- ^ Tim Middleton writes: "Referring to his dual Polish and English allegiances he once described himself as 'homo-duplex'[3]—the double man."[4]
- ^ Rudyard Kipling felt that "with a pen in his hand he was first amongst us" but that there was nothing English in Conrad's mentality: "When I am reading him, I always have the impression that I am reading an excellent translation of a foreign author."[5] Cf. Zdzisław Najder's similar observation: "He was [...] an English writer who grew up in other linguistic and cultural environments. His work can be seen as located in the borderland of auto-translation."[6]
- ^ Conrad wrote: "In this world—as I have known it—we are made to suffer without the shadow of a reason, of a cause or of guilt.[...] There is no morality, no knowledge and no hope; there is only the consciousness of ourselves which drives us about a world that [...] is always but a vain and fleeting appearance."[7]
- ^ Conrad wrote of himself in 1902: "I am modern."[8]
- ^ Colm Tóibín writes: "[B]ecause he kept his doubleness intact, [Conrad] remains our contemporary, and perhaps also in the way he made sure that, in a time of crisis as much as in a time of calm, it was the quality of his irony that saved him."[11] V. S. Naipaul writes: "Conrad's value to me is that he is someone who sixty to seventy years ago meditated on my world, a world I recognize today. I feel this about no other writer of the [20th] century."[12] Maya Jasanoff, drawing analogies between events in Conrad's fictions and 21st-century world events, writes: "Conrad's pen was like a magic wand, conjuring the spirits of the future."[13] Adam Hochschild makes the same point about Conrad's seeming prescience in his review of Maya Jasanoff's The Dawn Watch[14] Hochschild also notes: "It is startling... how seldom [in the late 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century, European imperialism in South America, Africa, and Asia] appear[ed] in the work of the era's European writers." Conrad was a notable exception.[15]
- ^ H.S. Zins writes: "Conrad made English literature more mature and reflective because he called attention to the sheer horror of political realities overlooked by English citizens and politicians. The case of Poland, his oppressed homeland, was one such issue. The colonial exploitation of Africans was another. His condemnation of imperialism and colonialism, combined with sympathy for its persecuted and suffering victims, was drawn from his Polish background, his own personal sufferings, and the experience of a persecuted people living under foreign occupation. Personal memories created in him a great sensitivity for human degradation and a sense of moral responsibility."[17]
-
^ Conrad's biographer Zdzisław Najder wrote,
- "... When he was baptized at the age of two days, on 5 December 1857 in Berdyczów, no birth certificate was recorded because the baptism was only 'of water.' And during his official, documented baptism (in Żytomierz) five years later, he himself was absent, as he was in Warsaw, awaiting exile into Russia together with his parents.
- "Thus there is much occasion for confusion. This is attested by errors on tablets and monuments. But examination of documents—not many, but quite a sufficient number, survive—permits an entirely certain answer to the title question.
- "On 5 December 1857 the future writer was christened with three given names: Józef (in honor of his maternal grandfather), Teodor (in honor of his paternal grandfather) and Konrad (doubtless in honor of the hero of part III of Adam Mickiewicz's Dziady). These given names, in this order (they appear in no other order in any records), were given by Conrad himself in an extensive autobiographical letter to his friend Edward Garnett of 20 January 1900.[20]
- "However, in the official birth certificate (a copy of which is found in the Jagiellonian University Library in Kraków, manuscript no. 6391), only one given name appears: Konrad. And that sole given name was used in their letters by his parents, Ewa, née Bobrowska, and Apollo Korzeniowski, as well as by all members of the family.
