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The Secret Sharer

Joseph Conrad

3.61 · Rating details · 3,962 ratings · 244 reviews

A young man sets out on his first voyage as captain, aboard a vessel and among a crew that are equally unfamiliar to him. A mysterious night-swimmer climbs aboard, and, in keeping the presence of this fugitive a secret, the skipper risks both his captaincy and the safety of his ship. A test of nerve in the Gulf of Siam ensues.

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Paperback, 64 pages

Published September 9th 2007 by FQ Publishing (first published 1910)

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Mar 07, 2013 Lyn rated it really liked it

The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad is a short story / novella of less than 100 pages, yet in it Conrad demonstrates as many great writers do, the simple, elegant power of the short work. Here the writer can succinctly deliver a forceful message in economic fashion.

The Secret Sharer is like many of his works (most?) about the seas and a man’s command of a vessel. Also like many of his works, the setting is in the South Seas and we find our narrator taking his first command near the Gulf of Siam. ...more

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Jul 31, 2012 Manny rated it it was amazing

One of my all-time favorite authors is Joseph Conrad. His exploration of the human condition as reflected by the men who toil at sea is as profound as any philosophical dissertation by any name philosopher. His theme is man against nature or man against men, His yarns are full of events both in the inner and outer worlds of journeyers at sea or water. "The Heart of Darkness" of course is essential to his success and esteem as an author/adventurer. But he has many other tales that I've read and ...more

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Mar 26, 2009 Richard rated it really liked it

Shelves: classic, fiction, short-story-or-stories

Late update appended.

(I actually read this novelette in a combined edition with Conrad's Heart of Darkness, but thought I'd switch to this edition for a full review.)

The Secret Sharer is a peculiar story. It is quick -- the whole thing is only a few dozen pages long, and can be read in something like an hour. And it is certainly not complex: the plot is very basic.

Conrad's prose is a pleasure to read, as always. Despite the fact that it was written towards the end of the Edwardian period, an odd ...more

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Oct 22, 2017 Goth Gone Grey rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, fiction, 2017

Dark psychological sailing story

A classic tale of a new captain, unfamiliar and unpopular with his crew, and the naked murderer, Leggatt, found overboard, a doppelganger for the unnamed captain in mind and appearance. The book opens with long descriptive sentences, a overflow of words to set the scene.

Leggatt comes aboard in the middle of the night, unseen for the entire short story by any but the captain. The psychological drama of the interaction between the two men reminds me of Poe's ...more

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Jan 27, 2009 Daniel rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2009

How do British and American writers avoid being overwhelmed with feelings of envy and shame when reading Joseph Conrad? He was, after all, one of the English language's greatest prose stylists, and it wasn't his first or even second language. (Polish came first and French second for the novelist born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski.) "The Secret Sharer," given its brevity, would be a fine introduction to anyone unfamiliar with Conrad. It's also more approachable than "Heart of Darkness," which ...more

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Oct 06, 2012 Darwin8u rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013

2013 has definitely been my year of doppelgänger books. 'The Secret Sharer' belongs on the shelf next to Doestoevsky's 'the Double', Nabokov's 'Despair', Highsmith's 'The Talented Mr. Ripley', and Roth's 'Operation Shylock' and probably 'the Epic of Gilgamesh' too.

These are all great doppelgänger books, and Conrad's 'Secret Sharer' is not inferior to any of them. Conrad constantly delivers on the nuance of his language, his thought, and his absolute control of the English language.

Conrad's ...more

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Mar 18, 2014 Robert rated it really liked it

The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad is often a companion piece to other Conrad tales, usually Heart of Darkness, and so the years have passed and I never read this story until tonight because the headline story always caught my attention.

The Secret Sharer is a story, not a novella, though it’s a long one, and it’s a perfect example of Conrad using the setting of the southeast Asian seas as a kind of metaphysical symbol for the totality of existence. He depicts beauty, tranquility, boredom, The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad is often a companion piece to other Conrad tales, usually Heart of Darkness, and so the years have passed and I never read this story until tonight because the headline story always caught my attention.

