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Suspense
Suspense fue la última novela que Joseph Conrad, en el año 1.924, trabajó antes de su fallecimiento. En ella regresa a uno de sus temas predilectos: la Revolución Francesa. A diferencia de El duelo, aquí su personaje es un joven inglés llamado Cosmo Latham, que visita Génova en los días que Napoleón fue recluido en Elba. Lo que se encuentra ahí es un ambiente conspirador de diplomáticos y espías de todos los colores que pivotan entorno a la figura espectral del emperador desterrado. Entre las numerosas camarillas que ahí se reúnen conocerá a Madame de Montevesso, una aristócrata liberal que ha tenido mala fortuna de esposarse con un militar sin escrúpulos.
Novela coral donde Conrad muestra la maestría de su oficio, la precisión y la riqueza de su escritura —consideraba que esta novela sería uno de sus mayores logros—, Suspense es una obra que hubiese podido ser maestra si la muerte repentina no le hubiese impedido acabarla.
Novela coral donde Conrad muestra la maestría de su oficio, la precisión y la riqueza de su escritura —consideraba que esta novela sería uno de sus mayores logros—, Suspense es una obra que hubiese podido ser maestra si la muerte repentina no le hubiese impedido acabarla.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1925
2 people are currently reading
61 people want to read
About the author
Joseph Conrad
3,176 books4,906 followersJoseph Conrad was a Polish-British novelist and story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language and, although he did not speak English fluently until his twenties, he became a master prose stylist who brought a non-English sensibility into English literature. He wrote novels and stories, many in nautical settings, that depict crises of human individuality in the midst of what he saw as an indifferent, inscrutable, and amoral world.
Conrad is considered a literary impressionist by some and an early modernist by others, though his works also contain elements of 19th-century realism. His narrative style and anti-heroic characters, as in Lord Jim, for example, have influenced numerous authors. Many dramatic films have been adapted from and inspired by his works. Numerous writers and critics have commented that his fictional works, written largely in the first two decades of the 20th century, seem to have anticipated later world events.
Writing near the peak of the British Empire, Conrad drew on the national experiences of his native Poland—during nearly all his life, parceled out among three occupying empires—and on his own experiences in the French and British merchant navies, to create short stories and novels that reflect aspects of a European-dominated world—including imperialism and colonialism—and that profoundly explore the human psyche.
Conrad is considered a literary impressionist by some and an early modernist by others, though his works also contain elements of 19th-century realism. His narrative style and anti-heroic characters, as in Lord Jim, for example, have influenced numerous authors. Many dramatic films have been adapted from and inspired by his works. Numerous writers and critics have commented that his fictional works, written largely in the first two decades of the 20th century, seem to have anticipated later world events.
Writing near the peak of the British Empire, Conrad drew on the national experiences of his native Poland—during nearly all his life, parceled out among three occupying empires—and on his own experiences in the French and British merchant navies, to create short stories and novels that reflect aspects of a European-dominated world—including imperialism and colonialism—and that profoundly explore the human psyche.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 28, 2021
Free download available at Project Gutenberg
I made the proofing of this book for Free Literature and Project Gutenberg will publish it.
Opening lines:
A deep red glow flushed the fronts of marble palaces piled up on the slope of an arid mountain whose barren ridge traced high on the darkening sky a ghostly and glimmering outline. The winter sun was setting over the Gulf of Genoa. Behind the massive shore the sky to the east was like darkening glass.
4* The Idiots
3* The Shadow-Line
4* Victory
4* Lord Jim
3* The Lagoon
3* The Secret Sharer
3* Heart of Darkness
2* The Secret Agent
2* Amy Foster
3* Suspense: a Napoleonic novel
TR Nostromo
TR An Outcast of the Islands
TR The Lingard Trilogy
About Joseph Conrad:
4* The Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World by Maya Jasanoff
TR The English Novel: From the Earliest Days to the Death of Joseph Conrad by Ford Madox Ford
TR Portraits from life: Memories and criticisms of Henry James, Joseph Conrad, Thomas Hardy, H. G. Wells, Stephen Crane, D. H. Lawrence, John Galsworthy, ... Theodore Dreiser, Algernon Charles Swinburne by Ford Madox Ford
TR The Great Tradition: George Eliot, Henry James, Joseph Conrad by F.R. Leavis
TR Joseph Conrad by Hugh Walpole
I made the proofing of this book for Free Literature and Project Gutenberg will publish it.