- "He himself signed himself with this single given name in letters to Poles. And this single given name, and the surname 'Korzeniowski,' figured in his passport and other official documents. For example, when 'Joseph Conrad' visited his native land after a long absence in 1914, just at the outbreak of World War I, the papers issued to him by the military authorities of the Imperial-Royal Austro-Hungarian Monarchy called him 'Konrad Korzeniowski.'"[21]
- ^ "Russia's defeat by Britain, France and Turkey [in the Crimean War] had once again raised hopes of Polish independence. Apollo celebrated his son's christening with a characteristic patriotic–religious poem: "To my son born in the 85th year of Muscovite oppression". It alluded to the partition of 1772, burdened the new-born [...] with overwhelming obligations, and urged him to sacrifice himself as Apollo would for the good of his country: 'Bless you, my little son: Be a Pole! Though foes May spread before you A web of happiness Renounce it all: love your poverty... Baby, son, tell yourself You are without land, without love, Without country, without people, While Poland – your Mother is in her grave For only your Mother is dead – and yet She is your faith, your palm of martyrdom... This thought will make your courage grow, Give Her and yourself immortality.'"[26]
- ^ "X" is the Roman numeral for "Ten".
- ^ It was still an age of exploration, in which Poles participated: Paweł Edmund Strzelecki mapped the Australian interior; the writer Sygurd Wiśniowski, having sailed twice around the world, described his experiences in Australia, Oceania and the United States; Jan Kubary, a veteran of the 1863 Uprising, explored the Pacific islands.
- ^ Joseph Spiridion's full name was "Joseph Spiridion Kliszczewski" but he used the abbreviated form, presumably from deference to British ignorance of Polish pronunciation. Conrad seems to have picked up this idea from Spiridion: in his fourth letter, he signed himself "J. Conrad"—the first recorded use of his future pen name.[49]
- ^ A quarter-century later, in 1916, when Casement was sentenced to death for treason, Conrad, though he had hoped Casement would not be so sentenced, declined to join an appeal for clemency by many English writers, including Conrad's friend John Galsworthy.[54] In 1920 Conrad told his niece Karola Zagórska, visiting him in England: "Casement did not hesitate to accept honours, decorations and distinctions from the English Government while surreptitiously arranging various affairs that he was embroiled in. In short: he was plotting against those who trusted him."[55]
- ^ A comprehensive account of Conrad's Malay fiction is given by Robert Hampson.[66]
- ^ After The Mirror of the Sea was published on 4 October 1906 to good, sometimes enthusiastic reviews by critics and fellow writers, Conrad wrote his French translator: "The critics have been vigorously swinging the censer to me.... Behind the concert of flattery, I can hear something like a whisper: 'Keep to the open sea! Don't land!' They want to banish me to the middle of the ocean."[67]
- ^ Serialization in periodicals, of installments often written from issue to issue, was standard practice for 19th- and early-20th-century novelists. It was done, for example, by Charles Dickens in England, and by Bolesław Prus in Poland.
- ^ Najder argued that "three factors, national, personal, and social, converge[d] to exacerbate his financial difficulties: the traditional Polish impulse to cut a dash even if it means going into debt; the personal inability to economize; and the silent pressure to imitate the lifestyle of the [British] wealthy middle class to avoid being branded... a denizen of the abyss of poverty..."[71]
- ^ Conrad renounced the grant in a 2 June 1917 letter to the Paymaster General.[73]
- ^ "Although Konrad had been absolutely certain of accompanying Captain Escarras on his next voyage, the Bureau de l'Inscription forbade him to go on the grounds of his being a 21-year-old alien who was under the obligation of... military service in his own country. Then it was discovered... he had never had a permit from his [c]onsul—the ex-Inspector of the Port of Marseilles was summoned who... had [certified] the existence of such a permit—he was... reprimanded and nearly lost his job—which was undoubtedly very unpleasant for Konrad. The whole affair became... widely known, and all endeavors by... Captain [Escarras] and the ship-owner [Jean-Baptiste Delestang] proved fruitless... and Konrad was forced to stay behind with no