The Secret Sharer is a story, not a novella, though it’s a long one, and it’s a perfect example of Conrad using the setting of the southeast Asian seas as a kind of metaphysical symbol for the totality of existence. He depicts beauty, tranquility, boredom, discipline, contentiousness and the travails of the human psyche out there, all in beautifully cadenced sentences that capture the rhythms of life aboard ship under hot suns and fickle winds.

In this case, Conrad adds piquancy. A young captain finds himself harboring a man who has fled another ship because he had murdered a shipmate during a storm. He keeps this man, who swims to him, hidden in his compartment, and the man becomes something like a double--he’s often referred to as such--but even better something like the Cain in everyone, the dark side of the captain, his doubts about his worthiness to command a vessel, his questions about his judgments and authority, the pressures placed on anyone, really, who is wallowing about the seas and has too much time to think and too little to think with or about...except himself.

The double is a seemingly inexhaustible fixture in literature. Writers use it to get at aspects of a character that can’t be deployed in a single personality. They use it to posit innocence on the one hand and original sin on the other. They use it to make irony concrete and capture the unease that underlies almost every personality. There is waking life and there is dream life. There is private life and there is public life. Humor and tragedy. Doubles serve all these features of existence.

The beauty of Conrad’s writing is that his thoughtfulness is embedded in the events of the narrative. There are certainly moments when he pauses to let a narrator philosophize, but his real gift is to turn a ship, or a city, into a kind of a stage where the action unfolds the meaning without calling excessive attention to itself.

What any double does for each of us, of course, is bring us to the fork in the road, Frost’s road not taken, and push us to ask whether it matters what destiny holds in store for us...if it could just as well be quite different in the life of the double.

Yet at the same time, Conrad finds a kind of adhesion between his two figures, the captain and the stowaway, a moral bond, an element of concern. They part ways and yet they don’t. Years later they will remember this peculiar episode, and the risks each took to arrange a final parting.

For his clarity, his descriptiveness, his insight, his economy of plot and symbol, Conrad has always represented for me a writer of fiction of the first order. Yes, he’s a romantic of sorts, but the discipline of the ship keeps him honest.

If you’ve read The Secret Sharer, it’s worth rereading. If not, it’s worth taking up for a first time. Here is fiction that is one thing, a single piece of tapestry, that unfolds with uninterrupted excellence, the diction right, the minor characters right, the deeper quandaries of the main characters right. ...more

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Jun 11, 2014 Dan rated it really liked it

Conrad's unusual style very much lends itself to this sort of mysterious tale where we aren't sure if we inhabit a world of ghosts or our own. At times I kept thinking to myself Poe would have recognized this story since so much of the tension is happening in the captain's mind.

Unlike a lot of Conrad, however, The Secret Sharer is not trying to be obtuse in how it handles its theme - identity in this case (though that's always Conrad's theme). Nostromo, Heart of Darkness, and especially Lord Jim Conrad's unusual style very much lends itself to this sort of mysterious tale where we aren't sure if we inhabit a world of ghosts or our own. At times I kept thinking to myself Poe would have recognized this story since so much of the tension is happening in the captain's mind.

Unlike a lot of Conrad, however, The Secret Sharer is not trying to be obtuse in how it handles its theme - identity in this case (though that's always Conrad's theme). Nostromo, Heart of Darkness, and especially Lord Jim are dense, almost opaque works that behave like a fitted sheet too small for the bed; you can get three corners figured out, but never a fourth and around and around you go. And while Conrad never lets slip if Leggatt is physical or phantom, that concern is not front and center to the plot because he is more interested in how our unnamed captain deals with this mystery man.

In a way it's sort of a clunky plot device, but Conrad handles it well enough and makes Leggatt illusive enough so that he doesn't need to try and explain him too much. He is, for the most part, exactly like our narrator (even in appearance), but represents an alter personality. Where Leggatt would easily kill a man for not doing his duty, our narrator is more of a rules and regulations man - a man of little experience.

