Book Title: The Several Lives of Joseph Conrad (biography)

Author: John Stape

Publishing Company: Bond Street Books/Doubleday Canada

Website: http://www.randomhouse.ca/

Year: 2007

# of Pages: 378

ISBN #: 978-0-385-66168-3

$35.95 Canada

4 Stars

Reviewer: Deborah Ground Buckner

Like many others, I first encountered Joseph Conrad in a high school class when Mrs. Eleanor Swinney instructed us to read Heart of Darkness. We learned of steamship captain Marlow and his encounter with the ill and dying Kurtz. We debated whether Kurtz was good or evil, tracing his journey to Africa and his activities there. Unlike the many Europeans who specifically went with the intent to exploit the riches of the continent, Kurtz went as a “hero, a special being,” taking the European cause of “higher intelligence, wide sympathies, a singleness of purpose” to the natives. Unfortunately, once within the new world, Kurtz failed to live up to his ideals and engaged in his own exploitations. Yet, his last words, “The horror! The horror!” (which has found a place among memorable literary phrases) became “an affirmation, a moral victory paid for by innumerable defeats, by abominable terrors, by abominable satisfactions. But it was a victory!”

Despite my best intentions, my study of Conrad began and ended with Heart of Darkness, though, once in the midst of graduate school finals and the panicky feeling that I was missing out on the rest of life, I did purchase a copy of Lord Jim which remains unread to this day. But the fascination with the writer who made the depths of Africa so real and the exploitation of a land and a people so horrid never left me. So, to make up to my former self, I jumped at the chance to read the biography of the man who had made such an impact.

The Several Lives of Joseph Conrad tells the story behind the stories. Author John Stape has provided thorough research of Conrad's life. Where source material from Conrad's own experiences fails to describe a particular setting, Stape has found contemporary writings of others that offer descriptions of the places and times Conrad experienced, even determining the offerings of theater and opera Conrad might have enjoyed while in a particular place.

Conrad was born into a time of great turmoil as Poland was crushed by Russian occupation. His father remained a fierce Polish loyalist, as exemplified by his writing in celebration of the birth of his son:

Baby son, tell yourself

You are without land, without love,

without country, without people,

while Poland – your Mother is in her grave.

Not surprisingly, Conrad's family was sent into exile where his mother died. By age 11, Conrad had also lost his father. Conrad's maternal grandmother and great-uncle assumed responsibility for the boy, providing for his education. A long and close relationship with the uncle continued, with correspondence through the years often about the amount of money young Conrad spent.

Conrad took to a life of the sea, his journeys included travel to Africa and up the Congo River where he gained the experiences later used in writing Heart of Darkness. Conrad studied for the First Mate's and then Captain's examinations and completed the tests with success. Finding assignments to match his training became difficult, however. Technological advances in the late 1880s and early 1890s, most notably the change from sail- to steam-powered ships, led to a reduction in the number of ships and crews necessary.

Conrad turned to writing, choosing to write in English, his third language. Just as the times were changing the shipping industry, the writing industry was also on the cusp of a great change. Advances in education resulted in a population of readers demanding more reading material. The market for fiction boomed, publishing houses and the new services of literary agents came into being, and the pirating of copyrighted material from England in America (a constant bane to Charles Dickens) was halted.

Stape follows Conrad through his literary career, identifying the life experiences Conrad drew from in telling his stories. He sorts the fact from the fiction in Conrad's various memoirs. He demonstrates the hardships Conrad faced in writing, sometimes finding the process slow and painstaking, sometimes losing control of a short story intended for an immediate profit which ballooned into a lengthy novel taking great time to complete. Conrad's marriage to Jessie George, a daughter of a working class family, and their struggles with finances and health problems are related. It is a fascinating story of a writer's life, resulting from a lifetime of change and struggle.

The book includes eight pages of photographs. Appendices feature maps of Conrad's world and travels, family trees, a list of Conrad's close circle of friends including authors Stephen Crane and John Galsworthy, 36 pages of notes, a bibliography and index.

After reading Stape's story of Conrad's life, I believe I will hunt for my long-neglected copy of Lord Jim and pursue Conrad's other writings as well. I'm also looking forward to my high school age son's assigned reading of Heart of Darkness this spring!

A Research Fellow at St. Mary's University College, Strawberry Hill, London, Stape has taught in universities in Canada, France, and the Far East. He has edited Notes on Life and Letters and A Personal Record for The Cambridge Edition of Joseph Conrad and has co-edited Volumes 7 and 9 of The Collected Letters of Joseph Conrad. The editor of The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad, he is Contributing Editor of The Conradian The Journal of the Joseph Conrad Society (UK).