Nostromo (Silhouette Folktales)

by Joseph Conrad

Nostromo (Silhouette Folktales)

published

April 30th 1997 (first published 1904) by Broadview Press

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binding

Paperback, 588 pages

isbn

1551110741 (isbn13: 9781551110745)

description

Nostromo, first published in 1904, is arguably Conrad's greatest and most complex novel. A compelling adventure story, it is also a novel of profound...more

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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 751)

All ratings | 5 stars (111) | 4 stars (171) | 3 stars (118) | 2 stars (42) | 1 star (11) | avg 3.75

all | this edition

Matt

Matt rated it:

(review of isbn 0486424529)

02/13/08

bookshelves: best-of-the-best, classic-literature

Read in September, 2007

Conrad is cynical, in the best sense of that word. Lord Jim was one of my favorite books, and Nostromo is probably even better. Although it is difficult to become acquainted with the characters at first, the reader cannot help but understand them in a profound way by the end. Conrad's worldview is disturbing but also compelling, as he uses character, symbolism, and allegory to tell a realistic story with an abundance of lessons.

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Dalebrayden

Dalebrayden rated it:

(review of isbn 0486424529)

07/29/08

bookshelves: adventure, fiction

Read in July, 2008

Nostromo was a difficult read for me. I started this book many years ago and gave up after the first 50 pages. This time I plowed through, and I'm glad I did. There's a lot of depth to this novel, but you don't see it until about halfway in.

The story takes place in a fictional South American country called Costaguana at the turn of the 20th century. An Englishman named Charles Gould has inherited a ruined mining concession, and undertakes to restore it, mostly as a means of sticking a...more Nostromo was a difficult read for me. I started this book many years ago and gave up after the first 50 pages. This time I plowed through, and I'm glad I did. There's a lot of depth to this novel, but you don't see it until about halfway in.

The story takes place in a fictional South American country called Costaguana at the turn of the 20th century. An Englishman named Charles Gould has inherited a ruined mining concession, and undertakes to restore it, mostly as a means of sticking a thumb in the eye of the corrupt Costaguana government that caused the ruin of the mine, and the ruin of Gould's father. The title character, Nostromo, is an Italian sailor named Gian' Battista Fidanza, who works as the cargo manager at the port of Sulaco, the city where the action takes place. He is a man of nearly superhuman ability and moral courage, seen as indispensable by the European owners and managers in Sulaco. Despite his great value, his financial rewards are few.

The Gould mining concession is an irresistible prize for the Costaguana government. A few generals stage a military coup, claiming to be democrats and men of the people, with the aim of seizing the mine's wealth. Charles Gould will have none of it, and would rather destroy the mine than have it fall into the hands of the brigands who are coming to seize it.

So at one level the novel addresses issues of colonialism, and in a way that I'm not too happy about. The locals are characterized as thieves, lazy, indigent, greasy, unkempt, venal, crude, and so on, while the Europeans are, for the most part, depicted as idealistic, selfless, beleaguered, and enlightened. But, as always with Conrad, the picture is not quite so cut and dried. Nostromo, and his would-be adopted father Giorgio Viola, an ex captain in the army of Garibaldi, a dedicated republican (in the old sense meaning in favor of liberty), see the Europeans as the exploiters that they are - of course, they themselves are European, but have a moral and philosophical bias towards the downtrodden. And the Europeans themselves are shown to be obsessed by their need to extract the maximum wealth from the country, while treating the local people as mere means towards that end.

The real interest of the novel is in its psychological portraits of the principal characters. Conrad is comfortable with complexity of character, and his characters are never paper cutouts - each one of the major characters in this novel have conflicting desires, and the novel is in some ways a working out of those internal conflicts. Actually there is one exception to this: Captain Mitchell, the local agent for the main shipping company in Sulaco, is a completely self unaware person, who fancies himself a person of deep perception and great courage, but possessing neither. He serves as a kind of quasi-comic foil to the real players: Nostromo, Charles Gould and his wife Emily, Martin Decoud, Giorgio Viola and his wife and daughters, and Dr. Monygham.

This is a novel very well worth reading. Conrad stands out amongst authors of his era for the way that he embraces psychological and social ambiguity. He was a modern writer in that sense, and a realist.

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Jukka

Jukka added it (review of isbn 014018371X)

10/29/08

bookshelves: no-girlz-allowed

Nostromo (1904) - Joseph Conrad
My book club shared a read of The Red Tent by Anita Diamant and as it turned out i liked it more than probably most of those in club, or perhaps that's just more than what they wanted me to. At the end of our discussion and in reaction i was asked to pick a guy's book for our next read. Without hesitation i said, "Nostromo" and it was agreed.

This book has reputation! Conrad for starters is just known for his tales; stori...more

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Tait

Tait rated it:

(review of isbn 0486424529)

09/17/08

bookshelves: east-european, literature, school

Read in September, 2008

The most important of Conrad's novels, Nostromo is probably one of the densest stories I've ever read (Joyce's writing aside). Detailing the history, landscape, political struggles, and desperate citizens of an entire imaginary South American country takes a lot of attention on the part of the reader, but is was well worth it for intricate plot and brilliantly written characters (although it offers a rather bleak picture of human nature in which every major protagonist fails due to their intern...more

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Matthew

Matthew rated it:

(review of isbn 014018371X)

05/17/08

After reading Lord Jim I looked forward to diving into Nostromo which, according to the introduction of my edition, is the best of Conrad's novels. And it's not hard to see why this book would be a darling of reviewers. With its sweeping scope that combines a rich cast of characters with history-in-the-making style swashbuckling and its willingness to tackle issues of morality, social responsibility, colonialism and the corrupting influence of wealth, Nostromo is a Big Novel...more After reading Lord Jim I looked forward to diving into Nostromo which, according to the introduction of my edition, is the best of Conrad's novels. And it's not hard to see why this book would be a darling of reviewers. With its sweeping scope that combines a rich cast of characters with history-in-the-making style swashbuckling and its willingness to tackle issues of morality, social responsibility, colonialism and the corrupting influence of wealth, Nostromo is a Big Novel in every way. Unfortunately, these ambitions coincide with the not inconsiderable flaws of this work (and Conrad's writing in general).

The action of the novel shifts between multiple time frames and perspectives as it chronicles a revolution in a fictional South American country, Costaguana. Over the course of the book we learn about the local legends of the province where the narrative is set, Sulaco, including tales about the disappearance of two thieving gringos who haunt the mountains due to their greed. We meet characters like the stalwart Charles Gould, who controls a silver mine and is trying to save it from the corrupt government; Dr. Monygham, an embittered survivor of torture at the hands of a previous corrupt government; Martin Decoud, a Constaguanan-turned-Parisian flaneur who becomes a firebrand journalist in the cause of revolution; an unready figurehead president named Ribiera and a delusional tyrant-in-waiting named Montero; and, incidentally, a heroic man-of-the-people called Nostromo.

If this list seems slightly overwhelming that's because, well, it is. (It would also be considerably longer, but my copy of the book is currently in storage, so these are only the bits that stand out im memory). Nostromo has the scope and complexity of magical realist works like One Hundred Years of Solitude but is burdened with Conrad's obsession with psychological nuance which robs this book of the light touch that allows writers like Marquez to skim over the history of an entire nation without leaving the reader bewildered.

The result, at its best, is a formidable War and Peace-style sense of great events unfolding. More often though, what remains is a mess of beautifully written episodes that never quite harmonize, or create a sense of forward momentum. In the end, I'd file this one under the "magnificent failure" category....less

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Chris

Chris rated it:

(review of isbn 1593081936)

05/03/07

Read in September, 2005

recommends it for: Conrad-ists, Fair and/or Free Traders, [Anti-]Imperialists, Failed Capitalists and Anarchists.

Nostromo is a weird, recursive baggy monster of a novel, but it's also brilliant. The plot, quickly, is the following: An American-backed silver mining company attempts to overthrow the government of an unstable Latin American country, and all hell breaks loose; the most honorable man in town, Nostromo, is caught in the middle. As in other novels, Conrad perfectly captures the ugly interior lives of white westerners dangerously out of their element. Here, however, that's thrown in alongside a sc...more Nostromo is a weird, recursive baggy monster of a novel, but it's also brilliant. The plot, quickly, is the following: An American-backed silver mining company attempts to overthrow the government of an unstable Latin American country, and all hell breaks loose; the most honorable man in town, Nostromo, is caught in the middle. As in other novels, Conrad perfectly captures the ugly interior lives of white westerners dangerously out of their element. Here, however, that's thrown in alongside a scathing sketch of a multinational corporation, and an equal dose of sarcasm towards local revolutionaries (here, the fictonal Costa Guana, or Coast of Bird-sh**). Conrad's great trick is that Nostromo feels as on point today -- about economic and miliary interventionism, political opportunism, nativism -- as it probably did back then, but for different reasons. I underlined the hell out of my copy, hundreds of little graphite lines standing in for poor literary epihanies, and I was amazed that when I picked a first edition of the book (1906, I think) off the bookshelf of an early 20th century public figure, he had made check-marks besides some of the same points, and some points that were downright scary.

That said, this is not an approachable book, and I understand why some people might not like it. It has a lot of characters, and it does some weird things with time that are parsable today, given our experiences with disjointed story-telling, but likely helped contribute to its bad rap as "lesser Conrad" back in the day. Maybe I would kind of call it a Polish-born Anglophile's shot at Tolstoy in Latin America. And while it's no War & Peace (it's got more in common with Les Mis, actually), it hits some other weird sweet spot, the epic, multi-character political and psychological Russian potboiler ground up in a pirated-from-the-future post-modern pseudo Latin American meat-grinder. You know, THAT genre.