There's a wonderful image near the beginning where a scorpion gets into a bottle of ink and drowns. This fascinating image could mean that all the written rules and regulations will mean nothing when a person truly needs to act, or it could mean laws and papers only get in the way of how men should (and must) behave. There can always be deception in the act of writing, but actions speak louder than words, even those written down. In fact the other captain, Captain Archbold, admits he'll claim Leggatt committed suicide to avoid any nasty consequences and perhaps ruin his own career over it.

The other ideas of coming of age, of a young man learning to take command and setting aside his own doubts is clear enough here, however, we should realize that our captain is unnamed and that he must become like someone else, Leggatt. Our captain was, in many ways, not good enough to lead, he was chosen over other candidates more qualified (probably) and so he must assume a role, he must not remain himself if he wants to succeed. There is no hint that the strength lay within him the whole time, he had to assume a new identity.

This is an unsettling thought because what Conrad seems to be saying is that in order to succeed we cannot rely on our true nature, we have to become something else. The mate, for example, is always described as having this interesting beard, almost like a lions mane, but isn't he also hiding behind a persona? Isn't he also frightened as they sail so close to the island? Couldn't he have struck our captain, taken command, and steered the ship to safety himself? But he didn't and he betrayed to us his true nature.

So as usual Conrad is not so simple as we first think, far more is going on here and what we assume to be one thing is actually something else.

...more

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May 21, 2013 Victoria rated it liked it

Recommends it for: Fans of Joseph Conrad, or people who want to read a Conrad work shorter than HoD

Shelves: classics, owned-books

My eyes caress the delicate words strewn across the page, tasting the sweet nectar and experiencing the literary pleasure only a skilful painter of words can bring, the existence of the words intertwining with the essence of my being, stroking my heart and stoking the fire of my mind...

Uhmmmm... bleh. I'm sorry you read that. :/

Now that I've gotten my rather sorry attempt at being the next Joseph Conrad out of my system, I'll keep going with this review. ;)

The Secret Sharer is the second Joseph ...more

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Feb 16, 2017 Imene Tl rated it liked it

A nice quick read yet I wished the plot was a bit more complex. It's my first Joseph Conrad read and definitely not the last for I very much enjoyed his writing style.

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Nov 03, 2016 Chris rated it really liked it

It's very interesting how one can so intimately relate to someone who is an absolute stranger - Conrad captures this so unbelievably well, to the point of the narrator's potential self-destruction. The man is entirely willing to sacrifice his livelihood, his career, the opinion of his men, and even the ship of which he is captain... for the sake of a complete stranger.

But it's also a selfish act. As much as the narrator believes this stranger to be a mirror of his own self, as much as he feels ...more

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Feb 10, 2015 Nick rated it really liked it

Second reading--Conrad' s tale of a novice sea captain viewed with uncertainty by his crew who, alone on-deck one night, discovers a naked "man from the sea" clinging to his boat. The man, Leggat, is a killer, but the narrator, unnamed, keeps him as a stowaway out of an instinctual affection for Leggat, and the knowledge that he is capable of the same crime. The choice to name one but not the other is significant, as the two take on a sometimes overly obvious dual role, with Leggat (named, hence ...more

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Jan 10, 2018 Holly McKie rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: university

Meh. Wouldn't have finished this if it wasn't for uni.

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Apr 01, 2017 Valorie rated it really liked it

Shelves: grad-school, fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Nov 26, 2018 Gary rated it it was amazing

You read and read, but there stands Conrad.

