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The Shadow-Line

Joseph Conrad,

Jeremy Hawthorn (Goodreads Author) (Editor)

3.72 · Rating details · 3,485 ratings · 227 reviews

Written in 1915, The Shadow-Line is based upon events and experiences from twenty-seven years earlier to which Conrad returned obsessively in his fiction. A young sea captain's first command brings with it a succession of crises: his sea is becalmed, the crew laid low by fever, and his deranged first mate is convinced that the ship is haunted by the malignant spirit of a ...more

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Paperback, Oxford World's Classics, 136 pages

Published September 1st 2003 by Oxford University Press (first published 1916)

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May 18, 2019 Luís C. rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019-readings, on-my-own, mil-folhas, 20th-century, 1001-done, poland

An inexperienced sea captain, on his first voyage at the helm of a ship, faces two crisis: his crew is dying because of a fever and there are no winds to sail. To escape this dead end, the arrogant captain will have to cross the line of shadow that separates all experience limit. The novel was written by Conrad when his son Borys fought in the First War.
For no apparent reason, a young man from the English merchant navy decides to abandon his life at sea.
It is decided from the distant eastern ...more

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Apr 27, 2013 Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 20th-century, literature, classic, fiction, polish

Typhoon and other Tales, Joseph Conrad
Typhoon is a novella by Joseph Conrad, begun in 1899 and serialized in Pall Mall Magazine in January–March 1902. Its first book publication was in New York by Putnam in 1902; it was also published in Britain in Typhoon and Other Stories by Heinemann in 1903. Typhoon is a classic sea yarn, possibly based upon Conrad's actual experience of seaman's life, and probably on a real incident aboard of the steamer John P. Best (according to the book by Jerry Allen on Typhoon and other Tales, Joseph Conrad
Typhoon is a novella by Joseph Conrad, begun in 1899 and serialized in Pall Mall Magazine in January–March 1902. Its first book publication was in New York by Putnam in 1902; it was also published in Britain in Typhoon and Other Stories by Heinemann in 1903. Typhoon is a classic sea yarn, possibly based upon Conrad's actual experience of seaman's life, and probably on a real incident aboard of the steamer John P. Best (according to the book by Jerry Allen on the "Sea years of Joseph Conrad", first published in 1965). The author of the mentioned book - an American journalist - did not reveal in her book any further details. Joseph Conrad himself described it as a "recent and much-discussed incident" (Author's note to the novella).
The "Typhoon" describes how Captain MacWhirr sails the SS Nan-Shan, a British-built steamer running under the Siamese flag, into a typhoon—a mature tropical cyclone of the northwestern part of the Pacific Ocean. Other characters include the young Jukes - most probably an alter ego of Conrad from the time he had sailed under captain John McWhirr - and Solomon Rout, the chief engineer. The novella classically evokes the seafaring life at the turn of the century. While Macwhirr, who, according to Conrad, "never walked on this Earth" - is emotionally estranged from his family and crew, and though he refuses to consider an alternative course to skirt the typhoon, his indomitable will in the face of a superior natural force elicits grudging admiration.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز سوم ماه نوامبر سال 2013 میلادی
عنوان: مرز سایه؛ نویسنده: جوزف کنراد؛ مترجم: سهیل سمی؛ تهران، ققنوس، 1391، در 135 ص؛ فروست: شاهکارهای رمان کوتاه 3؛ شابک: 9786002780348؛ چاپ دوم: 1395، در 135 ص؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان انگلیسی - سده 20 م
ناخدای رمان «مرز سایه»‌، در شرایطی کاملا خوب،‌ دل از کار و همکارانش و زندگی اجتماعی می‌بُرد، و گوشه ی انزوا برمی‌گزیند، و تا مرز فروپاشی عصبی، و فروافتادن به دل سایه ها پیش می‌رود، اما به ترغیب دوستی دنیا دیده، کار تازه ای برمی‌گزیند، تا از دل تیرگی مرگ خارج شود. در بخشی از رمان «مرز سایه» آمده است: در زندگی، یک «خط سایه» وجود دارد، مرزی که هشدار می‌دهد با گذر از آن، از حیطه ی خامی و جوانی گذشته اید. گذر از این مرز، با گذراندن آزمونی بسیار دشوار، امکان می‌یابد. این شاید همان چیزی باشد، که روان‌شناسان از آن، با عنوان بحران روحی میانسالی، یاد می‌کنند. مرز سایه، مرز گذشتن از حیطه ی اعتماد به نفس ِ ناپخته و خام جوانی، و توهم ساده لوحانه ی چیرگی بر خود و تقدیر، و پا گذاشتن به عرصه ی شناخت خویش، و ضعف‌های خود، و در نتیجه رسیدن به توانایی تسلط بر نفس خویش است. ا. شربیانی ...more

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Jan 03, 2017 Darwin8u rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2017

"a man should stand up to his bad luck, to his mistakes, to his conscience and all that sort of thing Why--what else would you have to fight against?"
-- Joseph Conrad, The Shadow-Line

description

One of Conrad's later novels. This one was published in 1917. The story is pretty straight forward, the plot direct. It isn't an elaborate story, but one that explores that moment, that shadow-line between youth and adulthood. The basic story involves a young officer, suddenly thrust into command. During his first ...more