hope of serving on French vessels. However, before all this happened another catastrophe—this time financial—befell him. While still in possession of the 3,000 fr[ancs] sent to him for the voyage, he met his former captain, Mr. Duteil, who persuaded him to participate in some enterprise on the coasts of Spain—some kind of contraband! He invested 1,000 fr[ancs] in it and made over 400, which pleased them greatly, so... on the second occasion he put in all he had—and lost the lot. ... Duteil... then went off to Buenos Aires. ... Konrad was left behind, unable to sign on for a ship—poor as a church mouse and, moreover, heavily in debt—for while speculating he had lived on credit... [H]e borrows 800 fr[ancs] from his [German] friend [Richard] Fecht and sets off for... Villefranche, where an American squadron was anchored,... inten[ding to] join... the American service. He achieves nothing there and, wishing to improve his finances, tries his luck in Monte Carlo and loses the 800 fr[ancs] he had borrowed. Having managed his affairs so excellently, he returns to Marseilles and one fine evening invites his friend the creditor [Fecht] to tea, for an appointed hour, and before his arrival attempts to take his life with a revolver. (Let this detail remain between us, as I have been telling everyone that he was wounded in a duel....) The bullet goes... through... near his heart without damaging any vital organ. Luckily, all his addresses were left on top of his things so that this worthy Mr. Fecht could instantly let me know... ... Apart from the 3,000 fr[ancs] which [Konrad] had lost, I had to pay as much again to settle his debts. Had he been my own son, I wouldn't have done it, but... in the case of my beloved sister's son, I had the weakness to act against [my] principles... Nevertheless, I swore that even if I knew that he would shoot himself a second time—there would be no repetition of the same weakness on my part. To some extent, also, I was influenced by considerations of our national honor, so that it should not be said that one of us had exploited the affection, which Konrad undoubtedly enjoyed, of all those with whom he came into contact.... My study of the Individual has convinced me that he is not a bad boy, only one who is extremely sensitive, conceited, reserved, and in addition excitable. In short, I found in him all the defects of the Nałęcz family. He is able and eloquent—he has forgotten nothing of his Polish although, since he left [Kraków], I was the first person he conversed with in his native tongue. He appears to know his profession well and to like it. [He declined Bobrowski's suggestion that he return to Poland, maintaining that he loved his profession.]..."[75]
- ^ Fifteen years earlier, in 1899, Conrad had been greatly upset when the novelist Eliza Orzeszkowa, responding to a misguided article by Wincenty Lutosławski, had expressed views similar to Dłuska's.[93]
- ^ On another occasion, in a 14 February 1901 letter to his namesake Józef Korzeniowski, a librarian at Kraków's Jagiellonian University, Conrad had written, partly in reference to some Poles' accusation that he had deserted the Polish cause by writing in English: "It is widely known that I am a Pole and that Józef Konrad are my [given] names, the latter being used by me as a surname so that foreign mouths should not distort my real surname—a distortion which I cannot stand. It does not seem to me that I have been unfaithful to my country by having proved to the English that a gentleman from the Ukraine [Conrad had been born in a part of Ukraine that had belonged to Poland before 1793] can be as good a sailor as they, and has something to tell them in their own language."[94]
- ^ Conrad's enthusiasm for Prus contrasted with his low regard for other Polish novelists of the time, including Eliza Orzeszkowa, Henryk Sienkiewicz, and Stefan Żeromski.[99]
- ^ Soon after World War I, Conrad said of Piłsudski: "He was the only great man to emerge on the scene during the war." Conrad added: "In some aspects he is not unlike Napoleon, but as a type of man he is superior. Because Napoleon, his genius apart, was like all other people and Piłsudski is different."[101]
- ^ Conrad's own letters to his uncle in Ukraine, writes Najder, were destroyed during World War I.
- ^ In a second edition of Anticipations (1902), Wells included a note at the end of chapter 1 acknowledging a suggestion regarding "the possibility (which my friend Mr. Joseph Conrad has suggested to me) of sliding cars along practically frictionless rails."