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Feb 02, 2018 Bob Newman rated it it was amazing

New Skipper Saves Swimmer, Shows Moxie

Joseph Conrad wrote a number of classic novels. This is one of them. Like some sort of literary health tonic packed full of vitamins, minerals, and health-restoring properties, , THE SECRET SHARER contains enough symbolism, ideas, and plot to keep analysts busy for centuries. It is full of sea lore, the nature of flat, tropic seas. It is hard to find an original thing to say in review, so much has been already written. The author operated at three levels. He New Skipper Saves Swimmer, Shows Moxie

Joseph Conrad wrote a number of classic novels. This is one of them. Like some sort of literary health tonic packed full of vitamins, minerals, and health-restoring properties, , THE SECRET SHARER contains enough symbolism, ideas, and plot to keep analysts busy for centuries. It is full of sea lore, the nature of flat, tropic seas. It is hard to find an original thing to say in review, so much has been already written. The author operated at three levels. He wrote an adventure story about an escaping murderer who "didn't mean to do it". The narrator, a sea captain on his first command, discovers Legatt, the murderer, in the sea beside his (the captain's) ship, saves him, hides him, and sympathizes with his predicament. They had gone to the same school in Britain, but did not know each other. Legatt's rescuer engages in all kinds of schemes and dissembling to prevent his discovery. Finally, the narrator-captain orders his ship off course, risks running aground, but helps Legatt to escape to a jungled Southeast Asian island. On a second level, Conrad makes the reader weigh the rights and wrongs of these actions. Such behavior-hiding a wanted man---is totally contrary to what is expected of a ship's captain; thus a terrible conflict is introduced into the story at once. Conrad introduces many pros and cons---Legatt did save his ship in a storm and committed the murder while doing so. He was given his seaman's job through pull, though, not through skill, and so, perhaps, was not equal to the captain, who had worked his way up. We have to consider the narrator-captain too, he lies, he behaves in a tricky fashion, and his subsequent erratic behavior undermines the confidence of his men.

Above all, THE SECRET SHARER, at 61 pages, one of the shortest great novels, is a psychological masterpiece. I am hardly the first to note that in fact, the two main characters, the honorable criminal and the criminal honorable man, may be one and the same. Legatt may be the narrator's alter-ego, the embodiment of his fears about his first command, guiding a ship through treacherous seas, commanding men he does not know. When Legatt jumps into the sea near Koh-ring, the captain realizes that he will be able to successfully command a ship. Legatt may be the captain's subconscious fears come to life, but the latter must hide the escapee as he must hide his fears. You may say that this novel is very cleverly constructed, or else Conrad touched his own subconscious in ways few writers ever have. In either case, it is a work of genius. ...more

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May 25, 2014 Melanti rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: short-story-novella, 2014, classics, e-book

This short, 35 page short story took me 2 1/2 hours to read. Not because it was dense, but because for every minute I read, I spent at least 5 minutes staring off into space... And while I admit the scenery was lovely (lake, the rainbow in the fountain, the tiny dog that wouldn't have known what to do with that duck if he'd managed to catch it, etc) I see that scenery all the time, and had no trouble concentrating on either of the books I read earlier in the afternoon. If staring off into space ...more

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Sep 26, 2014 Katy rated it it was ok

Short enough that I should have finished it in one sitting, but it did not keep my attention. Psychologically there is much more going on in the story than I caught upon this first reading. The story is one of the duality of the self, I think; as the captain changes from an uncertain commander to a better captain.

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Aug 31, 2016 Lauren Hawkins rated it liked it

Shelves: class-reading

I enjoyed the writing style, but the ship technicalities made it hard for me to get through. The plot was very slow until the last two pages.

(3-1/2 Stars)

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Aug 21, 2015 Tracy Reilly rated it it was amazing

Doppelgängers gone mad with intuition.

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Jul 15, 2018 Taylor rated it liked it

Shelves: novellas, classics, autobiographical, mtbr-2018, there-be-pirates

For the purposes of my Reading Challenge, I have logged both Heart of Darkness and The Secret Sharer separately, but ultimately read them in this 1981 Bantam classics version.

I rate this a HIGH 3/5 stars. I much preferred The Secret Sharer to Heart of Darkness , though whether or not this was because I was in a more Conrad-ish mood when I read it, or that I just found it to be more entertaining, I am unable to discern.

