What do you think?
Rate this book
A Smile of Fortune
Embarking in the tropics, a ship's captain makes the instant acquaintance of a seemingly genial Mr. Jacobus and his irritable brother. One a respectable businessman with a considerable reputation, the other a confessed rogue and entrepreneur with no reputation left to lose, the captain is at a loss to determine which he should befriend. Yet as events unfold, he becomes increasingly in thrall to the less scrupulous of the two and finds himself the unwitting partner in a deeply unorthodox transaction. The Smile of Fortune is a masterly tale of misplaced loyalty, family feuds, and illicit bargaining. Placed by many critics as a forerunner of Modernism, Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) is best known for his chilling masterwork Heart of Darkness.
124 pages, Paperback
First published May 6, 1910
8 people are currently reading
149 people want to read
About the author
Joseph Conrad
3,130 books4,867 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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
November 20, 2020
Έβδομο βιβλίο του συγγραφέα που διαβάζω, εννοείται πως για άλλη μια φορά έμεινα ιδιαίτερα ικανοποιημένος, αν όχι τόσο πολύ από την πλοκή ή του χαρακτήρες, όσο από την πραγματικά εξαίσια και οξυδερκή γραφή. Και εδώ ο Κόνραντ ασχολείται με τον κόσμο των ναυτικών, το εμπόριο και την αποικιοκρατία (έστω και αν το νησί είναι της φαντασίας του, σίγουρα βασίζεται σε κάποιο πραγματικό νησί των Τροπικών), με το μενού να περιέχει οικογενειακές έχθρες, εκβιασμούς, παράνομες συναλλαγές και ένα μάλλον ανολοκλήρωτο ερωτικό πάθος. Εντάξει, μιλάμε για νουβέλα, τα πράγματα εξελίσσονται γρήγορα, δεν υπάρχει και πολύς χώρος για πλήρη ανάπτυξη της πλοκής και των χαρακτήρων, όμως αν μη τι άλλο υπάρχει ποιότητα, υπάρχει βάθος σε εικόνες και συναισθήματα. Και η γραφή είναι εξαιρετική, σίγουρα ξεχωριστή.
May 9, 2015
“You are a bit too much of a Jacobus, Mr. Jacobus.”
A Smile of Fortune is set in a beautiful Pacific Ocean island, at which the narrator, a captain, has docked; the suppliers of the ships are the Jacobus brothers, who have not spoken to one another in 18 years. The word “Jew” is not mentioned in Conrad’s great story.
One of the brothers, Ernest, is an assimilated citizen. He is owed a lot of money, hosts parties, has taste and manners , and is trusted. He treats half-caste servants just as brutally as the rest of the colonists.
The other is Arthur is an outcast, not because of race or profession, although he has been forced to make aggressive deals, beating his brother to incoming captains to get contracts for food and equipment before his brother does. He has heavy, lidded, searching eyes; his face is a mask; his chest “heaves with a soundless sigh.” He has the “veiled expression of a man after some soul-shaking crisis.”
Pariah Arthur Jacobus has not only run off with a circus performer, shocking enough for the community, but also had the effrontery to bring her back to the lovely (oh yes) island, where she gave birth and then passed away, leaving a daughter. He has kept detached from the town, in a secluded house where he keeps his now-beautiful, mysterious daughter and her harpy of a chaperone. Most foreign to the community is his infernal perseverance. Nothing stops him from sailing the harbor with perfect knowledge of what each boat needs, and he has just the provisions they lack.
That’s uncanny, but the narrator finds more to it than “trade.” A frequent visitor to Arthur’s house while he makes daring (b/c Ernest does not trust him) arrangements for his provisions, he recognizes “The depth of passion under [his host’s] placid surface” – “how he had the stuck to that circus-rider woman.” Here is weirder mystery of perseverance, effrontery, stubbornness. The narrator also notices the stunning garden: “”A brilliantly colored solitude, drowsing in a warm, voluptuous silence.”
