經典迴響 瓊·迪迪恩每次讀完一本書，合上書頁，在開始讀下一本之前，甚至在她還沒想好下一本要讀什麼之前——她都會從書架上取下《勝利》。 「它開啟了小說創作的可能性，」她說，「它讓我覺得寫小說是值得的。」 這不是你會用來形容一本你欣賞的書的評價。這是你會用來形容一本教你如何呼吸的書的評價。 我讀了三遍才明白她的意思。 第一次讀的時候，我二十五歲，身無分文，在舊金山當服務員，假裝自己將來會成為作家。我讀到第八十頁就放棄了，太慢了。太多對熱帶島嶼的描述和哲學式的超脫。我想要的是情節。康拉德卻像掠食者一樣，圍繞著他的人物盤旋，判斷他們是否值得他費心。 阿克塞爾·海斯特獨自生活在一座荒島上。他的父親教導他，一切行動皆徒勞，執著只會帶來痛苦，面對存在的唯一明智之舉便是優雅地抽離。於是，海斯特隱居起來，在馬來群島漂泊多年，不觸碰任何事物，對任何事都漠不關心，精進了自己也對任何人漠不關心的藝術。 後來，他從贊賈科莫的女子樂團——一個偽裝成音樂娛樂的人口販賣組織——手中救出了莉娜。他把她帶回了自己的島嶼。突然間，這個一生都在逃避人際互動的男人，有了需要依靠的人，卻不知所措。 三個惡人出現了：瓊斯先生，一位身患肺結核、奄奄一息的紳士賭徒；里卡多，他心狠手辣的助手，一心想要得到莉娜；佩德羅，一個沉默寡言、如同野獸般的人物。他們聽說海斯特的島上藏有寶藏。雖然沒有寶藏，但這無關緊要。暴力的機器已經啟動。 康拉德明白了大多數作家不明白的一點：孤立並非安全。海斯特一生都在逃避糾葛，他堅信超脫能保護自己。然而，事實卻讓他毫無防備。當里卡多試圖侵犯莉娜時，海斯特僵住了。他無法行動，也無法干預。他父親的哲學讓他成了自己人生的旁觀者，而他心愛的女人為此付出了代價。 瓊斯意外槍殺了莉娜，里卡多也死了，海斯特抱著她的屍體走向火堆，這一切如同披著悲劇外衣的必然。康拉德於1914年5月完成了這部作品。當它出版時，第一次世界大戰已經爆發，康拉德對書名感到不安。 「勝利」對於一部小說來說似乎太宏大，對一部虛構作品來說也過於嚴肅，因為現實中無數人正在死去。但他無法更改書名，因為諷刺正是這部作品的精髓所在。這裡沒有勝利。只有人們在彼此的傷害下掙扎求生。 納博科夫討厭這本書。他甚至稱之為紀念品商店式的散文、浪漫主義的陳詞濫調、瓶裝船和貝殼項鍊。他的評價並非完全錯誤。康拉德的文筆在某些地方確實矯揉造作，甚至有些煽情，而《黑暗之心》卻避免了這種風格。但迪迪恩卻透過這些表像看到了其內在的結構，看到了故事的敘述方式——透過口耳相傳、流言蜚語的過濾，既遙遠又近在咫尺。 我現在明白了她為什麼在創作每一本小說之前都要重讀一遍。康拉德採用了最不可能的敘事框架——由聽聞者講述的故事——卻讓你感覺彷彿身臨其境，置身其中。這並非技巧，而是魔法。如果你想寫出真實的故事，就必須記住，這是有可能的。即使它本來不應該發生。
Not just once, every time Joan Didion finished a book, and closed it, before beginning the next one, before even knowing what the next one would be about - she'd pull Victory off the shelf.
"It opens up the possibilities of a novel," she said. "It makes it seem worth doing." That's not the kind of thing you say about a book you admire. That's what you say about a book that taught you how to breathe.
I tried reading it three times before I understood what she meant.
The first time I was twenty-five, broke, waiting tables in San Francisco and pretending I was going to be a writer someday. I got to page eighty and quit, too slow. Too much description of tropical islands and philosophical detachment. I wanted plot. Conrad wanted to circle around his characters like a predator deciding whether they were worth the effort.
Axel Heyst lives alone on an abandoned island. His father taught him that all action is futile, that attachment leads to suffering, that the only intelligent response to existence is elegant withdrawal. So Heyst withdrew, drifted through the Malay Archipelago for years, touching nothing, caring about nothing, perfecting the art of not mattering to anyone including himself.