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Nov 14, 2017 Ivana Books Are Magic rated it it was amazing

THE SHADOW LINE: A CONFESSION

The novella opens up with a young narrator, who actually does a pretty good of explaining the novel’s title (the shadow line) in the first paragraph:

" Only the young have such moments. I don’t mean the very young. No. The very young have, properly speaking, no moments. It is the privilege of early youth to live in advance of its days in all the beautiful continuity of hope which knows no pauses and no introspection.
One closes behind one the little gate of mere ...more

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May 08, 2013 Lyn rated it really liked it

The Shadow-Line by Joseph Conrad describes that demarcation line in the journey of life that divides the happy, bright, fantastic and irresponsible youth with the darker ages of manhood. Conrad goes on to delineate this vision as being beyond the “charm and innocence of illusions”.

The Shadow-Line is one of his most accomplished nautical tales and stands close to Typhoon and Youth as almost entirely about the sea and man’s relationship to a vessel. Whereas Youth was of a young man’s first ...more

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Apr 15, 2010 Bruce rated it it was amazing

This novella, told in the first person by a young Englishman who is unnamed, is set, as are so many of Conrad’s stories, in a seaport in the Far East. The narrator has suddenly resigned a comfortable position as mate on a ship, apparently resigning what he acknowledges is a good position in a fit of vague malaise, a sense of inexplicable dissatisfaction, intending to book passage home to England. Abruptly, the position of master of another ship becomes available and is offered to him, and just This novella, told in the first person by a young Englishman who is unnamed, is set, as are so many of Conrad’s stories, in a seaport in the Far East. The narrator has suddenly resigned a comfortable position as mate on a ship, apparently resigning what he acknowledges is a good position in a fit of vague malaise, a sense of inexplicable dissatisfaction, intending to book passage home to England. Abruptly, the position of master of another ship becomes available and is offered to him, and just as abruptly and unexpectedly he accepts, concluding Chapter I.

As he takes command of his ship, any number of complications seem to arise - illness in the crew, a sick and uncongenial first mate, debilitating heat, no wind, and the story of the ship’s previous captain having gone mad before his death. There is a sense of foreboding, an ominous tenor, as the first half of the book draws to its end. The narrator’s youthful optimism and enthusiasm are being severely stressed.

And, as if things could not get worse, as the ship is becalmed and the crew sickens, what was considered an adequate supply of quinine is found to have been adulterated or stolen. Burns, the ill first mate who was with the previous captain, believes that the spirit of the dead is haunting them and leading them to their doom. Everything that can go wrong seems to be occurring. Only the allegedly fragile and everlastingly placid and helpful cook, Ransome, seems to be of aid to the captain, always assisting in every way possible, beyond the call of his own duty. Ransome reminds me of Ransom, the hero of C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy, both being rather redemptive figures. And the tale as a whole has the atmosphere of Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”

Eventually the situation resolves, and the shadow line of the title is found to be the transition from youth to manhood, the alteration from the confidence and naiveté, the idealism and the insouciance of the untested who is sure of his ability to determine his fate, to the measured humility and determination, the awareness of the inexplicability of fate and our helplessness in its grip, the awareness of personal limitations even as the acceptance of those limitations is freely borne, and a mature confidence that is true heroicism and not mere bravado. I’ve been reading much Conrad lately, and this little novella comes close to being my favorite.
...more

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Feb 19, 2015 Laura rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books-you-must-read-before-you, fiction-20th-century, kindle, e-books, gutenberg, novellas, read-2015, british-literature

Free download available at Project Gutenberg.

"Worthy of my undying regard"

To Borys And All Others Who,
Like Himself, Have Crossed In Early Youth
The Shadow-Line Of Their Generation With Love

—D'autre fois, calme plat, grand miroir De mon desespoir. —BAUDELAIRE

2* Amy Foster
2* The Secret Agent
3* Heart of Darkness
3* The Secret Sharer
3* The Lagoon
4* Lord Jim
4* Victory
3* The Shadow-Line
TR Nostromo
TR An Outcast of the Islands
TR The Idiots

About Joseph Conrad:
Joseph Conrad by Hugh Walpole
The English Novel: ...more

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Apr 08, 2015 WORDMAN rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Joseph Conrad pens this fictionalized autobiography, which, for the most part is going to be difficult if not impossible to describe. Were I able to tell you, however, you would have the sense of it in the same way that you experience a fly buzzing the ether unseen. Enthralled within the movement of words, with eyes not wanting to leave the page, you will hear the story – whispering from behind the shadow line of it’s exquisite prose.

Every page a gift.

This book is about a young captain who is ...more

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May 04, 2016 Keith rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Middling Conrad is still leagues ahead of most everything else. He sticks to the autobiographical script, probably to the story's detriment: it could have used a bit of embroidery. As it is, we, like the narrator, wait for the thunder and fear the lightning but get precious little of either. Had Conrad the energy to develop more of the crew as characters, there might have been more (or more complex) dramatic tension; but perhaps that would have been a misstep, too: this is, after all, a tale ...more

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Jan 20, 2019 Eddie Clarke rated it it was amazing

Shelves: abe, fiction, classics, lgbt

A very beautiful late novella by Conrad, returning to the naval themes of his first books. It follows the course of the youthful, inexperienced hero’s first voyage as a captain of his own sailing ship. He is rushed out to Bangkok to pick up his ship with its existing crew.

