Customer Reviews

Typhoon and Other Stories (Everyman's Library)

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Typhoon and Other Short Stories -By Joseph Conrad *****

"She seemed, indeed, to have been used as a running target for the secondary batteries of a cruiser. A hail of minor shells could not have given her upper works a more broken, torn, and devastated aspect; and she had about her the worn, weary air of ships coming from the far ends of the world - and indeed with truth, for in her short passage she had been very far; sighting, truly, even the coast of the Great Beyond, whence no ship ever returns to give up her crew to the dust of the earth." Typhoon

Conrad is a master of observation. His novels and short stories aren't great narratives and dramas so much as they are depictions of the mind and the human spirit. In Typhoon, to be sure, nothing really happens: a coastal ship with a bizarre captain encounters some "dirty weather knocking about" and barely survives. Except for the ending, it's "The Perfect Storm" without the A-List cast.

The relationship between Mr. Jukes, the first officer, and Captain McWhirr, the distant and preoccupied ship's master, is the story, such as it is. The Captain is infuriatingly obtuse, choosing to trust his own judgment rather than the experience of others:
"Captain McWhirr, took a run and brought himself up by an awning stanchion.
"A Profane man," he said, obstinately. "If this goes on, I'll have to get rid of him first chance." "It's the heat,' said Jukes. "The weather's awful. It would make a saint swear. Even up here I feel exactly as if I had my head tied up in a woolen blanket." Captain McWhirr looked up. "D'ye mean to say, Mr. Jukes, that you ever had your head tied up in a blanket? What was that for?" It's a manner of speaking, sir." Said Jukes,Stolidly.

I cite another paragraph of Conrad's simply for the beauty of his language (which, after all, he didn't learn until he was 20 years old):

"The Nan-Shan was plowing a vanishing furrow upon the circle of the sea that
had the surface and the shimmer of an undulating piece of gray silk. The sun, pale
and without rays, poured down leaden heat in a strangely indecisive light, and the Chinamen were lying prostrate about the decks. Their bloodless, pinched, yellow
faces were like the faces of bilious invalids.
... The smoke struggled with difficulty out of the funnel, and instead of streaming
away spread itself out like an infernal sort of cloud, smelling of sulphur and raining soot all over the decks."

Another reviewer has taken other critics to task for panning Conrad's work. I won't bother: it's enough for me to know that Conrad is ranked among the greatest of writers of English. From his novels (Nostromo, Lord Jim) to short works (Heart of Darkness; The Secret Sharer) he is a universally acknowledged master. -Philip Henry

FIVE STARS *****

This Penguin edition assembles 4 stories that were first published together in 1904, and written in nearly the same sequence. 3 were first published in magazines, 1 not. The reasons why 'Falk' was not able to find a magazine publisher are attributed either to its inconvenient length, or to the upsetting subject of canibalism.
The stories share several themes: the sea is there, even when the action is on land, and so are ships and the people who spend parts of their lives on them. Alienation is in all, being a stranger, being expatriate, as is the reverse of the medal, xenophobia, condescension, racism.
One common theme is 'imagination', twice for the alleged lack of it, twice for the obvious overabundance of it.
Best of the crop is Typhoon, which I have reviewed separately and longer. A funny adventure story, as I see it.
The other long story is Falk, which is actually 2 for the price of one. The main story, the frame, is a farce about expatriates in Bangkok; inside the main story, the title hero tells the narrator his adventure on a Danish steamer that went adrift in the Southern ocean, leading to the horrifying experience that some readers found disgusting.
2 shorter stories are set in Kentish villages near the sea, and both deal with strangers. Amy Foster is the far better one of the two stories, dealing with a shipwrecked man from Eastern Europe who gets stranded and is treated like an animal until he slowly manages to establish a rudimentary foothold in a hostile environment. The title hero is a domestic helper who is the first to show pity for the 'madman' and even falls in love. Tragically, she is not fully able to discard the prejudices of her countrymen. (Is there an autobiographical component here? John Stape, the Conrad biographer who wrote the introduction, thinks not. I guess he is right.)
The last story (To-Morrow) is maybe the least remarkable piece of writing from Conrad that I know, and quite forgettable.

The stories in this book are sea tales in Conrad's tradition of pessimistic, psychological fiction. Typhoon is particularly good, but the other stories are interesting as well. If it seems like Conrad is just writing adventure stories, well, that's just not true. He's writing about the most important themes, and setting them against a backdrop of exciting seafaring and travel.

If a reader finished Heart of Darkness, and enjoyed it, then that reader might want to pick this book up next, and give it a whirl.

Conrad is a genius. His works are among the great works of world literature and these stories are among Conrad's best.

I read the paperback Modern Library edition of Typhoon and Other Stories. This is a good edition. It is very nicely produced and printed. The introduction by Barry Unsworth is useful and this edition also includes an author's note and short bio of Conrad. The notes by Nels Pearson are a bit odd and some are distracting. He makes questionable literary comments and defines some obvious terms but leaves many others undefined. Two stars for the notes.