The garden mirrors the distant, indolent, insolent Alice, Jacobus’ daughter, a Jewess sphinx with “Egyptian eyes.” The captain is entranced, so much so that he must return, and must make a deal with Jacobus from which he cannot imagine profiting. His disorientation is brilliantly rendered. Without anything more than brilliant description of gesture, the movements of people’s bodies, their words, Conrad shows his narrator in direct contact with an alien world—the Other: the outcast Jew (whose fascination with the circus rider is the same as the captain’s for Alice), the silent princess imprisoned by her nasty chaperone and her own father in a dark heavy-scented garden from which Alice gives indication at her last meeting with the captain that she wants to be rescued. She represents a side of himself that has been relegated to his subconscious: deeper than reason, social propriety, decency or honor. Deeper, stranger, more real—like heaven or hell.
Will the captain bargain with Arthur Jacobus for his daughter? With his “sleepy watchfulness,” he can “procure anything for a price.”
Can he detach himself from the strangeness of the reclusive family?
What will happen to a relationship which, although the slightest touch is hypnotizing, is so ill-suited to both captain and sphinxlike heavy-lidded beauty?
What is the smile of “fortune” (a loaded word)? Is it fortunate to come in contact with one's opposite and irresistible desire?
A Smile of Fortune is set in a beautiful Pacific Ocean island, at which the narrator, a captain, has docked; the suppliers of the ships are the Jacobus brothers, who have not spoken to one another in 18 years. The word “Jew” is not mentioned in Conrad’s great story.
One of the brothers, Ernest, is an assimilated citizen. He is owed a lot of money, hosts parties, has taste and manners , and is trusted. He treats half-caste servants just as brutally as the rest of the colonists.
The other is Arthur is an outcast, not because of race or profession, although he has been forced to make aggressive deals, beating his brother to incoming captains to get contracts for food and equipment before his brother does. He has heavy, lidded, searching eyes; his face is a mask; his chest “heaves with a soundless sigh.” He has the “veiled expression of a man after some soul-shaking crisis.”
Pariah Arthur Jacobus has not only run off with a circus performer, shocking enough for the community, but also had the effrontery to bring her back to the lovely (oh yes) island, where she gave birth and then passed away, leaving a daughter. He has kept detached from the town, in a secluded house where he keeps his now-beautiful, mysterious daughter and her harpy of a chaperone. Most foreign to the community is his infernal perseverance. Nothing stops him from sailing the harbor with perfect knowledge of what each boat needs, and he has just the provisions they lack.
That’s uncanny, but the narrator finds more to it than “trade.” A frequent visitor to Arthur’s house while he makes daring (b/c Ernest does not trust him) arrangements for his provisions, he recognizes “The depth of passion under [his host’s] placid surface” – “how he had the stuck to that circus-rider woman.” Here is weirder mystery of perseverance, effrontery, stubbornness. The narrator also notices the stunning garden: “”A brilliantly colored solitude, drowsing in a warm, voluptuous silence.”
The garden mirrors the distant, indolent, insolent Alice, Jacobus’ daughter, a Jewess sphinx with “Egyptian eyes.” The captain is entranced, so much so that he must return, and must make a deal with Jacobus from which he cannot imagine profiting. His disorientation is brilliantly rendered. Without anything more than brilliant description of gesture, the movements of people’s bodies, their words, Conrad shows his narrator in direct contact with an alien world—the Other: the outcast Jew (whose fascination with the circus rider is the same as the captain’s for Alice), the silent princess imprisoned by her nasty chaperone and her own father in a dark heavy-scented garden from which Alice gives indication at her last meeting with the captain that she wants to be rescued. She represents a side of himself that has been relegated to his subconscious: deeper than reason, social propriety, decency or honor. Deeper, stranger, more real—like heaven or hell.
Will the captain bargain with Arthur Jacobus for his daughter? With his “sleepy watchfulness,” he can “procure anything for a price.”
Can he detach himself from the strangeness of the reclusive family?
What will happen to a relationship which, although the slightest touch is hypnotizing, is so ill-suited to both captain and sphinxlike heavy-lidded beauty?
What is the smile of “fortune” (a loaded word)? Is it fortunate to come in contact with one's opposite and irresistible desire?
October 23, 2019
An enjoyable short story by one of my favourite authors. Tells the story of love and affection that stretches across cultural barriers, about how as a species we are warmed to destructive people from our own side, but for some reason prevented from crossing the divide to warm people on the other. A very sad statement about cultural intolerance in the 19th century which makes me glad that despite my romantic ideas of the past, I am glad to be living in the modern era where cultural and social restrictions are in decline.