It transpires the previous captain was a madman who replaced the ship’s medicine cabinet with (opium? - it’s not made clear) before falling ill, dying & being buried at sea by his crew. On his deathbed he cursed them all.

...more

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May 26, 2018 Frederick rated it really liked it

Shelves: conrad, novella

I usually read a work and wait a day before reading anything the author has written ABOUT it.
But in the case of THE SHADOW-LINE, I realized that, as is usual with Conrad, the "Author's Note" would be welded onto the story. You almost CAN'T discuss anything by him without taking into account his own commentary.
His note on THE SHADOW-LINE essentially confirms what I thought his intention was in the story itself. If you read this novella (for it is a novella, not a novel, Conrad flourishing at a I usually read a work and wait a day before reading anything the author has written ABOUT it.
But in the case of THE SHADOW-LINE, I realized that, as is usual with Conrad, the "Author's Note" would be welded onto the story. You almost CAN'T discuss anything by him without taking into account his own commentary.
His note on THE SHADOW-LINE essentially confirms what I thought his intention was in the story itself. If you read this novella (for it is a novella, not a novel, Conrad flourishing at a time when the novella was a popular form), I suggest you read the work first and then the Author's Note. As with Oscar Wilde's preface to THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY, any one of Conrad's Author's Notes is so basic to an understanding of the author as to be inseparable from the work itself.
I won't go into the plot. I will say that, as THE TEMPEST was for William Shakespeare, THE SHADOW-LINE was, for Conrad, a late-career rallying point. Conrad had begun to fade a few years before this was written. He wrote it in 1916, dedicating it to his son Borys "and all others who like himself have crossed in early youth the shadow-line of their generation..." In other words, Borys was in the army, 1916 being the two-year mark in the First World War, which had begun in 1914 and wouldn't end until 1918. Conrad's narrator, very obviously based on himself (as he states in the Note) reminisces about a time in his life when he was ceasing to be a youth and becoming a man. The book quotes a fair number of phrases from HAMLET, the ultimate youth thrown into the world of men. But back to THE TEMPEST. That late play has Shakespeare in wistful mood and it is very much about an elderly father and his grown daughter. THE SHADOW-LINE was written with Borys in mind. Unlike the super-patriots of that era, Conrad's literary effort in boosting the morale of his son's generation is not brazen. It offers a reminiscence of the author's youthful moment of decision while showing how frustrating that decision was, how complex it was, and how agonizing. In some ways it is an anti-TEMPEST, because it is not a storm as such which informs most of the action but a paralyzing calm preventing action.
The story can be humorous, especially toward the beginning, but it deals, in large part, with the spread of fever. Again, we hearken back to HAMLET. "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark." We also deal with a character who is convinced a ghost has hold of the ship. Besides writing novellas when the novella form was being practiced by other heavyweights such as Henry James, Conrad clearly knew the tropes of the ghost story. Ghost stories were more prevalent in that era than at almost any other time. (I'm excluding folktales. What I mean is that more mainstream literary magazines published ghost stories between 1895 and about 1920 than at any other time. THE SHADOW-LINE is something of a commentary on the phenomenon.)
Conrad was dead by 1924. Most of his major works were written between 1898 and 1911. But THE SHADOW-LINE, written in 1916 with an Author's Note from 1920, shows him writing something FOR someone. He brings great technical skill to the project. ...more

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Oct 15, 2010 John David rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-fiction

I picked up this book much too casually and without any forethought, and because of this, didn’t give to the book the time and energy that it deserved. This is one of Conrad’s later stories, and happens to have a lot of autobiographical elements, in that it focuses on a young man who gets a commission to lead a ship into the Orient. Conrad’s first command was to sail a ship called the Otago from Singapore into Bangkok. Despite the death of the previous captain and the less-than-auspicious ...more

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Jun 12, 2014 Sylvester rated it liked it

Shelves: audio-book, adventure, voyages, 2014, classic

(It's tough to rate books like these. For writing skill, I'd easily give this 5* - Joseph Conrad is a master of his craft, and his grasp both of the seafaring life itself and also of human nature is unsurpassed (in my opinion) by any other writer. But for sheer enjoyment - 3*. Not every great book draws me in - does that make sense? I find it very tricky to rate because of this, and have often given a lesser novel a higher rating because I just flat out enjoyed it, when a really excellent book ...more

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Mar 07, 2015 Patrick Sherriff rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classics

A solid novella following the trials and tribulations of a newbie captain on his first voyage in command. It's all about coming of age, and what it means to be responsible for others and the toll that takes on the individual. It's Conrad, it's pretty deep, well-written and there's subtexts and all that going on below the surface. Worth a read, but in my humble opinion, not as good as Typhoon which is astounding in its depiction of man against nature, or The Secret Sharer, which is a lesson in ...more

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Nov 13, 2016 Matthew rated it it was amazing

The Shadow-Line is another one of Conrad’s stories that deals with a hero who is faced by a problem that comes from an unexpected source, and for which he is unprepared. On this occasion, the menace comes not from a storm or an accident or a mutinous crew, but from the very calmness of the sea itself.

