Under Western Eyes (Penguin Classics) [Mass Market Paperback]

Joseph Conrad (Author), Stephen Donovan (Editor, Introduction), J. H. Stape (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Penguin Classics | Publication Date: December 18, 2007

"It was I who removed de P- this morning." With these chilling words Victor Haldin shatters the solitary, industrious existence of Razumov, his fellow student at St Petersburg University. Razumov aims to overcome the denial of his noble birth by a brilliant career in the tsarist bureaucracy created by Peter the Great. But in pre-revolutionary Russia Peter's legacy is autocracy tempered by assassination; and Razumov is soon caught in a tragic web with Haldin's trustful sister Natalia in spy-haunted Geneva. Their fateful story is told by an elderly Englishman who loves Natalia but plays his part of a 'dense Westerner' to the end.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A century after its publication, Under Western Eyes is as compelling and as relevant to our own age as it was to an earlier age of political terrorism. John Peters' introduction and ample appendices offer a magisterial guide to the composition of this novel, which Conrad struggled to complete at the cost of his own mental health, and to the revolutionary struggles that were an integral part of the political, social, and intellectual crises of the decade leading up to the First World War. Like other Broadview Editions, which never skimp on the materials that make for a thorough understanding of the text, this edition of Under Western Eyes is the one to read." (Sanford Schwartz )

"This new edition of Under Western Eyes will significantly enhance our understanding of the novel. Peters' introduction is lucid, informative, and extremely well written. The appendices are superbly chosen. Together, they clarify why and how Conrad wrote the novel, and why it was such a major challenge for him, artistically, personally, and psychologically. The scholarly apparatus is brilliantly done; it is concise, compelling, well written, and illuminating. Any and all readers of the novel, even those who think they already know it well, will benefit enormously from this edition." (Stephen Ross ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From the Publisher

10 1.5-hour cassettes --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics; Revised edition (December 18, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0141441941
• ISBN-13: 978-0141441948
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.9 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #982,513 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Conrad Can't Stop A-Rockin, May 6, 2003

By 

Gavin Farrell (Cleveland, Ohio) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Under Western Eyes (Modern Library Classics) (Paperback)

Conrad is a real star, I'm rather fond of him. Under Western Eyes is about living in a time of revolutionary urgency, individual fragility in a delicate system, and personal honor.

To summarize; Razumov, the 'Hero' is a university student in Russia post 1905 but pre 1917 who keeps to himself and has no real family and no close friends. A fellow student and a revolutionary, Victor Haldin, assasinates a local oppressive Tsarist autocrat. He then takes a chance and takes momentary asylum with Razumov, asking him to help him get out of the city. Razumov is an evolutionary progressive, not a revolutionary. Not willing to risk association with a radical like Haldin and destroy his entire life, Razumov turns him in to the police, and Haldin is subsequently hung.

The rest of the novel deals with Razumov's struggle with himself- he betrayed, and he has to live with a lie. Complicating things, he falls in love with Haldin's sister in exile. Raz can't bear it though, and eventually he does the right thing, but things get messy.

Thats the general plot, but the real meat of the novel is in the characters and the ideas underlying the conversations between them. The idea of how you justify revolution, the chaos of revolution vs the order of gradual reform, the unwillingness and helplessness of the individual caught in it all. And there's a continual theme of the diference between East and West.

Razumov reminds me a bit of Crime and Punishment's Raskolnikov- an isolated university student waxing the time away in a single apartment, brooding over Big Ideas and being slowly crushed by a powerful conscience. The stuff of modernity. Dostoyevsky was a little bit better, so thats why Under Western Eyes only gets 4 stars.

