W.E.A.

Southland Times, Issue 19279, 25 June 1924, Page 6

W.E.A.

LITERATURE CLASS. JOSEPH CONRAD AND HIS STORIES. The weekly meeting of the W.E.A. Literature Class was held in the YM.C.A. rooms last evening, when there was a good attendance. Mr I. L. Petrie occupied the chair and briefly introduced the subject for discussion, “Youth” and “Typhoon,” two stories by Joseph Conrad, the great contemporary novelist.

The lecturer (Mr S. G. August) said it was of interest to know something about the life of the author to thoroughly appreciate his work. Conrad was a native of Poland and was accounted by critics to be a supreme master of English. He had served as a sailor before the mast, and rose to a command in the British mercantile marine; but despite this, it seemed obvious that he should have been the last man to reach the top as a fictionist in England. “Nevertheless we have to accept this fact, and account for it in any way we deem feasible. A true solution, of course, may be quite beyond any critic. One thing, however, can be said, and that is that Conrad’s work is coloured by an unusual temperament, and if a work of art is a picture, a phase of life, or anything ‘ else received through a temperament, then Conrad must be considered a genuine literary artist. His Slavic origin peeps out all through his novels, and we cannot imagine any other living writer doing his work in exactly the same way. He is individual to the last degree, and his novels seem to be chapters of comment on life, the sea, and letters. His characters are not always real people, but they are at least, intimately, dealt with; rarely in relation to other people, as with the conventional novelist, but in relation to problems of life or the sea. Conrad is, first of all, a novelist of the sea. The sea flows through his books, green and undiluted, and it is ship’s oil and not “midnight oil” that burns in the cabins of his steamers. The usual sea story of adventure, set out on “best-seller” lines, with the heroine waiting round the corner of the plot to take her cue at the opportune moment is not for Conrad. His books are not made to order, but written to interpret life and the sea as he knows them. In “Youth” and “Typhoon,” the books under consideration, women take no part to speak of, although, in both cases the captain’s wives, pass somewhat shadowy in minor shore episodes. But the real story is of the sea, and of men. Conrad knows both, and treats them in a thoroughly masculine manner.

“Youth,” continued the lecturer, is hardly a narrative as the author has seen fit to make it. It is a sketch, an exordiui i, in short, an unintentional introduction to the whole of Conrad’s stories. His first book “Almayer’s Folly” is typical, but not a suitable book to start with, while “The Rover” shows many un-Conradian traits. Every book by our author is worthy of study but it is essential that ‘Youth" should he read. In its pages Conrad tells his readers what to expect from him. ‘Youth” is a rhapsody to the eternal spirit of adventure, as seen through the eyes of young Marlow, a British officer, who thrills to every danger, and views those about him as somewhat prosaic. They, too, are playing the same great game of seamanship, and rising above adverse fate, but they have not his youth; the glamour of a first command is far behind them; the East is not new to them; and they have beards, grey hair, and bald heads. We see young Marlow steaming into a new world, and though the vessel is on fire, and the port of Bankok, with its mysterious and colourful beauty, an almost impossible destination, there is never a suggestion of doubt in the ultimate success of the voyage. When the steamer, a mass of flame, finally sinks in the Indian Ocean, the boats are manned with the same defiant confidence, and young Marlow, in such sordid and heartbreaking circumstances*takes his first command, with the head of the life-boat facing to Bankok, to the unimagined East. Beyond Kipling and Masefield, beyond any contemporary writer we know, Conrad has “celebrated” as the older poets have it, the sea and “those who go down to the sea in ships.” The high tension of “Youth” is relieved by little touches of humour, but they are not qualified to make one laugh; they emphasise the naturalness of the characters, they fix the human element more securely. In “Typhoon” you really discover the story of “Youth” carried a stage further, and if the characters and the steamer have different names, even if the seamen are men of reverse make-up, they are still facing the same problem and solving it in the self-same way. The steamer is the NanShan,” commanded by Captain MacWhirr, and the first officer is Marlow sailing under a different name. Conrad would hardly admit thisj but it is obvious. Where the “Judea,” the steamer dealt with in ‘Youth,” had to face determination by fire, the “Nan-Shan” was to experience a typhoon, and finish a hull-testing voyage triumphantly- The steamer, the crew, MacWhirr, and the typhoon furnish the whole story. There is no love-interest, no stage-set adventures, no well constructed plot, no attempt to please the novel reader who wishes to while away an hour or two, but there is an interpretation of the sea in its wildest mood, as it is read from, the decks of a steamer, from the stokehold, and from the bridge. Captain MacWhirr is a nobody, apparently, he is almost dull, has no imagination whatsoever, his personality is relieved by no romantic touches, and yet he dominates the story by his stolid indifference to the fury of the typhoon. He takes his ship through as a duty, part of the year’s work, and when the enormous task is accomplished he considers it too trivial to ever talk about. Conrad gives us the real sea in “Typhoon” and the sailor-man as he is, not the lay figure of fiction. It is this quality of truthfulness, of straight forward presentation, that forces one to return to these books. They are genuinely alive. But Conrad is a philosopher, and he finds his characters dealing with a Fate too big for them. His master mariners rarely succeed. They are broken at last by the sea which should have made them. There is pessimism in these studies of men who are not strong enough to tear themselves away from what they cannot conquer. The lecturer read several extracts which gave a good idea on Conrad’s style, and his unusual point of view. There were many quaint touches, some humour, and the ever present restless ocean waters. Conrad re-states the case for the sea and the sailor in masterful English, and his words have a suggestion of finality. There was an interesting discussion in which the principal speakers were Miss Erskine, Mesdames H. Sutton and E. R. Crofts, and Messrs* W. Denham and W. Power.