It seems hard to imagine in our day, but there was a time when a calm ocean was almost as much to be dreaded by sailors as a tempest. When Mendelssohn wrote his overture ‘Calm Sea and Prosperous The Shadow-Line is another one of Conrad’s stories that deals with a hero who is faced by a problem that comes from an unexpected source, and for which he is unprepared. On this occasion, the menace comes not from a storm or an accident or a mutinous crew, but from the very calmness of the sea itself.

It seems hard to imagine in our day, but there was a time when a calm ocean was almost as much to be dreaded by sailors as a tempest. When Mendelssohn wrote his overture ‘Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage’, the content was not intended to be as ordinary or bland as the title now sounds. A calm sea could virtually maroon a ship leaving it drifting for days waiting for a wind.

This is the story that fills the pages of The Shadow-Line. The title refers to the period between youth and adulthood where a young man becomes restless and performs a rash act – marriage or quitting a decent job. The officer who narrates this story takes the latter option, leaving a decent ship where he is happy. By a seeming stroke of luck he is offered command of another ship, his first voyage as captain.

However, like other first-time captains in Conrad stories, he soon finds himself facing a difficult situation. His other two officers are Mr Burns, a man who is obsessed with the character of the previous captain, whom he believes had a grudge against the ship when he died, and another ineffectual mate. Mr Burns falls ill with a fever, and soon after leaving shore the rest of the crew all fall ill too.

The ship is soon trapped by the lack of a decent wind, and it is left to the captain and ship’s cook Ransome to tend to the ailing men, and to keep the ship going. To further add to the difficulties, Ransome, though a calm and competent crew member, has a weak heart and is unable to exert himself strongly. Mr Burns, delirious with fever, stirs further trouble by insisting that the ship is held fast by the malicious ghost of the previous captain.

The Shadow-Line has a happy ending, unusually for Conrad, and the crew make it back to port without anyone dying. The novel has been seen as a ghost story, but Conrad himself denied this, and the supernatural elements, while they add a little teasing ambiguity to the story, should be seen as existing only in the head of a sick officer.

The story is autobiographical and drawn from Conrad’s own early experiences. The title suggests that we should associate the story with the notion of becoming an adult, and it makes an interesting companion piece to Youth – only here the young crewman is leaving youth and reaching maturity. Notably this is a maturity that is moulded and shaped by older men. The narrator owes his command to the insistence of the competent bully, Captain Ellis who has heard good things from the narrator’s previous employer.

The narrator is also helped by the kindly, shrewd Captain Giles, who ensures that the news of the captaincy offer is brought to the narrator’s attention, in spite of a weak plot to withhold the information. The narrator is insufficiently appreciative of Giles’ efforts, and is at first oblivious to the feeble attempt to prevent him from finding about the job, reflecting the naivety of his youth.

A less benevolent older figure is that of the former captain of the ship, now dead. While we do not have to literally take account of the superstitious notions concerning the captain’s malevolence, we can say that metaphorically the ghost of the old captain haunts the ship. It is the thought of him that temporarily unhinges Mr Burns, and it later turns out that the old captain had sold the supplies of quinine which the new captain needs so badly to keep his crew going.

The story of plague and drift can be seen as a metaphor for the journey from youth to adulthood, as a callow young captain is forced to become older in a short space of time, and by the end of the book he feels older even than the experienced men he met earlier.

The happy ending to the book may reflect the influence of the First World War, where a story about men co-operating and working together to overcome a common problem would have had some resonance. Indeed the book is also about the value of working together to overcome problems. The problem here, though very gruelling and intense, is essentially a simple one, and has none of the complexities and ambiguities that we associate with Conrad’s best work.

We are told that the crew of the ship is a good one, and they work together to overcome their plight, serving on deck without complaint when health allows them. Even the sickly Ransome exerts himself, in spite of his weak heart, and shows himself to be an exemplary crew member. The other officers let the crew down, but there is enough support from the rest of the team to overcome the problems facing the crew.

It may seem over-generous to give the book five stars, the same rating I gave to Conrad’s best books. However whilst The Shadow-Line certainly lacks the range of concerns and ideas that make up his best writing, I stand by my decision. Within the scope of its more modest aims, The Shadow-Line is a very strong and well-written story that maintains the reader’s interest throughout, and it is written in some of Conrad’s most accessible prose. ...more

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Aug 04, 2015 Chris rated it liked it · review of another edition

Joseph Conrad ‘The Shadow Line, a Confession’

“Wisdom comes not from age, but from education and learning.”
Anton Chekhov

In the years when Joseph Conrad wrote (1915) and published (1917) his short novel Shadow Line, A Confession, London was the capital of the world, as later Paris and now New York and perhaps in a few years Shanghai will be.
Artist and writers from all over the world gathered in London in those years, as did a constant stream of refuges mainly from Eastern Europe, among them Joseph Conrad ‘The Shadow Line, a Confession’

“Wisdom comes not from age, but from education and learning.”
Anton Chekhov

In the years when Joseph Conrad wrote (1915) and published (1917) his short novel Shadow Line, A Confession, London was the capital of the world, as later Paris and now New York and perhaps in a few years Shanghai will be.
Artist and writers from all over the world gathered in London in those years, as did a constant stream of refuges mainly from Eastern Europe, among them Josef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, whom we know as the writer Joseph Conrad.