- ^ This may have been Conrad's central insight that so enthralled Lady Ottoline Morrell and Bertrand Russell (see "Impressions").[116]
- ^ Conrad's simile of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness may be an example of his use, without conscious plagiaristic intent, of an image remembered from another writer's work, in this case from Charles Dickens' 1854 novel Hard Times, part 1, chapter 5: "the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness."
- ^ Conrad had sailed in 1887 on the Highland Forest under Captain John McWhir, a 34-year-old Irishman. In Typhoon, Conrad gave the same name, with an additional r, to the much older master of the Nan-Shan.[129]
- ^ Another inspiration for "Amy Foster" likely was an incident in France in 1896 when, as his wife Jessie recalled, Conrad "raved... speaking only in his native tongue and betraying no knowledge of who I might be. For hours I remained by his side watching the feverish glitter of his eyes that seemed fixed on some object outside my vision, and listening to the meaningless phrases and lengthy speeches, not a word of which I could understand.... All that night Joseph Conrad continued to rave in Polish, a habit he kept up every time any illness had him in its grip."[137]
- ^ The book was Frederick Benton Williams' On Many Seas: The Life and Exploits of a Yankee Sailor (1897).[139]
- ^ In Nostromo, echoes can also be heard of Alexandre Dumas' biography of Garibaldi, who had fought in South America.[146]
- ^ Conrad's wife Jessie wrote that, during Conrad's malaria attack on their honeymoon in France in 1896, he "raved... speaking only in his native tongue and betraying no knowledge of who I might be. For hours I remained by his side watching the feverish glitter of his eyes... and listening to the meaningless phrases and lengthy speeches, not a word of which I could understand."[155]
- ^ Fidanza is an Italian expression for "fidelity".
- ^ Conrad was a trilingual Pole: Polish-, French-, and English-speaking.
- ^ At this juncture, Conrad attempted to join the U.S. Navy.[75]
- ^ Still, Conrad retained a fluency in Polish and French that was more than adequate for ordinary purposes. When at a loss for an English expression, he would use a French one or describe a Polish one, and he often spoke and corresponded with Anglophones and others in French; while speaking and corresponding with Poles in Polish.[197]
- ^ Conrad's knowledge of French, Latin, German—the root stocks of the English language—and of Polish (since the Middle Ages, much-calqued on Latin) would have been of great assistance to him in acquiring the English language (albeit not its pronunciation).[40] Conrad's knowledge of Polish, with its mostly phonemic alphabet, would have helped him master French and English spelling, much as Mario Pei's knowledge of Italian gave him an "advantage to be able to memorize the written form of an English word in the phonetic pronunciation that such a written form would have had in my native Italian."[199] This ability would, of course, by itself have done nothing to ensure Conrad's command of English pronunciation, which remained always strange to Anglophone ears.[200] It is difficult to master the pronunciation of an unfamiliar language after puberty, and Conrad was 20 before he first stepped onto English soil.
- ^ Conrad's own letters written between 1869 and 1894 to his uncle Tadeusz Bobrowski were destroyed in a fire.[225]
- ^ Jeffrey Meyers remarks: "[T]he [Nobel] Prize [in literature] usually went to safe mediocrities and Conrad, like most of his great contemporaries... did not win it."[235]
- ^ Five of Conrad's close friends had accepted knighthoods, and six others would later do so. On the other hand, Rudyard Kipling and John Galsworthy had already declined knighthood.[235]
- ^ Conrad subtly acknowledged his Polish heritage by using his Nałęcz coat-of-arms as a cover device on an edition of his collected works.[204]
- ^ Peter Matthiessen consistently spoke of Conrad as a substantial influence on his work. [10 Paris Review with Peter Matthiessen].
- ^ The title of Rushdie's Joseph Anton: A Memoir conflates the given names of Joseph Conrad and Anton Chekhov, two of Rushdie's favourite authors.
- ^ Najder quotes a letter from Bobrowski, of 9 November 1891, containing the Latin expression.[250]
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