Nostromo, by Joseph Conrad

[Jamie]

This book is the 'classic literature' version of a Cussler-style thriller. In this novel, Nostromo aka Capataz de Cargadores aka Gian' Battista Fidanza, an Italian orphan, finds a home in the New World with a colonial family, the Violas. He quickly establishes himself as a reliable and capable worker, and when a revolution throws his town into chaos, Nostromo becomes indispensable as the only man who can be trusted to hide a large supply of silver ingots from the nearby silver mine. Believed dead after the sinking of the ship carrying the silver, he miraculously returns and saves the day for his fellow townspeople, defeating the evil, greedy revolutionaries with a daring and heroic cross-country ride. The details of this heroism are glossed over, oddly enough, as if Conrad got tired of writing his book and just shoved all the rest of the story into as few pages as he could to wrap up and publish his book and be done with it.
In the hands of a good modern writer this would have been a thriller adventure novel, and certainly the handsome Nostromo reminded me a bit of Dirk Pitt, tall, dark and handsome, capable of swimming a mile to escape a shipwreck, riding for days cross country to bring help to his friends, etc. But in Conrad's style this is a tedious book, heavy and boring for far too much of the book, despite all the action. In fact, most of the action is treated as almost an afterthought, so that the focus of the book is more on the agonizing, pondering, worrying, and other internal reactions of the characters to events that mostly occur off-screen. I enjoyed the overall story enough to give the book 3 stars, but no more than that, and I'd lean more towards 2.5 stars if we had half-stars on Goodreads.

[Amanda]

Jamie gave a good summary above so I won't bother on that front. I think it was cool that the fictional nation is the book is likely a stand in for Columbia.

I also gave this 3 stars. I enjoyed it well enough: but it didn't have the same sense of suspense or deep socio cultural analysis that I feel his better books have (Heart of Darkness, Shadow Line, Lord Jim etc). I liked the bait and switch ish ending though.

[Wayne]

My goodness but Mr. Conrad can ramble on and on and on. Gave this 4 stars because the story is great despite the over writing.





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[Kristel]

Reason read: Reading 1001, tbr takedown, TIOLI #2, Sept 2023.
The book was written in the early part of the 20th century and is probably Conrad's greatest achievement, a bridge to the modernistic novel and a fictional depiction of post-colonial global capitalism.

The setting is a fictionalized country on the eastern coast of South America like Columbia. The time period of over throwing dictators, puppet governments set up by European and US countries. It is also a time period of transition to steam powered ships.

The story is told by use of backstory, flashbacks, anachrony, metadiegetic narrative. Conrad relates a historical time period in just a few weeks of time. The long development of the backstory makes it hard to engage with the story and I did not fully engage in it until well past the midpoint. I listened to the audio and wonder if I could have made it through actually reading it. It may be soporific. Social and cultural issues include a cast of characters from all walks of life; business men, dictators, aristocrats, politicols, protestant, catholic, servants, employees. Capitalism is depicted as power and control and the reason for revolt and the birth of Marxism.

Characters; There are many characters. Nostromo is an Italian dockworker. Nostromo implies his work. His name is Giovanni Battista Fidanza. Charles Gould inherits the decrepit silver mine and becomes obsessed with it to the point of neglecting his wife. Martin Decoud is a man who has spent time in Paris and considers himself European even though he was born in S. America. He is a propagandist journalist. Ribera is the puppet governor set up have the overthrow of the dictotor. General Montero overthrows Ribiera. Nostromo and Dcoud are tasked with getting the lighter of silver out of the country. A task that they fail to complete but do to an incident at sea, it is believed that the silver was lost at sea. The silver is the pivot for the morals and politics of the book.

I finished the story but it was not easy, mostly because of the lengthy backstory and the stylistic writing. The story itself is not complicated. I am glad to be done with it and it is a book that should be reread, probably right away. But I will not be doing so at this time. It has achieved the test of time. It is listed as 47 of 100 best fiction of the 20th Century by Modern Library.
Gave this a B- or 3.6 stars