Jim Leckband's review of The Nigger of the Narcissus (original) (raw)

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Jim Leckband's Reviews > The Nigger of the Narcissus

The Nigger of the Narcissus
by

** spoiler alert ** This book reminded me a lot of Bartleby the Scrivener by Melville. In both this book and Bartleby, the "main" character is a MacGuffin to lead you into what the book is really about. However, Conrad was astute enough not to name the book "The MacGuffin of the Narcissus", even though it might end up on more high school reading lists with that title...

(sidenote: since I am writing this in 2011 I cannot unselfconsciously use the N-Word when writing about the antagonist - I can get all postmoderny and try to justify it as anti-reader-response theory and I'm "channeling" Conrad in the spirit of the 1890's...blah blah blah...but in the end...nah.)

The N of the N in my opinion is mostly about the crew of the Narcissus - who see James Wait (the N) as a (black?) mirror of their own conditions - hence Conrad's unsubtle leading name of the ship. We are left in the dark about the truth of James Wait - was he really sick the whole time? Was he really a grifter? Did he get sick only after the Captain exiled him? But what is clear are the reactions of the crew to Wait. Some see him as a lost soul, some as only a grifter, some as an inscrutable alien, and probably only one crew member sees him as a complex mixture containing multitudes (and not just the narrator). This crew member is the one really affected by Wait's death at the end. But, again, was it love for Wait or for himself for loving Wait that caused his reaction?

The crew is fixated on Wait as a totem of how they are dealing with life on the Narcissus - why are they working for the bosses? Are they in solidarity with a fellow crew member or against him for not working? What is the right response? Does it depend on what we assume or what is real? And how do we know what is real?

This psychological turbulence is reflected by the sea. The sea and the ship are treated as character in their own right. Conrad in fact anthropomorphizes them brilliantly in the ship disaster. One could look at the sea and ship as allegories to the impersonal forces we are useless against - but yet have to struggle with.

As always with Conrad - this high school term paper analysis could go on and on - but it is all a sideshow to how he can really write a good story.

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Reading Progress

June 5, 2011 –Started Reading

June 7, 2011 –Finished Reading

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