January 4, 2014
Grazie ad una gara di lettura a cui ho aderito sul blog ATTRAVERSO I LIBRI E QUEL CHE SERENA VI TROVO' ho trovato in biblioteca questo libro di Joseph Conrad, un racconto di mare, di capitani, di commercio e della piccola fortuna che vi trovarono.
La storia viene narrata in prima persona dal Comandante di un veliero, che arriva su un'isola per commerciare in Zucchero, ma la cui storia prende tutta un'altra piega.
Il libro descrive l'attrazione del Comandante per una ragazza del luogo, e il suo disinnamoramento, in quella società Ottocentesca piena di pregiudizi e convenienze.
Colpisce come Conrad riesca a rendere bene l'idea di come la vita di molte persone sia fortemente condizionata da alcune norme "sociali", che non premiano slanci affettivi ma solo la forma.
L'impressione finale del libercolo non è positiva, poiché sono ben pochi gli accadimenti, e la narrazione è tipica della società del tempo, con i suoi giri di parole e le convenienze a noi ormai estranee.
Però devo riconoscere che ho finito il libro in 2 giorni, e questo vorrà pur significare qualcosa.
Forse non sapete di come Joseph Conrad trovò la sua fortuna: la letteratura.
Nel 1888, a fare scalo a Port Louis è il veliero battente bandiera australiana Otago, comandato da colui che sarebbe passato alla storia della letteratura come Joseph Conrad.
Lo scrittore di origini polacche, ai tempi dedito, ancora per poco, alla navigazione, rimase nell’isola per due mesi, durante i quali corteggiò due donne. Questa esperienza finì poi in un racconto lungo, Un briciolo di fortuna, uscito nel 1911 nel libro Tra terra e mare.
La storia viene narrata in prima persona dal Comandante di un veliero, che arriva su un'isola per commerciare in Zucchero, ma la cui storia prende tutta un'altra piega.
Il libro descrive l'attrazione del Comandante per una ragazza del luogo, e il suo disinnamoramento, in quella società Ottocentesca piena di pregiudizi e convenienze.
Colpisce come Conrad riesca a rendere bene l'idea di come la vita di molte persone sia fortemente condizionata da alcune norme "sociali", che non premiano slanci affettivi ma solo la forma.
L'impressione finale del libercolo non è positiva, poiché sono ben pochi gli accadimenti, e la narrazione è tipica della società del tempo, con i suoi giri di parole e le convenienze a noi ormai estranee.
Però devo riconoscere che ho finito il libro in 2 giorni, e questo vorrà pur significare qualcosa.
Forse non sapete di come Joseph Conrad trovò la sua fortuna: la letteratura.
Nel 1888, a fare scalo a Port Louis è il veliero battente bandiera australiana Otago, comandato da colui che sarebbe passato alla storia della letteratura come Joseph Conrad.
Lo scrittore di origini polacche, ai tempi dedito, ancora per poco, alla navigazione, rimase nell’isola per due mesi, durante i quali corteggiò due donne. Questa esperienza finì poi in un racconto lungo, Un briciolo di fortuna, uscito nel 1911 nel libro Tra terra e mare.
Read
June 8, 2020I read A Smile of Fortune as a printout from Penn State of Electronic Classics.
I was attracted to it because I was researching material for a story I was writing which was set in Mauritius. Naturally I was very excited to find that Joseph Conrad visited Mauritius too – and that he wrote about it.
The way I first found that Conrad visited Mauritius was rather amusing. In his story, he calls it “Pearl of the Ocean… a pearl distilling much sweetness upon the world” – and the tourist brochure described this rather enthusiastically.
Let’s have a look at the opening lines of the story…
“Ever since the sun rose I had been looking ahead. The ship glided gently in smooth water. After sixty days’ passage I was anxious to make my landfall, a fertile and beautiful island of the tropics. The more enthusiastic of is inhabitants delight in describing it as the “Pearl of the Ocean.” Well, let us call it the “Pearl”. It’s a good name. A pearl distilling much sweetness upon the world.