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars But each heart knows sorrow after its own kind, October 31, 2004

By 

A. G. Plumb "Greg Plumb" (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Under Western Eyes (Konemann Classics) (Hardcover)

Joseph Conrad is one of the most wonderful writers for me (although there are a couple of his novels that I am yet to come to grips with). Often novels give me cause to reflect on my life and my place in the universe, but this one is so personal to me that I wonder if my recommendation can be meaningful to others. You see, the narrator of Under Western Eyes is an English speaking man, an older man, an observer, who becomes a possessor of secret knowledge which reflects on the things he sees taking place around him - of the one holding the secret, of the ones ignorant of it. But the second most important character is a young woman, Natalie Haldin, living away from Russia with her mother (in Geneva). And by chance I have a work-based friendship with a colleague who happens to be a Russian woman living away from Russia (in Australia). The last chapter telling of the final meeting between Natalie and the narrator - for quite personal reasons (but it is so well written) was an emotional torment for me, my final meeting has yet to occur - I hope!
The most important character in the novel (I discount the narrator, as I would myself, although he is of great importance - you may think the greatest) is a young student, Razumov, who betrays Natalie's brother and then is imposed on by the powers to spy on Russian dissidents in Geneva. There he meets Natalie and others who are totally unaware of his role in Natalie's brother's betrayal and subsequent execution. But it is known that he was a fellow student of Natalie's brother so they are drawn to him. Would Natalie and Razumov become romantically allied? Only if the secret is kept?

I will not answer these questions. But I will say that Razumov, weak throughout the novel with the same sort of uncertainties that challenge me, turns out to be the most courageous of characters and, in fact, is afforded one tiny morsel of reward.

Conrad is a great user of words although he does say very early on that words are the great foes of reality (page 1). The title of this review is a quote. Here are two more):
The man who says he has no illusions has at least that one (page 188)
There is always something to weigh down the spiritual side in all of us (page 122)

While the novel may not have the same personal impact for you as it did for me, it is very engaging and rewarding. Typically for Conrad though, the writing is very dense, and for me at least, needed lots of time and reflection.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Greatest Russian Novel..., August 22, 2008

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Giordano Bruno (Wherever I am, I am.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Under Western Eyes (Penguin Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

...of the 20th Century written in English by a Pole! Honestly, you could remove any and all of the prepositional qualifiers from that assertion, and I'd still be willing to defend it. Under Western Eyes is a superb novel in every way - in emotional impact, in intelligence, and in narrative art - and it is very specifically a Russian novel as well as a novel about Russia. Anecdotes suggest that Conrad wrote it in response to his reading of Dostoevsky; if so, he exceeded his model in dazzling narrative acrobatics and in intelligence.

The central character, Razumov, is the most dislikable anti-hero in all fiction, so it's an amazing feat of empathy by which Conrad brings us to care about his fate. Conrad's genius as a narrator is his ability to place himself and the reader in a realm of detachment, so that every event and every character can be observed from several angles at once. The "unreliable narrator" is child's play for Conrad. I don't want to spoil any of the prismatic effect of Conrad's narrative structure by telling any more of the tale of Under Western Eyes, but I will mention that the title is not insignificant.

The Russia portrayed in this novel is a land of cynicism and naivete intertwined - hyper-emotionalism and psychological repression in equal measure - omnicompetent surveillance and hopeless myopia - ruthless bureaucracy and utter disorganization - a land in short of oxymoronic self-destruction. This is NOT, however, the Russia of Communism! The novel was written in 1911! This is Russia as it existed under the Tsarist autocracy, and everything about it clamors for revolution. It's interesting to compare Conrad's portrayal of the old regime with the nostalgic and idealized version served up by Vladimir Nabokov in his memoir "Speak, Memory." Nabokov wrote far more beautiful sentences, but Conrad saw deeper. The horror for us, post-Stalinist readers, in Conrad's depiction of the pre-revolutionary state-of-things is that we KNOW that change will not change much, that autocratic, arbitrary repression will be replaced by...more of the same.

Conrad wrote two novels aground, away from the sea - this one and The Secret Agent. They are among his best. Some readers of today seem to find Conrad's style involuted and dry, and blame it on his status as a 'second-language' writer. To my mind, they are missing the point, the complex lensing of perspective through the minds of Conrad's narrative intermediaries. This is a book to be read slowly and observantly; the effort will be rewarded.