of his career are largely anticipated here, but this also differs from other work in important ways. For instance, he is infamous for lacking humor, but this has many light-hearted elements, especially in regard to characters - some of whom are comical in a near-Dickensian manner - and their actions; Chapter One in particular is almost a burlesque. This gives some relief from the alternating high adventure and high seriousness that some miss in more representative work. Also, in great contrast to most later works, the narrative is straight-forward - linear and simply told without nested dialogue or other ambiguous subjectivity. The feeling of being lost and/or confused that makes Conrad hard going for so many is absent. This will be a great relief to some but also holds the book back. Those who value Conrad's ground-breaking and influential narrative techniques will be disappointed, but more importantly, the narrator himself is uncertainly drawn. He first seems to be a third-person omniscient narrator but eventually reveals himself as first-person. However, he never really seems to be present, often describing things he could not have seen without saying how he knows, and he is not addressed until the last few pages. Conrad at times even seems to forget that the narration is supposed to be first-person, seemingly slipping into third-person without warning only to return as quickly. This may have been deliberate, either to introduce ambiguity or perhaps even influenced by Moby-Dick, of which much the same can be said. In the end, though, it seems simply sloppy - an early instance of indecision in an area he later mastered.

One strength that was fully in place even at this early date is mesmerizing prose. Conrad is one of the great English stylists, which is almost incredible in that he was not a native speaker. His descriptions are lush and memorable, eminently quotable and often unforgettable, whether about the sea, the ship, or human thoughts and feelings. The prose is indeed so strong that one could read for it alone, though there is of course far more.

Though not Conrad's most ambitious tales, "Karain" and "The Lagoon" are excellent stories featuring many of his strengths and exploring many of his themes on a smaller scale. Again, they can be enjoyed on a very simple level as exciting adventures in an exotic locale. Once they get going, it is fast-paced and suspenseful enough to satisfy even pulp fans. However, they also raise several important questions, as Conrad nearly always did even at his most entertaining. Conflicts like personal vs. familial responsibility, Eastern vs. Western culture, rationalism vs. spiritualism, and truth vs. illusion swirl around issues of loyalty, love, and ethics. Conrad explores such subjects more deeply, but the amount of thought-provoking material he manages to include in these short, action-packed stories is truly remarkable. Perhaps most subtly, like many of his works, they gaze unflinchingly at love's disadvantages. Their view of love is very dark, seeming to say that true love is mere illusion and that, even if it were not, it saps strength and willpower, making one practically useless in any conventional sense. However great love may be to individuals, it is detrimental to society and has no place in situations requiring toughness and perseverance. We may or may not agree, and the way Conrad has the unnamed listener in "The Lagoon" react apathetically to the extent he reacts at all suggests he himself leaves the proverbial door open.

"An Outpost of Progress" is one of Conrad's best stories, especially notable in that it is one of his shortest works but still very powerful and meaningful. It is unusual for him in being entirely satirical, anticipating his novel The Secret Agent in mocking the characters near-malevolently. However, these characters are truly hapless without being pitiable and deserve the narrator's scorn, which Conrad certainly pours on. The Belgian Congo setting and anti-colonialism stance also prefigure "Heart of Darkness," but the latter aspect is far more overt. Conrad condemns colonialism's inhuman greed and callousness, but the story also works in a larger sense by wagging a well-deserved finger at human stupidity, ignorance, narrow-mindedness, and sheer ineptitude. The adventure element present in nearly all his stories is absent; this is a stark account of a dark era with even darker significance. This masterpiece belongs with his best work despite the length.

"Youth" is one of Conrad's most famous and acclaimed stories but in my view not one of his best. 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.

Typhoon is a strong short novel that fans will enjoy, though again not Conrad's best.
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. 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.

Conrad's most underrated story, "Amy Foster" shows the sufferings and uncertainties of outsiders in Western culture. Inspired by Conrad's life, though considerably more dramatized than "Heart," it shows that he was keenly aware of just how alone even an ostensibly well-adjusted foreigner could be in nineteenth century Western Europe. Drenched in pathos, this is one of Conrad's most moving works and very thought-provoking. It is also of historical interest for those curious about the era's treatment of foreigners and other outsiders and abounds with anthropological significance.