This is only a way of telling you that first-rate sugar-cane is grown there. All the population of the Pearl lives for it and by it. Sugar is their daily bread, as it were. and I was coming to them for a cargo of sugar in hope of the crop being good and the freights being high.”
I would kill to be able to write stories opening like this. I was tempted to keep typing up this quote as it goes on.
It works by its contrasts. First, the idealized version of the sailor. Then the ideal version of the tropics. The vision of the tropics poisoned by the thoughts of merchandize, which then in turn infuse the description of the sailor. In fact, the narrator says straightforwardly.
“Horrid thoughts of business interfered with my enjoyment of an accomplished passage.”
It is in many ways ironic that “a pearl that distils much sweetness upon the world.” is used by the marketing brief, as in many ways it is almost a parody of a marketing brief.
Caroline Bingley’s quote “I declare after all that there is no enjoyment like reading” on British 10 pound note with Jane Austen serves as a satisfying parallel.
But I digress.
This is a very eerie story, even by Conrad’s standards. The narrator arrives only to be immediately welcomed by a ship supplier, Alfred Jacobus. The narrator has been recommended to another Jacobus living on Mauritius, Ernst, by the ships owners. Naturally, he assumes his acquaintance with Alfred will help him. But in fact, it rather complicates matters. Still Alfred Jacobus, though ignored by the rest of the island’s community, has a beautiful daughter. And the narrator slowly becomes drawn into their story…
In fact, Joseph Conrad did more than simply visit Mauritius. According to Zdzisław Najder’s biography of Conrad, Joseph Conrad proposed to a woman in Mauritius, only to be rejected as she was engaged to someone else. I have a sneaky suspicion that this might have affected the plot of the story a little.
A Smile of Fortune is about desire and about repression. About the sensuous beauty of Alice enclosed in her garden and her fragility – and the feeling of danger she evokes in her admirer
“It was a brilliantly coloured solitude, drowsing in a warm voluptuous silence… She leaned forward, hugging herself with crossed legs: a dingy, amber-coloured, flounced wrapper of some thin stuff revealed the young supple body drawn together tensely in the deep low seat as if crouching for a spring”
Close-reading of this passage would no doubt delight both Freud and Edward Said in an analysis of exoticism, I expect.
The narrator suspect he is being manipulated in his desire.
He feels as if Alfred Jacobus is basically luring him into a honey-trap. The girl has no prospects, she is not educated, and half-wild. Her father perhaps thinks that it would be better for her to be shipped of somewhere far from Mauritius.
And yet somehow, mysteriously, the narrator escapes this “trap”. Because surprise – dear male- the narrator- the woman has the slightest bit agency. She doesn’t want to go with him. She is afraid of sailing away with him. Though she claims she doesn’t care:
“For if you were to shut me up in an empty place as smooth as the palm of my hand, I could always strangle myself with my hair.”
One finds it hard not to find echoes of Bertha Mason from Jane Eyre. It’s both madness and ferocious independence at the same time. Perhaps more Bertha Mason from Wild Sargossa Sea.
I shall stop myself before I give away any more spoilers.
Yet for all the eerie suppressed and evoked desires of A Smile of Fortune, there was one moment Conrad’s writing struck me most. This is at the very beginning of the story- a description of a baby’s funeral.
The narrator does not know the parents or the child but he attends the funeral because all the captains in the harbour are going to attend. He describes a tough sailor who had no family of his own with tears trickling
“Down his weather-beaten face like drops of rain on a rugged old wall… Perhaps he was dropping those tears over his lost opportunity, from sheer envy of paternity and in strange jealous of a sorrow that he could never know…. But he made me feel ashamed of my callousness. I had no tears. I listened with horribly critical detachment to that service… The words of hope and defiance, the winged words so inspiring in the free immensity of the water and sky seemed to fall wearily into the little grave… And then my thoughts escaped me altogether—away into matters of life—and no very high matters at that—ships freights, business… I was disgusted with my thoughts – and I thought: Shall I be able to get a charter soon?… Don’t imagine that I pursued these thoughts with any precision. They pursued me rather: vague, shadowy, restless, shamefaced. Theirs was a callous, abominable, almost revolting pertinacity. “
It stuck with me somehow. We’ve all been angry at the triteness of our own thoughts.