The Secret Sharer is a short story/novella that is more of a ...more

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Nov 16, 2017 Tyler Wong rated it liked it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Sharer is a drama novel somehow both minimal and scope and difficult to read through, with enough detail personal to his writing style to stay memorable. The plot is set against the Gulf of Siam on a nameless cargo ship headed towards Britain; centering upon the first-person perspective of its captain as a strange, coincidental circumstance subtly pits him against his own moral and duteous code. Like the ship, the central character is a nameless young captain newly Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Sharer is a drama novel somehow both minimal and scope and difficult to read through, with enough detail personal to his writing style to stay memorable. The plot is set against the Gulf of Siam on a nameless cargo ship headed towards Britain; centering upon the first-person perspective of its captain as a strange, coincidental circumstance subtly pits him against his own moral and duteous code. Like the ship, the central character is a nameless young captain newly placed as the leader of his crew, who have all had a history of having worked together before his induction. He is an insecure man, worried and distraught by his inherited exclusion from the rest of his crew members, who he fears all secretly resent him and consider him unworthy of leading them. His actions throughout the course of the story suggest that he is empathetic, so much so that his sense of self-sabotage is only fueled by such decisions as he nearly exposes himself in an act of delinquency to his peers upon illegally stowing away a potential criminal on the given word that his misdeeds had been accidental, and that he is innocent. The stowaway is said to be named Leggatt, a questionable and oddly similar man to the captain in appearance. While the captain is open to reflect on his anxieties for the reader to understand him as a character, Leggatt is tensely reserved and mysterious. He confidently explains to the captain that he is a murderer, having escaped the confines of his last ship The Sephora after accidentally killing another crew member while wrestling with him upon being propelled by a storm’s powerful wave. Despite this harrowing information, the young captain is swiftly blinded by their sudden chemistry, making his first acquaintance on the ship since boarding. This meeting between two isolated seafarers is what unfolds a quiet and odd story of morality.
The story opens with its narrator, an nameless young man, taking in the scenery and the situation before him as he re-evaluates his sudden authority. He is the new captain of an unnamed ship with the job of transporting crates from Siam to Britain. His fellow crew members have a history of having worked together and, with him being both an outsider of their social lives and their brand new leader, he feels alienated from the rest of the ship entirely. After spending time being pulled down along the Siam’s gulf by a steam tug, the ship makes a stop nearby some islands to await the rise of more winds so as sail independently out at sea. A conversation the captain has between two of his crew members over supper reveals that another ship named The Sephora has been docked nearby. In a quick effort to earn their respect, the captain volunteers himself to watch the ship overnight as the rest of the crew sleeps. Whilst pondering his relationships with both the crew members and the physical ship itself during the night, the captain is surprised to find a naked man in the water, holding onto the ladder connecting the ship to the dock but not climbing it. The man hesitantly introduces himself to the captain as Leggatt, a former crew member of the neighboring Sephora.
Leggatt makes a lightly humorous comparison between himself and the captain; stating that they are so similar in appearance and disposition that they might as well be the same person, especially so since he is given the captain’s clothes to wear. He explains to the captain that he had been stripped of his title as First Mate on The Sephora upon being accused of murdering a fellow member, wherein he and said member had been angrily wrestling on deck in the midst of a storm and were thrown by a wave against a wall. He has since been exiled into his cabin, before his adviser had accidentally forgotten to lock his door, allowing him to escape. The captain decides to hide Leggatt in his cabin from his crew on The Sephora as well as his own the ship in an illegal act of kindness, despite only having heard his side of the story. The next morning, the captain finds himself face to face with the captain of The Sephora, asking for any sign of the escapee. Rebuking his suspicions, the captain offers to allow The Sephora’s captain in his cabin, announcing his offer loudly enough for Leggatt to hear and be able to hide in time. Leggatt continues to go unnoticed as The Sephora’s captain exits the ship. Time goes on as the ship makes its way further down the gulf, and the captain’s growing fear of Leggatt being found begin to grow to the point that his crew members even begin to notice behavioral changes in his mannerisms, but do not question them. When the ship reaches closer to land, the captain tells Leggatt that he will steer the ship near an uninhabited island, so as to let him enter land unnoticed lest he be hanged. When the time comes for their plan to be set in action, the captain’s crew begin to openly question his navigation skills as he maneuvers his way towards the land but not enough to damage the ship by it. The captain looks out into the water ahead of him and recognizes his own hat afloat, which he had given to Leggatt prior to leaving him to lower himself into the water. The captain questions to himself the mere existence of Leggatt as he steers his ship away from the land, feeling more confident in himself knowing what he had just done.
The significant issue I had with this novel was that I had found myself growing more impatient with its narrative the longer I read. Perhaps it was only subjective to me that I did not find the story to be very eventful, but it definitely is a personal preference of mine to expect a better form of closure from a story with such limited space to work in in terms of entertainment value. I was not particularly invested in the novel’s plot, but I did find its author’s abilities in writing to be quite a fulfilling experience. Conrad’s choice of words came off to me as incredibly desolate yet so sensory, appropriately illustrating the captain’s perspective of the world with all vocabulary grimly pointing towards the loneliness that is weighing him down while on the ship. It was almost as if I could imagine myself present in the setting as I had read the events unraveling before me, but I cannot imagine that I would enjoy being there. There are several instances in which the first-person perspective of this novel is conveyed quite literally, as Conrad uses descriptors along the lines of “before me”, “to my left”, and “to my right”. I would not be surprised if I were to find that such word choices were made to make the experience of reading this book alike that of watching a film. If it were not for Conrad’s ability to articulate this first-person story being so engaging, I might have not enjoyed reading this novel at all. Overall, I feel as though the negatives of this novel do not outweigh its positives enough for me to not say that it was worth reading. I am still looking forward to reading Conrad’s other story “Heart of Darkness”, and watching its film adaptation “Apocalypse Now”. I believe this novel to be for any person with the patience to absorb a slow-moving narrative that will not serve their expectations for how a story will conclude. ...more