Most of his adventures stories harbor a deeper metaphysical layer, with Heart of darkness perhaps as most explicit example and one of the greater novels of modernism. A few years ago in 2013 I visited my youngest daughter how worked as a volunteer in Ghana I read Heart of Darkness and wrote a short column/ review about is. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

The short novel The Shadow-Line depicts a young man at a crossroads in his life, facing a desperate crisis that marks the “shadow-line” between youth and maturity. This brief but intense story is a dramatically fictionalized account of Conrad’s first command as a young sea captain, in the Orient, trapped aboard a becalmed, fever-wracked, and seemingly haunted ship. With no wind in sight and his crew disabled by malaria, the narrator discovers that the medicine necessary to save the sick men is missing and its absence has been deliberately concealed. Suspenseful, atmospheric, and deceptively simple, Conrad’s tale of the sea reflects the complex themes of the nature of wisdom, experience and maturity. Conrad shows us the experience of a young man who is prepared to stand up against faith or bad luck.

This is the kind of thing Conrad does best. He puts men in a pressure-cooker, a storm (or calm, as in this book) inside and out, and we wait to see what happens. The title is a perfect description for a person changed by an experience, who crosses a line of no return within themselves. Life on board a ship is peculiarly conducive to superstition, madness, self-doubt, claustrophobia, despair - you name it, it comes out in someone. Conrad shows the power of even one positive voice, one faithful and expectant individual, that is the beauty of this book. The same sort of beauty I found in "Heart of Darkness", although with less force.
On the question of the supernatural influences in the novel Conrad himself answered: "The world of the living contains enough marvels and mysteries as it is."

Eventually the situation resolves, and the shadow line of the title is found to be the transition from youth to adulthood, the alteration from the confidence and naiveté, the idealism and the insouciance of the untested who is sure of his ability to determine his fate, to the measured humility and determination, the awareness of the inexplicability of fate and our helplessness in its grip, the awareness of personal limitations even as the acceptance of those limitations is freely borne, and a mature confidence.

The shadow lines of our lives are perhaps among the most interesting periods. As my daughter in Ghana was on the shadow line between ‘Adolescence’ and ‘Early Adulthood’ as I am at this moment on the shadow line between my ‘Midlife’ and’ Mature Adulthood’ and wrestling with it I can tell you. Every time we have to define our lives again and reinvent ourselves to meet the new challenges live puts in front of us. Next to a few very pleasant hours of reading novels like this can help us there.

Oh and as my good friend Chekhov says wisdom does not come from ageing itself, but from learning and education in a good combination and interaction with experience. Something Conrad also shows us in this novel.
...more

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Mar 08, 2018 Vicky Hunt rated it it was amazing

Shelves: vicky-s-favorites, classics-read-2018

A marvel of a classic from late in Joseph Conrad's life, and the first of his works I've discovered, The Shadow-line is the story of a young man's first command on a ship. It is a coming of age story, a bildungsroman of sorts.

The sentence structure is simple, but the word choice is fresh and descriptive, with an ample vocabulary, which just feels light and airy, but satisfying. It embodies the delight of every sea-tale you have ever read and loved.

A young man comes suddenly upon a chance ...more

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Dec 10, 2012 Craig rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books-to-read-before-you-die

"a man should stand up to his bad luck, to his mistakes, to his conscience, and all that sort of thing. Why- what else would you have to fight against?"

On the surface this work tells a decent story with a non-preachy didactic feel. It is about a struggle for survival not by an independently strong and able hero, but a hero that uses his strength and abilities together with his crew to overcome their difficulties. This may seem formulaic but Conrad creates this world and meaning without seeming ...more

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Dec 14, 2007 Nick rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

No reason not to love Joseph Conrad. This brief bildungsroman (5 cents, cha-ching!), supposedly autobiographical, tells the story of a young captain whose first command is a boat of deathly malarial sailors, caught in the doldrums and short on quinine. It's gripping, chilling, etc. No one writes about sick men on boats (set adrift in all sorts of ways) like JC. I suppose now I should read Nostromo and Lord Jim.

Jeff A. gave me this paperbook, a Vintage reissue snagged from work. Thanks, dude. ...more

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Mar 10, 2018 John rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This short novella tells the story of a young man transitioning to being a mature more self conscious adult. After throwing in his job on a ship on a whim he fortuitously lands the job as a captain on a sailing ship. He then is plagued with bad luck with disease infecting his crew, the ship becalmed and the evil legacy of the past captain arising. In the end it is a story of morality and fortitude.

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Sep 17, 2017 Tyler Jones rated it really liked it

Shelves: the-sea-the-sea

Here is some fantastic writing. Conrad breaks all the rules. He takes forever to get to the point. He foreshadows one thing and then goes somewhere else. He builds up one character then discards him and then brings a minor one out of the shadows. He delighted me with his circuitous prose, his numerous digressions, and his over use of the word "sagacity". I give it 4 stars but if you give it 2 because you found it pointless and frustrating, I would understand.

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Nov 27, 2018 Monty Milne rated it really liked it

This is much more Conradian than the last couple of Conrads I read (Nostromo, The Secret Agent). Like all the best Conrads, it is about the sea. And it has that careful consideration of human evil, and human strangeness. Although it is relatively short, it still suffers from Conradian convoluted wordiness at times, but at its best this helps us to dive deep beneath the surface of things. Strange, unsettling, and rather good.

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Dec 01, 2018 Gary rated it it was amazing

Conrad’s story features strongly characterized people in events that could turn them upside down and out if they don’t hang on. I enjoy stories of the sea, anyway: wind, wave, stars, sails, spars, mainmasts.

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Apr 30, 2008 Anna rated it really liked it

Shelves: novels

Ah, the satisfaction of the short novel. Clocking in 132 pages, I was able to move swiftly through The Shadow-Line, which gave the narrative something of the sense of a deep inhale.

Among the overused tropes in book reviews--from 'Dickensian' to 'limn' to 'poignant'--count in the phrase 'deceptively simple.' And yet, much to my personal consternation, that's the phrase I want to pull here about Conrad's book. Because, dammit, it is deceptively simple.

In first-person retrospective prose marked by Ah, the satisfaction of the short novel. Clocking in 132 pages, I was able to move swiftly through The Shadow-Line, which gave the narrative something of the sense of a deep inhale.

Among the overused tropes in book reviews--from 'Dickensian' to 'limn' to 'poignant'--count in the phrase 'deceptively simple.' And yet, much to my personal consternation, that's the phrase I want to pull here about Conrad's book. Because, dammit, it is deceptively simple.

In first-person retrospective prose marked by a relative few adjectives and adverbs, Conrad follows an unnamed narrator who, quite suddenly, wins the command of his first ship. In a 21-day trip at sea, this young captain is trapped on motionless water with a malaria-wracked crew when he discovers that the quinine needed to save their lives has disappeared and intentionally concealed. What's more, his first mate is convinced that the ship's previous captain--a man who'd gone mad and nearly steered the ship to its death--is cursing them; the first mate is determined to meet the man's ghost in a war.

"The intense loneliness of the sea acted like poison on my brain. When I turned my eyes to the ship, I had a morbid vision of her as a floating grave. Who hasn't heard of ships found drifting, haphazard, with their crews all dead? I loked at the seaman at the helm, I had an impulse to speak to him, and, indeed, his face took on an expectant cast as if he had guessed my intention. But in the end I went below, thinking I would be alone with the greatness of my trouble for a little while. But through his open door Mr. Burns saw me come down, and addressed me grumpily: 'Well, sir?'

"I went in. 'It isn't well at all,' I said."

And yet, this intense little tale that edges around the supernatural is very much of this world. Conrad is explicit about the matter in an author's note that appears as an afterward in my Vintage Classics edition:

"The world of the living contains enough marvels and mysteries as it is--marvels and mysteries acting upon our emotions and intelligence in ways so inexplicable that it would almost justify the conception of life as an enchanted state. No, I am too firm in my consciousness of the marvelous to be ever fascinated by the mere supernatural, which (take it any way you like) is but a manufactured article, the fabrication of minds insensitive to the intimate delicacies of our relation to the dead and to the living, in their countless multitudes; a desecration of our tenderest memories; an outrage on our dignity."

And indeed, for a novel so fixated on its physical environment of the sea, of the breathless air that maddeningly holds the ship still, of the fevers that break the bodies of the crew and the sleeplessness of the pacing narrator, Conrad seamlessly leaps into the intangible twists of psychology. At first, the text seems to quietly observe the unrested minds of, first, the steward at the officer's house and the two oddball guests, and then the first mate, Mr. Burns. But without grandly transitioning, the text--that is, the narrator--begins to play into it, to participate in the making of psychological ghosts.

And he brings us readers along with him. Amazingly, Conrad serves up a surprise that I wouldn't have imagined could work in a close first-person narrative. It's something worthy of more attention: how did he pull it off? And while we're at it, how did Conrad build suspense and profluence in a landscape of profound motionlesseness, where, quite explicitly, nothing was happening?

"The immobility of all things was perfect. If the air had turned black, the sea, for all I knew, might have turned solid. It was no good looking in any direction, watching for any sign, speculating upon the nearness of the moment. When the time came the blackness would overwhelm silently the bit of starlight falling upon the ship, and the end of all things would come without a sigh, stir, or murmur of any kind, and all our hearts would cease to beat like run-down clocks." ...more

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Jan 02, 2013 Jim Leckband rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Titles are significant with Conrad. Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, The Nigger of the Narcissus and Other Stories are in themselves great titles, but the secret sharer sauce is the weight of their words to the stories themselves - the irony of "Lord" Jim, the symbolism of the heart of the "Darkness", the mirror of the "Narcissus". So what is the "Confession" in "The Shadow-Line: A Confession"?

The story itself doesn't show anything that needs a confession. For once Conrad uses a straight first Titles are significant with Conrad. Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, The Nigger of the Narcissus and Other Stories are in themselves great titles, but the secret sharer sauce is the weight of their words to the stories themselves - the irony of "Lord" Jim, the symbolism of the heart of the "Darkness", the mirror of the "Narcissus". So what is the "Confession" in "The Shadow-Line: A Confession"?

The story itself doesn't show anything that needs a confession. For once Conrad uses a straight first person, rather than a framing narrator (or two!) like Marlow. The introduction says that this story is particularly autobiographical. Is the confession really Conrad's? The narrator (this time based on Conrad himself) does not do anything wrong along the cursed journey of his new command of his first ship. In fact he acts admirably while leading his malaria infected ship through three weeks of doldrums in the middle of the Gulf of Siam.

I think what Conrad is confessing to is contained in the word "Shadow-Line". In the text the narrator says the term means a dividing line between youth and maturity that a young man sees ahead in his life, like a squall line over the sea. At the beginning of the story the narrator, a chief mate on a steamship, chucks his job for no good reason other than that he was young and he could. I think this is what Conrad is confessing too, forcing the shadow-line under what he thought was his terms rather than letting it come to him. Later on in the story, he faces the real shadow-line and the guilt of quitting his first ship. He comes out of the experience on the other side of the shadow-line, older and wiser, but very chastened.

This book is also a ghost story and a very effective one at that. I just read a dissatisfying ghost story (Her Fearful Symmetry) which took out all the good things of a ghost story and didn't replace it with anything. What are the good bits of a ghost story that this one has? Creepy backstory, a little bit of an unreliable narrator, spooky happenings with real consequences, psychological depth, and the supernaturality tied to the novel's themes. Great stuff! ...more

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Apr 06, 2016 David added it

Conrad starts by portraying thoughts between the time of "boyishness" and entering "the enchanted garden" of adulthood, where every turn of the path has its delightful seduction. And time does on "till one perceives ahead a shadow-line warning one that the region of early youth, too must be left behind."
The young sailor signed on the steamer "Melita" leaving London for Bangkok that evening. And once in an exotic Malay port, he is given task of being the replacement Captain of a fine-looking Conrad starts by portraying thoughts between the time of "boyishness" and entering "the enchanted garden" of adulthood, where every turn of the path has its delightful seduction. And time does on "till one perceives ahead a shadow-line warning one that the region of early youth, too must be left behind."
The young sailor signed on the steamer "Melita" leaving London for Bangkok that evening. And once in an exotic Malay port, he is given task of being the replacement Captain of a fine-looking sailing ship. Then this young sea captain's first command brings with it a succession of crises: his sea is becalmed for 17 days, the excellent crew laid low on death's door by tropical fever, the supply of quinine pilfered, and his deranged first mate convinced that the ship is haunted by the malignant spirit of the previous captain who died to the relief of his entire crew and was buried at this precise latitude, 8 degrees 20 north, where the ship and its totally enfeebled crew were now coping with a sudden storm as they enter their destination and salvation. The young captain had crossed the shadow-line.
This 1915 novella is a work in which Conrad is able to show how the full intensity of existence can be experienced by the man who, in the concluding words of the older Captain Giles, is prepared to "stand up to his bad luck, to his mistakes, to his conscience." A subtle and penetrating analysis of the nature of manhood, 'The Shadow-Line' investigates varieties of masculinity and desire in a subtext that counters the tale's seemingly conventional surface.
The tedium of sickness and formidable weather make for a story, drab in its essence, which spins on at sea. The story drags as it must. At times Conrad's language seems deliberately to flag. For example, page 432 "The poop scuppers gurgled and sobbed for a little while longer, and then perfect silence ,joined to perfect immobility, proclaimed the unbroken spell of our helplessness, poised on the edge of some violent issue, lurking in the dark."

Having read this impressive novella once in 2017, now when I learned that Stanford selected this short book for it "Second Reading" program in 2016, this time I listened to it being read by a man in Bangor, Maine, recorded in eleven installments at Librivox. These recordings are Public Domain in the USA, cost nothing to listen as I did. Impressive composition, indeed! ...more

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Dec 15, 2014 Philip rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: southeast-asia, fiction, british-empire, air-and-sea, 1900-1919, malaysia-singapore, first-person, penguin-classics, novella

Right now, I’m also reading a book called Extinction Game, a so-so “infinite realities” tale that like much current fiction (especially sci-fi, fantasy and YA) is all story but pretty poor writing. The Shadow-Line, however, is just the opposite – all style but very little plot. The story in total is: a fairly young and whiney sailor quits his ship in Singapore to return home, but instead is offered an opportunity to captain his own ship. He meets his ship in Bangkok, but then they get becalmed Right now, I’m also reading a book called Extinction Game, a so-so “infinite realities” tale that like much current fiction (especially sci-fi, fantasy and YA) is all story but pretty poor writing. The Shadow-Line, however, is just the opposite – all style but very little plot. The story in total is: a fairly young and whiney sailor quits his ship in Singapore to return home, but instead is offered an opportunity to captain his own ship. He meets his ship in Bangkok, but then they get becalmed for a couple of weeks and the crew all falls sick, and then…well, they get some wind, so that’s better; and some of the crew recovers; and they make it to Singapore and…that’s it. Or as all this would be called in something like Cloud Atlas, “Chapter One.”