I was attracted to it because I was researching material for a story I was writing which was set in Mauritius. Naturally I was very excited to find that Joseph Conrad visited Mauritius too – and that he wrote about it.
The way I first found that Conrad visited Mauritius was rather amusing. In his story, he calls it “Pearl of the Ocean… a pearl distilling much sweetness upon the world” – and the tourist brochure described this rather enthusiastically.
Let’s have a look at the opening lines of the story…
“Ever since the sun rose I had been looking ahead. The ship glided gently in smooth water. After sixty days’ passage I was anxious to make my landfall, a fertile and beautiful island of the tropics. The more enthusiastic of is inhabitants delight in describing it as the “Pearl of the Ocean.” Well, let us call it the “Pearl”. It’s a good name. A pearl distilling much sweetness upon the world.
This is only a way of telling you that first-rate sugar-cane is grown there. All the population of the Pearl lives for it and by it. Sugar is their daily bread, as it were. and I was coming to them for a cargo of sugar in hope of the crop being good and the freights being high.”
I would kill to be able to write stories opening like this. I was tempted to keep typing up this quote as it goes on.
It works by its contrasts. First, the idealized version of the sailor. Then the ideal version of the tropics. The vision of the tropics poisoned by the thoughts of merchandize, which then in turn infuse the description of the sailor. In fact, the narrator says straightforwardly.
“Horrid thoughts of business interfered with my enjoyment of an accomplished passage.”
It is in many ways ironic that “a pearl that distils much sweetness upon the world.” is used by the marketing brief, as in many ways it is almost a parody of a marketing brief.
Caroline Bingley’s quote “I declare after all that there is no enjoyment like reading” on British 10 pound note with Jane Austen serves as a satisfying parallel.
But I digress.
This is a very eerie story, even by Conrad’s standards. The narrator arrives only to be immediately welcomed by a ship supplier, Alfred Jacobus. The narrator has been recommended to another Jacobus living on Mauritius, Ernst, by the ships owners. Naturally, he assumes his acquaintance with Alfred will help him. But in fact, it rather complicates matters. Still Alfred Jacobus, though ignored by the rest of the island’s community, has a beautiful daughter. And the narrator slowly becomes drawn into their story…
In fact, Joseph Conrad did more than simply visit Mauritius. According to Zdzisław Najder’s biography of Conrad, Joseph Conrad proposed to a woman in Mauritius, only to be rejected as she was engaged to someone else. I have a sneaky suspicion that this might have affected the plot of the story a little.
A Smile of Fortune is about desire and about repression. About the sensuous beauty of Alice enclosed in her garden and her fragility – and the feeling of danger she evokes in her admirer
“It was a brilliantly coloured solitude, drowsing in a warm voluptuous silence… She leaned forward, hugging herself with crossed legs: a dingy, amber-coloured, flounced wrapper of some thin stuff revealed the young supple body drawn together tensely in the deep low seat as if crouching for a spring”
Close-reading of this passage would no doubt delight both Freud and Edward Said in an analysis of exoticism, I expect.
The narrator suspect he is being manipulated in his desire.
He feels as if Alfred Jacobus is basically luring him into a honey-trap. The girl has no prospects, she is not educated, and half-wild. Her father perhaps thinks that it would be better for her to be shipped of somewhere far from Mauritius.
And yet somehow, mysteriously, the narrator escapes this “trap”. Because surprise – dear male- the narrator- the woman has the slightest bit agency. She doesn’t want to go with him. She is afraid of sailing away with him. Though she claims she doesn’t care:
“For if you were to shut me up in an empty place as smooth as the palm of my hand, I could always strangle myself with my hair.”
One finds it hard not to find echoes of Bertha Mason from Jane Eyre. It’s both madness and ferocious independence at the same time. Perhaps more Bertha Mason from Wild Sargossa Sea.
I shall stop myself before I give away any more spoilers.
Yet for all the eerie suppressed and evoked desires of A Smile of Fortune, there was one moment Conrad’s writing struck me most. This is at the very beginning of the story- a description of a baby’s funeral.