Often called Conrad's last notable work, The Shadow-Line is below his masterpieces but well worth reading. Though it has many of his more famous and better works' obvious trappings, not least the Far East/ship setting, it is far more accessible; shorter, more tightly written, and less symbolic, it has a linear narrative and (for Conrad) very straight-forward prose. This may disappoint those who value his profound philosophical dramatization and narrative experimentation, but those who like him mainly for stirring adventure and basic human nature insight - especially if they think other elements hold him back - will like this especially.

Even more than other Conrad works, the adventure aspect is particularly notable. The Shadow-Line lacks other novels' high pitch storm scenes, but its stark depiction of a ship in extreme condition is in many ways more affecting and certainly more relatable to most. We get a vivid idea of what it was like to be at sea in a true crisis. Like many Conrad stories, it is highly autobiographical, as one might have surmised from the wealth of realistic detail. Written in first-person from the captain's perspective, it vibrantly shows the great stress of overseeing a dire situation. Conrad is known for piercing psychological penetration, and though The Shadow-Line does not take the concept as abstractly far as other works, it is highly noteworthy in showing a representative mind - young, capable, and ambitious but inexperienced - under stress. Not least importantly, we get an unrelenting expression of self-doubt, hence the "A Confession" subtitle.

As this suggests, the book is to a large degree a bildungsroman and may easily be seen as a companion to Conrad's "Youth," another entry in the genre with further similar elements. Many will identify with the narrator's malaise, doubts, and lack of direction, not least because they come from an unknown source. At least as many will understand his elation at getting his first command. He quickly becomes a sympathetic character; we truly feel with and for him, at least as much because he is in so many ways an Everyman as because of his first-person narration. Fortunately, far fewer will be able to directly relate to his severely trying experiences, but the youth-to-adulthood passage that it symbolizes has universal significance. Like "Youth," this laments the loss of illusions and ideals that are sadly inherent to aging, but in contrast to it, the advantages - such as they are - are also shown. The narrator loses much but gains a strong self understanding, not least just how far he can be pushed and how he can perform in such conditions. More importantly, he learns hard and bitter truths that only experience can teach and that he will later need to call on often.

The narrator is not the only memorable character; this indeed has some of Conrad's most colorful and memorable, much to its advantage: the eccentric, deranged Mr. Burns; the calm, faithful Ransome; the deceptively intelligent Captain Giles; the quirky and lordly Captain Ellis; the comically hapless hotel steward; the contemptibly incompetent Hamilton; and not least, the startlingly malicious first captain who mercifully appears only in short flashbacks. If Conrad holds back in other areas - or if perhaps his talent had diminished -, he is at least as good as ever here.

Despite the obvious lack of prior works' deep symbolism, some have seen the novel as a World War I allegory. There is significant biographical justification; the book was written during WWI, Conrad saying it was the only subject he could turn to, and his son, whom he says he thought of when writing, fought in the war. One can also make a good textual case; the story after all champions camaraderie as well as perseverance amid great danger including the machinations of a malevolent enemy springing from unknown malice. Perhaps above all, it holds out for a (relatively) satisfying end despite all, which would seem uncharacteristically optimistic but may well make sense in the context of Conrad's son. There is likely something in all this, but it has probably been pushed too far by those understandably if somewhat perversely determined to find strong symbolism because prior works had it. Some have also seen supernatural elements, but it seems obvious that they were meant to be taken as insanity portents; Conrad lacked belief in such things, and his Preface denounced the interpretation. None of this really matters in the end, because The Shadow-Line is strong regardless of whether it exists and would not be among his best work if it did; anyone interested in Conrad should read it in any case.

In summary, few collections are so consistently strong, making it essential for anyone lacking the stories.

Though not Joseph Conrad's most ambitious or important work, Typhoon is a strong short novel that fans will enjoy. Conciseness and straight-forwardness make it a good place for neophytes to start, as one will not get the most out of Conrad's most complex works by jumping right into them, but those who want to read the best first should get at least six of his other pieces before this.

Like nearly all Conrad, Typhoon 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. 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.

All told, anyone interested in Conrad should read this, but those coming to it early should be aware that it is not representative of his best work.