I just finished a biography on Conrad, and so thought I should read some actual Conrad as well, but this was frankly a slog. Like the narrator, I too felt like I was going nowhere for days at a time. Plus…I don’t know; maybe people were just more emotional back then, but I found the narrator wildly over-reacting to almost all people and situations – or else he was reacting normally to bizarre situations and extraordinary situations, whose weirdness he otherwise seriously downplayed in typical British understatement, (and yes, I know Conrad was Polish, but this is an extremely British story).

Shadow-Line is very late Conrad – 1915 – and is supposed to be his response to WWI, but in my obvious density, I totally missed that, (this edition also includes a lengthy introduction which goes into all that, but which I skipped after the first few pages as I felt like I was back in high school English – but maybe I should go back and read that now). I’m also now mildly tempted to go back and read some early Conrad – perhaps Almayer’s Folly – for comparison’s sake. But otherwise, I think I’ll just stick to fond memories of Lord Jim and Heart of Darkness and continue looking for more books like Roosevelt’s Beast, Motherless Brooklyn, Winter’s Bone or the aforementioned Cloud Atlas which combine both a good story with good-to-great writing.
...more

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Apr 23, 2016 Robert rated it really liked it

The Shadow-Line is a Conradian tale of mishaps and trials at sea graced with his usual stunning descriptions of the wastes of time and water but most valuable for an exceptionally acute portrait of a man clumsily approaching maturity while unhappily being forced to eat the bitter meal of his ambitions.

Our narrator calls his account a confession. So it is. The novella opens with him leaving one ship because he's somehow lost his spirit and interest in things. Then he's given a chance to move from The Shadow-Line is a Conradian tale of mishaps and trials at sea graced with his usual stunning descriptions of the wastes of time and water but most valuable for an exceptionally acute portrait of a man clumsily approaching maturity while unhappily being forced to eat the bitter meal of his ambitions.

Our narrator calls his account a confession. So it is. The novella opens with him leaving one ship because he's somehow lost his spirit and interest in things. Then he's given a chance to move from being a mate to assuming the captaincy of another ship. Suddenly he is motivated and eager to get under sail.

Subplots and excellent characterizations abound, but the real burden of this work is exploring a passage in life that is crucial and unpleasant: learning to be humbled by surviving by the skin of your teeth, fumbling your way out of near-disaster to a future less glorious than you secretly fantasized was your due, having your elders turn out to be your betters while remaining willing to put up with you because you've bungled no worse than they did when they were half-snapped by fate.

Objective studies of how unattractive it is to be in your twenties, full of yourself but legitimately talented, are difficult to write and difficult to read. Joyce overinflated his first attempt in Stephen Hero and then got it right in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Shakespeare succeeded with utter brilliance in Hamlet. Dostoevsky's Raskoinikov in Crime and Punishment gives us an example of talent putrified rather than purified.

In contemporary life (as opposed to literary life), we can see Reagan's first OMB director David Stockman, utterly disgusted with himself, engaging in self-destruction. It took Eliot Spitzer, former governor of New York, a few extra decades to reveal the little boy lingering inside the prodigy but the mistake-maker ultimately emerged.

Failure is critical to maturation. Those who fail but don't quite destroy themselves early on are the lucky ones. It's a terrible thing to see a teenager triumph into middle age and then plummet earthward. As I write, this would appear to be presidential candidate Ted Cruz's next act.

...more

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Mar 28, 2011 Ronald rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Here is the Author's Note to the Shadowline. It was not included in the early print editions, but was added by the author in response to assertions by hopeful religionists that Conrad's writings insinuate his belief in a deity...

"The world of the living contains enough marvels and mysteries as it is; marvels and mysteries acting upon our emotions and intelligence in ways so inexplicable that it would almost justify the conception of life as an enchanted state.
"No, I am too firm in my ...more

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Aug 20, 2014 Salvatore rated it really liked it

Typical Conradian fare in one sense: a man gets elevated to captain - partially because he's able to, partially because he doesn't want others to take such a position - on a ship. His first mate though, Mr Burns, is haunted by the memory of the previous captain and said captain's megalomania to drive the ship into the ground (or the abysses of the sea, your metaphor to choose). The captain must cross that 'shadow-line' between child-like naïveté and adult-like understanding/realism/sorrow. It's ...more

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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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“All my moral and intellectual being is penetrated by an invincible conviction that whatever falls under the dominion of our senses must be in nature and, however exceptional, cannot differ in its essence from all the other effects of the visible and tangible world of which we are a self-conscious part. The world of the living contains enough marvels and mysteries as it is—marvels and mysteries acting upon our emotions and intelligence in ways so inexplicable that it would almost justify the conception of life as an enchanted state. No, I am too firm in my consciousness of the marvelous to be ever fascinated by the mere supernatural which (take it any way you like) is but a manufactured article, the fabrication of minds insensitive to the intimate delicacies of our relation to the dead and to the living, in their countless multitudes; a desecration of our tenderest memories; an outrage on our dignity.” — 33 likes

“The world of the living contains enough marvels and mysteries..acting upon our emotions and intelligence in ways so inexplicable that it would almost justify the conception of life as an enchanted state.
No, I am too firm in my consciousness of the marvellous to be ever fascinated by the mere supernatural...” — 12 likes

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