The narrator does not know the parents or the child but he attends the funeral because all the captains in the harbour are going to attend. He describes a tough sailor who had no family of his own with tears trickling
“Down his weather-beaten face like drops of rain on a rugged old wall… Perhaps he was dropping those tears over his lost opportunity, from sheer envy of paternity and in strange jealous of a sorrow that he could never know…. But he made me feel ashamed of my callousness. I had no tears. I listened with horribly critical detachment to that service… The words of hope and defiance, the winged words so inspiring in the free immensity of the water and sky seemed to fall wearily into the little grave… And then my thoughts escaped me altogether—away into matters of life—and no very high matters at that—ships freights, business… I was disgusted with my thoughts – and I thought: Shall I be able to get a charter soon?… Don’t imagine that I pursued these thoughts with any precision. They pursued me rather: vague, shadowy, restless, shamefaced. Theirs was a callous, abominable, almost revolting pertinacity. “
It stuck with me somehow. We’ve all been angry at the triteness of our own thoughts.
May 6, 2014
Conrad has always been -- at least for me -- a meditation and insight into our baser desires, where a reader can ponder a world of exotic and neurotic characters in the calm prose of a master. A Smile of Fortune does the same, a tale of a young ship captain smitten by a primitive young girl who lives at the edge of reason. A shut-in, whose father represents capitalism incarnate, a supplier for harbored ships on this island port. His not-so-gracious brother has a servant that looks remarkably like his progeny, and so the Jacobuses are a curious pair that must serve some Freudian principle. But the story works itself out in a delightful manner, with even more humor than one would ever expect from Conrad. A short read, but for Conrad fans, a pleasure.
May 28, 2018
This novella first appeared in 1911 in the pages of LONDON MAGAZINE. The edition I read was published in 2007 by the Modern Voices imprint of Hesperus Press Limited. It features a foreword by Salley Vickers.
One thing I noticed is that the anonymous narrator is the narrator of THE SHADOW-LINE, which Conrad wrote in 1916. The action occurs after the action of THE SHADOW-LINE, but it intrigued me to realize the stories have at least a tenuous connection.
I'm not certain I quite get what Conrad is driving at in A SMILE OF FORTUNE. But there are some great lines and the descriptions of peripheral characters are pointed. But the central drama mystifies me. I don't think Conrad mapped out any given work. Inasmuch as THE SHADOW-LINE (subtitled "A Confession") is autobiographical, I would not be surprised to learn that this one is, as well. This leads me to say then that, perhaps, Conrad is not trying to make a grand statement out of this story. He is more of a realist than he is generally thought to be. He is describing something he has experienced or has observed or which he sees as a reflection of life. Conrad is not Carl Jung, and these characters are not archetypes.
Conrad writes often about the struggles of youth. The shipmaster who narrates this is describing himself as a young man. He wants the reader to identify with the narrator. I can, up to a point.
One thing I noticed is that the anonymous narrator is the narrator of THE SHADOW-LINE, which Conrad wrote in 1916. The action occurs after the action of THE SHADOW-LINE, but it intrigued me to realize the stories have at least a tenuous connection.
I'm not certain I quite get what Conrad is driving at in A SMILE OF FORTUNE. But there are some great lines and the descriptions of peripheral characters are pointed. But the central drama mystifies me. I don't think Conrad mapped out any given work. Inasmuch as THE SHADOW-LINE (subtitled "A Confession") is autobiographical, I would not be surprised to learn that this one is, as well. This leads me to say then that, perhaps, Conrad is not trying to make a grand statement out of this story. He is more of a realist than he is generally thought to be. He is describing something he has experienced or has observed or which he sees as a reflection of life. Conrad is not Carl Jung, and these characters are not archetypes.
Conrad writes often about the struggles of youth. The shipmaster who narrates this is describing himself as a young man. He wants the reader to identify with the narrator. I can, up to a point.
August 6, 2025
An odd, but surprisingly evocative short-story. Not sure I'd fare well as a 19th century (?) merchant ship captain. As with some of his other works, it's shot through with a sense of unease, no character is untainted by the colonial project they engage in.
July 7, 2017
This story is about a Captain who is in port.
October 4, 2024
Short but beautifully written.
Read
October 23, 2025not a fan tbh
June 4, 2010
The prose in Conrad's A Smile of Fortune is fluid, almost lyrical. At times it feels almost like reading a poet's description of their own dream.
