Nostromo in Around the World in 80 Books

Jun 27, 2011 Steve rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, favorites

Nostromo is considered by many to be Conrad’s greatest novel. The ambiguous nature of good and evil, the importance of duty, common themes in all of Conrad’s novels, get an epic treatment in Nostromo (my Modern Library edition is 630 pages long). But for all of its length, the novel, after the first dense, foundation building 50 pages or so, reads quickly. Published in 1904, the book has the feel of a modern novel. It’s a book about revolutions, money, and character, told through different voice Nostromo is considered by many to be Conrad’s greatest novel. The ambiguous nature of good and evil, the importance of duty, common themes in all of Conrad’s novels, get an epic treatment in Nostromo (my Modern Library edition is 630 pages long). But for all of its length, the novel, after the first dense, foundation building 50 pages or so, reads quickly. Published in 1904, the book has the feel of a modern novel. It’s a book about revolutions, money, and character, told through different voices, different eyes.

The main character is of course Nostromo, though the reader may at first be a bit puzzled by this, since for well over half the book Nostromo, a sailor and dock foreman, exists on the periphery of the story, but always as the “indispensible man.” If anything, the main character is, initially, the San Tome silver mine, a storehouse of wealth in the imaginary South American country of “Costaguana.” Charles Gould is the owner of the mine. He has inherited it from his father, but the mine is both a political football and silver goose due to the country’s never ending revolutions. (So much so that Gould’s uncle was executed by the previous junta.) Gould has no intention of ever letting that happen again, so he takes a different approach, inviting outside investors (American, and others) to get the mine running again, with a backup plan that involves a lot of dynamite. With a new, liberal government in place, it looks like everyone is making money.

Not so, as one resentful general feels he isn’t getting his fair share. Yet another revolution occurs, and the province of Sulaco (the richest in the country) falls under siege. Fortunately Sulaco is protected by its geography, and what follows is a race against time, with several factions vying for control of the country – and the silver. The cast of characters Conrad uses to tell his story seems vast, but the individual treatment is never shallow. Oh, some (most?) of the characters are shallow, depressingly so. Generals, sailors, crazy priests, revolutionaries, nihilists, bandits, women of various natures, are all revealed in their damaged glory. Gould himself, not really good or evil, is a mechanical man, a total materialist, who, oddly, is married to a secular saint of sorts, Emilia. There were times I wondered about this odd match, but in the end I figured Charles represented the ultimate project for Emilia. The result is a sterile standoff.

And then there’s Nostromo, a confident guy who on surface would seem the perfect Conradian hero. He gets the job done, whatever it is, always. However, the problem in Nostromo’s case is that it is always linked to how he feels he is viewed by others – especially his employers. His reputation is paramount. When the social order collapses, he feels “betrayed” by it (or “them”). But much of this is self-serving. When, through an accident, fate pushes the silver into his lap, he makes the wrong choice, and that choice eats at him throughout the rest of the novel, compounding itself into multiple bad choices, with the final, fatal choice linked to love. Some have complained about the late love story in the novel. For me it fittingly closed the circle, and is as heartbreaking an ending as I’ve read in literature. It’s a sad story told by a master.
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Dec 12, 2007 Sam rated it did not like it

Shelves: read-school-pre-2004, 6-classics

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Jun 09, 2009 Elizabeth marked it as to-read

Shelves: wishlist

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Aug 20, 2009 Vesra (When She Reads) added it · review of another edition

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Nov 22, 2009 Juliana Philippa marked it as to-read

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Jun 22, 2010 Deedee marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: rws-reading-1001, rws-canon-bonus-points, modern-library-100-novels, guardian-list-unread, classics, title-has-1-word, j3, 1900-1909, n2, author-joseph

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