It's endearing but it wears its flaws proudly. Nostromo is like that friend of yours from college, whom you spent hours talking to late at night about art, politics and the entire world, but whom you don't talk to anymore because they "failed to launch" or they piss you off sometimes, with their currently extreme arch-conservative/anarchist politics. But they're terrific people, idealistic and jaded, utterly thrilling and densely plotted and plotting. You really should give them a call. Maybe you can read Nostromo together....less

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Ali

Ali rated it:

(review of isbn 0486424529)

05/06/07

bookshelves: novels

در هم ریختن زمان در روایت به ویلیام فالکتر نسبت داده می شود، و کمتر منتقدی در این مورد به جوزف کنراد اشاره کرده است که پیش از فالکنر، ابتدا در لرد جیم (اواخر قرن نوزده) و سپس عمیق تر و پیچیده تر در نوسترامو (اوایل قرن بیستم) درهم ریختن زمان را تجربه کرده است. نوسترامو که وقایع آن د...more

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Karl

Karl rated it:

(review of isbn 0486424529)

01/11/08

I haven't finished this yet. But I'm not currently reading it. It's a long story. I'm probably 200 pages in.

This is probably the most difficult book to read that I've ever wanted to keep reading. Conrad's words are amazing - I just realize my own limitations when I say sometimes I just don't get what the fuck is going on.

But unlike some "classics" (Ulysses? really? Has anyone ever finished this?) Nostromo actually pays off someone who gives it the attention it deserves.
...more

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Rachel

Rachel rated it:

(review of isbn 0486424529)

03/20/08

Read in January, 2006

I can't remember when I first read about the capataz; I know I've gone back many times since. A strange, unexpected, totally unconventional, and perfect book; a novel about obsession, fidelity/betrayal, and revolution, haunted by some of Conrad's most fascinating characters, particularly Dr Monygham and Nostromo himself. Though A Tale of Two Cities is and always will be my favorite novel, Nostromo comes in at a close second ~ and would be the one I'd study if I were set to write a novel, this n...more

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Lisbeth

Lisbeth rated it:

(review of isbn 0192816241)

07/11/08

bookshelves: book-group

Read in July, 2008

This was a struggle at first, but rewarding at last. It is a singular work, quite unlike anything else I have read. Conrad's recursive, tangential writing style and many characters did remind me sometimes of Gabriel Garcia Marquez (though, of course, Conrad came first); that makes sense, if Conrad (as someone remarked at book group) based his imaginary republic on Colombia.

Loved the doctor as foil for Nostromo, "our man," the Capataz. I also enjoyed many of the very vivid descript...more

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Tara

Tara rated it:

(review of isbn 0141183098)

05/24/08

bookshelves: 100-books, adult-fiction, own

Read in May, 2008

Like 'Heart of Darkness' I think it's a book that I'm more pleased to have read than I was to be *reading*, if that makes any sense at all. I like Conrad's writing style, but I thought the structure of 'Nostromo' didn't do it any favours. The entire first part seemed unnecessary to me, and it makes the book extremely hard to get into. If you manage to persevere until the second and final parts, however, there's a good story amidst the descriptive passages. I didn't find many of the characters at...more

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Travis

Travis rated it:

(review of isbn 0809599287)

05/24/07

Konrad- artist, gunrunner, anticolonialist, pyschotic. love him as i do, his critique of capitalism ignores key aspects and effects. enjoyed his ideas about man's compulsion to reshape his world, and perhaps the futility there...

"Every cause is tainted: and you reject this one, espouse that other one as if one were evil and the other good while the same evil you hate is in both, but disguised in different words...Alas! What you want to reform are not institutions- it is human natur...more

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Rich Martin

Rich rated it:

(review of isbn 0486424529)

11/06/08

Dark, tragic book, as good as "Heart of Darkness."
A quote: "At no time of the world's history have men been at a loss how inflict mental and bodily anguish upon their fellow creatures."

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Josh

Josh marked it as to-read (review of isbn 1593081936)

11/16/08

bookshelves: my-books, to-read

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George

George added it (review of isbn 0140287418)

11/14/08

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David

David added it (review of isbn 0679409904)

11/12/08

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Gilbert

Gilbert added it (review of isbn 0192801546)

11/12/08

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Lindsey

Lindsey marked it as to-read (review of isbn 0486424529)

11/08/08

bookshelves: to-read

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Alex

Alex rated it:

(review of isbn 0486424529)

11/06/08

Read in May, 2007

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Asier

Asier rated it:

(review of isbn 1853261742)

11/04/08

bookshelves: currently-reading

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avg rating (all editions): 3.75 (454 ratings)
avg rating (this edition): 3.33 (3 ratings)
number of reviews: 45

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