The story involves a ship's captain pulling into harbor at a small tropical island to collect a shipment of sugar. He has a letter from his ship's owners telling him to meet a man named Jacobus. It turns out there are two Mr. Jacobus' on the island: The one he breakfasts with turns out to be the scandalized island pariah, not the layabout business man indicated by the letter. The two men are brothers and the captain knows he should be working with the respectable Mr. Jacobus, but he finds himself more drawn to the ship-chandler. This conflict is amplified when the captain's meeting with the proper Jacobus turns sour at the witness of the man's ill treatment of his son; on a visit to the disreputable Jacobus the captain finds himself strangely entranced by the man's probably illegitimate daughter.
She's rude, malcontent and dismissive. The captain becomes fairly obsessed with her. His own reputation becomes jeopardized as he finds any excuse at all to spend time sitting with her. The climactic confrontation leads to, ultimately, the captain's ruin as circumstances in his position become unbearable, a condition of his own creation.
The two Jacobus' are obviously symbolic of the twin natures within the captain. The struggle he has between being wanting to be a stand up working man, a commercially respectable individual he might say, and the fetishistic attraction he has to the sullied, the outcast is clearly outlined with his reluctant drifting toward the tarnished Jacobus and his flagellating daughter. It is especially telling that he finds the well-respected businessman Jacobus so revolting as he boxes his poor terrorized son's ears for a non-transgression. If this is respectability, perhaps he wants none of it.
A Smile of Fortune is interesting, although there is a more richly realized dissection of the unraveling of a stand-up type of man into a shamed and scandalized shell than is allowed in the short run to the climactic confrontation. Particularly the character of Alice is unnecessarily inexplicable, leaving the captain's preoccupation with her as feeling a bit forced. A more measured pace to these final, pivotal developments might have given it a sharper ring of truth.
The story involves a ship's captain pulling into harbor at a small tropical island to collect a shipment of sugar. He has a letter from his ship's owners telling him to meet a man named Jacobus. It turns out there are two Mr. Jacobus' on the island: The one he breakfasts with turns out to be the scandalized island pariah, not the layabout business man indicated by the letter. The two men are brothers and the captain knows he should be working with the respectable Mr. Jacobus, but he finds himself more drawn to the ship-chandler. This conflict is amplified when the captain's meeting with the proper Jacobus turns sour at the witness of the man's ill treatment of his son; on a visit to the disreputable Jacobus the captain finds himself strangely entranced by the man's probably illegitimate daughter.
She's rude, malcontent and dismissive. The captain becomes fairly obsessed with her. His own reputation becomes jeopardized as he finds any excuse at all to spend time sitting with her. The climactic confrontation leads to, ultimately, the captain's ruin as circumstances in his position become unbearable, a condition of his own creation.
The two Jacobus' are obviously symbolic of the twin natures within the captain. The struggle he has between being wanting to be a stand up working man, a commercially respectable individual he might say, and the fetishistic attraction he has to the sullied, the outcast is clearly outlined with his reluctant drifting toward the tarnished Jacobus and his flagellating daughter. It is especially telling that he finds the well-respected businessman Jacobus so revolting as he boxes his poor terrorized son's ears for a non-transgression. If this is respectability, perhaps he wants none of it.
A Smile of Fortune is interesting, although there is a more richly realized dissection of the unraveling of a stand-up type of man into a shamed and scandalized shell than is allowed in the short run to the climactic confrontation. Particularly the character of Alice is unnecessarily inexplicable, leaving the captain's preoccupation with her as feeling a bit forced. A more measured pace to these final, pivotal developments might have given it a sharper ring of truth.
May 20, 2009
A low-key, quirky little story from Conrad. Nothing awfully dramatic here, but all the components of the master's voice: involuntary fascination with the exotic Other; the internal stress-lines of the narrator, yearning romantic vs cynical modern; and the Twin or Double pattern of characters outwardly materializing those divisions.
Here the narrative hews very closely to Conrad's own experience of the outlying port of Mauritius, when he commanded a merchant sailing barque in the 'Orient' of the day. Thickly stagnant permanence in the French colonial social structure is contrasted with the perfumed flora & fauna of the island, which draws the story's Captain to a dizzying infatuation with a wild-child daughter of a peculiar island trader.