Opening lines:
A deep red glow flushed the fronts of marble palaces piled up on the slope of an arid mountain whose barren ridge traced high on the darkening sky a ghostly and glimmering outline. The winter sun was setting over the Gulf of Genoa. Behind the massive shore the sky to the east was like darkening glass.
4* The Idiots
3* The Shadow-Line
4* Victory
4* Lord Jim
3* The Lagoon
3* The Secret Sharer
3* Heart of Darkness
2* The Secret Agent
2* Amy Foster
3* Suspense: a Napoleonic novel
TR Nostromo
TR An Outcast of the Islands
TR The Lingard Trilogy
About Joseph Conrad:
4* The Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World by Maya Jasanoff
TR The English Novel: From the Earliest Days to the Death of Joseph Conrad by Ford Madox Ford
TR Portraits from life: Memories and criticisms of Henry James, Joseph Conrad, Thomas Hardy, H. G. Wells, Stephen Crane, D. H. Lawrence, John Galsworthy, ... Theodore Dreiser, Algernon Charles Swinburne by Ford Madox Ford
TR The Great Tradition: George Eliot, Henry James, Joseph Conrad by F.R. Leavis
TR Joseph Conrad by Hugh Walpole
May 3, 2020
Unaware of the history of this unfinished last novel of Conrad, I am able only to respond to my immediate reactions. And those are suspect. The sentences are too short. The novel made use of parenthesis and dashes, which I never have seen before in Conrad's work. And there is the absence of so many of his favorite words. It does not seem like a typical sample of his work.
Too, the story is altogether to optimistic at the end. Used to a steady dose of Conrad's melancholy and sometimes outright tragedy, the world of promise and new adventure seems out of place. Although it should be mentioned that even here, melancholy seems to be at work. For the cause is republicanism arising out of the ashes of Napoleon's first exile. And the writer and reader will know how that ultimately ended.
In short, it is a choppy work. And where Conrad usually glides and slips between perspectives and points of view, here, the transitions are clunky. It is all like bad phrasing while playing music.
Too, the story is altogether to optimistic at the end. Used to a steady dose of Conrad's melancholy and sometimes outright tragedy, the world of promise and new adventure seems out of place. Although it should be mentioned that even here, melancholy seems to be at work. For the cause is republicanism arising out of the ashes of Napoleon's first exile. And the writer and reader will know how that ultimately ended.
In short, it is a choppy work. And where Conrad usually glides and slips between perspectives and points of view, here, the transitions are clunky. It is all like bad phrasing while playing music.
August 15, 2022
Zaduch, ciemność, kurz unoszący się w powietrzu kwaśny zapach słonej wody w starym porcie - oto nastrój prawie każdej powieści Conrada, z "Oczekiwaniem" na czele. Wiem, że jest to książka niedokończona, wiem, że miała być zwieńczeniem jego twórczości, ale nie wiem jak miałabym ocenić te niecałe 300 stron, gdyby nie ulotny i poetycki zbieg okoliczności, który stawia cały ten dziwny tekst w innym świetle - śmierć autora przerywa pisaną opowieść. Trudno o lepszy tytuł do książki dokończonej niemożliwością dokończenia.
March 3, 2023
This unfinished novel could might really have been something special had Conrad lived to complete it. The disparate narrative threads were finally coming together, and Cosmo was just setting off on an adventure that could have given added weight to the all the allusions (conspiracy, Napoleon, Italian independence) to everything that made that particular time and place so fraught. As it stands, nothing is resolved -- I knew it was a distinct risk when I started, but that doesn't make it any easier when you reach the final page.
March 30, 2020
Quarantine reads: 1
Obra inacabada de Joseph Conrad. El libro transcurre en apenas 72 horas, desde la llegada de Cosmo al puerto de Génova, el protagonista, hasta la partida hacia alta mar en compañía de una banda de conspiradores italianos pronapoleónicos.
Obra inacabada de Joseph Conrad. El libro transcurre en apenas 72 horas, desde la llegada de Cosmo al puerto de Génova, el protagonista, hasta la partida hacia alta mar en compañía de una banda de conspiradores italianos pronapoleónicos.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews