Joseph Conrad's VICTORY

 

Joseph Conrad

3 December 1857 - 3 August 1924

Joseph Conrad was an English novelist and short-story writer of Polish descent. He is regarded as one of the greatest English novelists, especially in light of the fact that English was not his first language. He learned English at age 21.

Conrad's writings are highly descriptive, provocative, and full of adventure, drawing on his many years at sea. He knew seamanship well, having risen from apprentice to ship captain. 

His novel Victory is a study of contrasts between isolation and connection; between good and evil, and between greed and self-sacrifice. It brims, a simmering pot, that comes gradually to a head. When I read it, I was breathless at the last page. 

In 1915, Jack London wrote, "Whatever you do, read Conrad's latest -- Victory. Read it, if you have to pawn your watch to buy it. Conrad has exceeded himself. I am glad that I am alive, if, for no other reason, because of the joy of reading this book."

The journalist Joan Didion wrote, "I often reread Victory, which is maybe my favorite book in the world… The story is told thirdhand. It’s not a story the narrator even heard from someone who experienced it. The narrator seems to have heard it from people he runs into around the Malacca Strait. So there’s this fantastic distancing of the narrative, except that when you’re in the middle of it, it remains very immediate. It’s incredibly skillful. I have never started a novel — I mean except the first, when I was starting a novel just to start a novel — I’ve never written one without rereading Victory. It opens up the possibilities of a novel. It makes it seem worth doing." (The Paris Review, 2006)