Old story, best intentions and ardent romanticism founder on the rocks of pragmatism and greed; colonial extravagance breeding decay, and underneath it, intoxicating lust and vexing contradiction. But Conrad has got the upper hand on this, having more or less made his name on setting this kind of tale into text; the patient eye and sure description of the remotest parts of the world make him strongly credible where more 'imaginative' writers would ring false. And as always, that magical thing about Conrad's prose that locks the practical into the intuitive, unifying the perspective completely. (Something to do with having learned English after his native Polish that creates this kind of perfect English prose, something he shares with Nabokov....?) The low-key and rueful tone manage to ground the narrative, and disarm any contrived turns that could derail the story's impact.
At eighty pages, this may be worth a second read.
Here the narrative hews very closely to Conrad's own experience of the outlying port of Mauritius, when he commanded a merchant sailing barque in the 'Orient' of the day. Thickly stagnant permanence in the French colonial social structure is contrasted with the perfumed flora & fauna of the island, which draws the story's Captain to a dizzying infatuation with a wild-child daughter of a peculiar island trader.
Old story, best intentions and ardent romanticism founder on the rocks of pragmatism and greed; colonial extravagance breeding decay, and underneath it, intoxicating lust and vexing contradiction. But Conrad has got the upper hand on this, having more or less made his name on setting this kind of tale into text; the patient eye and sure description of the remotest parts of the world make him strongly credible where more 'imaginative' writers would ring false. And as always, that magical thing about Conrad's prose that locks the practical into the intuitive, unifying the perspective completely. (Something to do with having learned English after his native Polish that creates this kind of perfect English prose, something he shares with Nabokov....?) The low-key and rueful tone manage to ground the narrative, and disarm any contrived turns that could derail the story's impact.
At eighty pages, this may be worth a second read.
June 26, 2012
Un piccolo libro da leggere (quasi) tutto d'un fiato. Devo averlo scambiato in qualche mercatino dei libri, perchè non ricordo di averlo comprato. Sicuramente l'avrò preso per le ridotte dimensioni (poche pagine, poco spazio di ingombro in borsa), sperando che fosse anche una buona lettura.
L'inizio fa pensare a una storia di marinai e commercio, invece... prende tutta un'altra piega; potrei dire che il libro descrive un'attrazione e disamoramento, il tutto in un contesto sociale di inclusione/esclusione; mi ha colpito perchè rende bene l'idea di come la vita di molte persone sia fortemente condizionata da alcune norme "sociali" che non premiano gli slanci affettivi, ma solo la forma, ed in questo possiamo ritrovarci in qualsiasi epoca.
L'inizio fa pensare a una storia di marinai e commercio, invece... prende tutta un'altra piega; potrei dire che il libro descrive un'attrazione e disamoramento, il tutto in un contesto sociale di inclusione/esclusione; mi ha colpito perchè rende bene l'idea di come la vita di molte persone sia fortemente condizionata da alcune norme "sociali" che non premiano gli slanci affettivi, ma solo la forma, ed in questo possiamo ritrovarci in qualsiasi epoca.
June 23, 2015
A short novella, crammed with highly descriptive prose and multi level allegory. 'A Smile of Fortune' carries many messages, perhaps a psychological exploration, add a semitic undercurrent with a dash of eroticism, a mix of anti-capitalist narrative in a colonial setting.
A subtle bitter sweet blend.
A subtle bitter sweet blend.
January 19, 2009
another slim volume (like the e.b. white i read before it). quite old fashioned in many respects. some charming moments & details, but overall it hasn't aged well. if possible, i would have given it somewhere around 1.5 stars.
November 29, 2014
A very short book. It is dark and slow moving, a sort of shadow dance love story. Violent emotion is hinted at but I could never really get this. One for completing Conrad rather than search out for itself
October 4, 2014
i libri di Conrad, seppur brevi come questo, mi lasciano sempre almeno un'immagine vivida, di una scena, di un personaggio o di una situazione. In questo caso è il passivo personaggio femminile, Alice, abbandonata persino da sè stessa nel suo ombreggiato giardino tropicale.
Want to read
December 8, 2011Recommended in the book, Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading.
October 9, 2014
Beautifully written, short, sweet and romantic.
December 31, 2025
this is the origin story of ‘born sexy yesterday’ trope
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews