Michael's review of Nostromo (original) (raw)

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Michael's Reviews > Nostromo

Nostromo by Joseph Conrad

Nostromo
by

4086118

This is a character study of Europeans remaking themselves in the New World, in this case the fictional South American country of Costaguana. As in other books by this master that I’ve enjoyed over the decades (Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, The Secret Sharer), I enjoyed the collision of the characters’ sense of noble purpose and the reality of corruption and self-interest that forever infests human enterprise. On the plus side, we delve into the minds and struggles of a larger cast of characters than in Conrad’s more famous works. The flip side of that is a diffusion of focus and a long traverse getting to know them before significant events occur that converge their pathways and challenge them to change their ways or fall by the wayside. In other words, the tale can try your patience a bit waiting for people to get unstuck in their ways.

The modernist elements in the writing that impressed me for a book published in 1904 include hopping among the perspectives of several key characters, with some interludes with an omniscient narrator and some playing with linearity in the timeframe. Two important characters we mainly come to know as reflected indirectly from the mindset of other characters, mine owner Charles Gould and his captain of the company’s security forces, Nostromo, whom we are told was a former guerrilla fighter with Garibaldi’s revolt in Italy and a merchant marine foreman after that.

Gould is the inheritor of a silver mining concession from his wealthy British ancestors, who were more into the shipping business of their steamship fleet than the big challenges of mining. While the Spanish for three centuries made treasures from the mine through brutal employment of slave labor and coerced labor, Gould applies his engineering training to make a more efficient and humane operation. Thus, the people mostly love him, and the provincial government and local businesses appreciate the boon to the economy. For a long time, income from the concession keeps the line of dictators at the distant capitol relatively happy through payment on the development investment they forced on him and ongoing bribes. However, the prospect of a successful revolutionary coup brings such stability to an end. With the fear of rebel insurgents taking the town, the peasants react by rioting and assaults on the homes and businesses of the upper classes. The hopes for the town and company in Nostromo’s competence in their defense is founded on a past success by him in heroically warding off a mob attack on one of the company’s boats trying evacuate company employees.

Conrad gives us a window on these two characters from the residents of the town Sulaco, including the viewpoints of Gould’s charming wife Emilia, who is tough in her own way but sincere in her charity; the cynical English doctor Monygham, whose torture by an earlier dictator leaves him wishing for a republic; the mine manager Joseph Mitchell, a fussy but efficient Brit promoted from a long tour as steamship captain; the progressive journalist Martin Decoud, who acquired European culture from his education in France; the virtuous local aristocrat Don Jose Avellanos and his wife Antonia; and Giorgio Viola, a merchant who also fought with Garibaldi and father of two daughters who come to captivate Nostromo. We come to wonder how noble Gould and Nostromo really are. The disparity between the luxury Gould lives in and the impoverished status of the town’s majority is obvious. In the case of Nostomo, some of his comments suggest a chafing in his soul from resentment of being exploited without suitable reward. Is the whole enterprise of extracting riches from this land doomed to the forces of corruption and excesses inherent with all colonial endeavors? All in Conrad’s cast of characters are forced to decide whether they should support capitulation to the new warlords or instead gamble on desperate resistance and a chance of making an independent republic out of their province. Regardless of who ends up in power, there is the thorny problem of keeping the large quantity of silver ingots not yet shipped out to buyers from being snatched by individuals from either side with their own greed in mind.

Conrad sold this story in serial form for a magazine. To satisfy such readers, he pulls off some great surprises for the ending. Along the way, his well-developed characters each undergo significant development to make the necessary choices to adapt and survive the treacherous events of the tale. Some rise to the occasion to make a moral stance, some get their just deserts, some get undeserved rewards, and some tragically pay with their lives. I admire the book, but overall my personal pleasure meter didn’t often reach high on the dial due to so many diversions among the characters. I was most moved when the prose suddenly lept off the page with some eloquent description of geography or insight into reality by his characters. Here is a small sample of his marvelous crafting of the English language despite growing up in Poland:

Don Jose Avellanos depended very much upon the devotion of his beloved Antonia. He accepted it in the benighted way of men, who, though made in God's image, are like stone idols without sense before the smoke of certain burnt offerings.”

Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions. Only in the conduct of our action can we find the sense of mastery over the Fates.”

There is never any God in a country where men will not help themselves.

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Reading Progress

May 10, 2017 –Started Reading

May 19, 2017 – Shelved as:mining

May 19, 2017 –Finished Reading

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