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Dec 17, 2017 Lynn rated it really liked it

Shelves: classics, short-stories, reread, classic-authors

I have been rereading some of my Literature textbooks from college. This selection "The Secret Sharer" was assigned to my literature class in 1981 I believe. I had the benefit of reading from a text already highlighted and with notes from long ago. Joseph Conrad is an amazing writer. He builds the environment so well. It is interesting to read a story set amongst the merchant marines when they still went to the Orient in sailing ships. The story itself is a classic unreliable narrator tale. My ...more

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Nov 21, 2009 Abe Something rated it liked it

I didn't think much if after I had read it. I was ambivalent at best. Until I began to recount it to a co-worker who asked what it had been about... I started at the beginning mentioned a few introductory details, the next thing I knew I pushing through the plot points and racing toward the conclusion - as I was talking I was becoming more and more excited, I was exuberantly recalling the final moments of the text where every thread came together in a white knuckled finale that was as unexpected ...more

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Mar 21, 2011 Brad rated it it was amazing

My favorite Conrad; a short story, not quite the length of a novella. The William Wilson of the sea. An eerie story about the complicity of a first-time captain with a stowaway who is guilty of murder. Some strange, almost mystical connection between the two threatens not only the captain's sanity, but eventually the fate of his ship.

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Sep 11, 2013 Jonathan rated it really liked it

Shelves: aquatica, novella, literature, read-2013, audio-book, reviewed

Killer language. Great storytelling. Could be mistaken for Kafka with some of those descriptions concerning man's consciousness with regards to his surroundings. My second Conrad and I plan to keep going.

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Nov 21, 2016 Saul Escalona rated it really liked it

4.0 stars
..mystical, elusive , powerfull...
I felt like observing a masterpiece painting but could not grasp the truest massage the artist wanted to convey.
Great story.
Good for a change of stage background. I mean bookwise.

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Aug 21, 2012 Sam Ruddick rated it liked it

i don't remember conrad being so overtly symbolic, but jeez buddy... beat me over the head a little more.

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Sep 10, 2019 Ashwin rated it liked it

The Secret Sharer is an odd story from Joseph Conrad. It tells a very simple tale about a captain who finds kinship with a runaway criminal and his consequent attempts at hiding the fugitive from his fellow seamen. And yet, despite this small premise, there was something inherently engaging about the product- like a conversation in a Tarantino movie, I found myself interested in the daily going-ons of the ship as the unnamed Captain mulls about, deciding how best to hide his secret sharer during The Secret Sharer is an odd story from Joseph Conrad. It tells a very simple tale about a captain who finds kinship with a runaway criminal and his consequent attempts at hiding the fugitive from his fellow seamen. And yet, despite this small premise, there was something inherently engaging about the product- like a conversation in a Tarantino movie, I found myself interested in the daily going-ons of the ship as the unnamed Captain mulls about, deciding how best to hide his secret sharer during the day until he can converse with him at night.

Conrad does a good job at depicting the borderline paranoia the Captain experiences as commonplace observations and people turn into a field for conspiracies. He grows to hate his Steward, for example, simply because the man has to come into his quarters everyday to clean-up, thus potentially exposing the convict. I was reminded a bit of the first half of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym" in that this is another seaside novel about a man who is pushed to psychological limits, though obviously the circumstances are significantly different here than in "Arthur Gordon Pym".

In spite of all this, I was unable to become invested in the storyline the way I was with "Heart of Darkness". I just didn't think that there was anything big going on that made "The Secret Sharer" thematically greater than its weight the way "HoD" worked. There are people who will, of course, read a greater interpretation out of the small text than me, and that is perfectly fine. You could very well argue that Conrad is trying to make some commentary on the human condition and how we can only trust ourselves and our own judgment at the end of the day. But that's a moral standard more fit for a Saturday Afternoon special than a great novella.

I was also annoyed at how often Conrad kept directly stating that the criminal, a man named Leggatt, was the Captain's double. I didn't really buy into the idea that they had this strong, instant bond. It's a mistake that has been repeated all the way into the 21st century with "The Devil Wears Prada"- this idea that we should be able to see a character's inner thought process and easily deduce how they formulate connections with other human beings. Seriously, for all the crap people give Conrad for the heart of darkness similes in "HoD", his repetition of the secret sharer link makes the former look like subtle writing.

Alas, different strokes for different folks I guess. If this were my own scale I would give "The Secret Sharer " a 2.5/5, but with Goodreads I will round up because, like I made clear in the intro, I did surprisingly enjoy the journey the Captain and Leggatt took, even if it wasn't particularly interesting in the grand scheme of things. ...more

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Jun 09, 2018 Richard Thompson rated it really liked it

Shelves: english-literature

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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About Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad

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Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski ) was a Polish-born English novelist who today is most famous for Heart of Darkness, his fictionalized account of Colonial Africa.

Conrad left his native Poland in his middle teens to avoid conscription into the Russian Army. He joined the French Merchant Marine and briefly employed himself as a wartime gunrunner. He then began to work aboard ...more

Books by Joseph Conrad

Heart of Darkness and Selected Short Fiction

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“Walking to the taffrail, I was in time to make out, on the very edge of a darkness thrown by a towering black mass like the very gateway of Erebus—yes, I was in time to catch an evanescent glimpse of my white hat left behind to mark the spot where the secret sharer of my cabin and of my thoughts, as though he were my second self, had lowered himself into the water to take his punishment: a free man, a proud swimmer striking out for a new destiny” — 4 likes

“Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention, but fear, too, is not barren of ingenious suggestions.” — 3 likes

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The Secret Sharer

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Genres

About Joseph Conrad

Books by Joseph Conrad

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Quotes from The Secret Sharer...

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