Then he rescues Lena from Zangiacomo's Ladies' Orchestra, basically a trafficking operation disguised as musical entertainment. Takes her to his island. And suddenly this man who's spent his entire life avoiding connection has someone depending on him, and he has no idea how to do it.
Three villains show up: Mr. Jones, a gentleman gambler dying of tuberculosis. Ricardo, his vicious assistant who wants Lena immediately. Pedro, a beast who barely speaks. They've heard rumors about treasure on Heyst's island. There isn't any treasure, doesn't matter. The machinery of violence has already started moving.
Here's what Conrad understood that most writers don't: isolation isn't safety. Heyst spent his whole life running from entanglement, convinced that detachment would protect him. Instead it left him defenseless. When Ricardo tries to assault Lena, Heyst freezes. Can't act, can't intervene. His father's philosophy has made him into a spectator of his own life, and the woman he loves pays for it.
Jones shoots Lena by accident, Ricardo dead, Heyst carrying her body into the fire, lands like inevitability dressed up as tragedy. Conrad finished writing this in May 1914. By the time it was published, World War I had started and Conrad felt sick about the title. Victory seemed too grand for a novel, too serious for fiction while real people were dying. But he couldn't change it because the irony was the point. There is no victory. Just people trying to survive each other.
Nabokov hated this book. He even called it souvenir-shop prose, romanticist clichés, bottled ships and shell necklaces. He's not entirely wrong. Conrad's writing here gets purple in places, melodramatic in ways Heart of Darkness avoided. But Didion saw past that to the structure underneath, the way the story gets told third-hand, filtered through gossip and rumor, distant and immediate simultaneously.
I understand now why she reread it before every novel. Conrad takes the most impossible narrative frame, stories told by people who heard them from other people, and makes you feel like you're standing in the room when it happens. That's not craft, that's sorcery. And if you're trying to write something true, you need to remember it's possible. Even when it shouldn't be.
Joseph Conrad 作品多譯本：《黑暗的心》(Heart of Darkness ,1899), "Lord Jim" (1900)《吉姆爺》--專研康拉德的翻譯名家鄧鴻樹文學博士傾力譯注與導讀。，《康拉德與自傳的虛構》 The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad"The Shadow-Line: A Confession"【#人與書國際週報】004：
《吉姆爺》
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專研康拉德的翻譯名家鄧鴻樹文學博士傾力譯注與導讀。
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英語文學大師康拉德巔峰代表作《吉姆爺》，以非線性敘事手法通過多層次時間跳躍和旁觀者視角，揭示吉姆複雜的心理變化，細膩真實地呈現出面對恥辱與救贖的矛盾與無力感。書中對人類本質與道德困境的透澈反思，具有普世的寓言價值；暗含的殖民文化和權力衝突，更賦予小說深刻的象徵意義。
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「本書翻譯期間正值全球疫情爆發，有段時間世界被迫安靜下來。譯者在此詭譎氣氛裡重讀《吉姆爺》，耳邊不斷響起的是作家殷切傾訴的肺腑之言。」——〈譯序〉／鄧鴻樹
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Joseph Conrad：《黑暗的心》(Heart of Darkness ,1899), "Lord Jim" (1900)，《康拉德與自傳的虛構》 The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad"The Shadow-Line: A Confession"【#人與書國際週報】004：
當他溯游而上，卻發現所有文明的面具逐漸剝落，暴露出荒誕與殘酷的內核......
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▋康拉德經典代表作《吉姆爺：一段軼事》、《黑暗之心（康拉德逝世一百週年紀念書封版）》
Joseph Conrad
康拉德與自傳的虛構
作者: [美]愛德華·薩義德
出版社: 人民文學出版社
出品方: 99讀書人
原作名: Joseph Conrad and the Fiction of Autobiography
出版年: 2023-9
頁數: 243
定價: 69.00元
裝幀: 平裝
ISBN: 9787020181230
內容簡介 · · · · · ·
出版於1966 年的《康拉德與自傳的虛構》為薩義德的第一本書，從其哈佛大學博士論文修訂，如薩義德本人所言，此書“對康拉德的意識作了現象學意義上的探索”。
薩義德對康拉德的八卷書信集進行了仔細的查閱，庶幾重新構建起康拉德對其自身身份的認定：有才華的作家、僑居者、波蘭人。薩義德從大量信件中看到康拉德生活的滄桑，同時還看到康拉德的散文體表達有著某種不自然的成分，這個作家與英國語言和文化的關係始終不曾完全穩固，其心智處於一種持續的危機狀態。
薩義德學術研究的精力一直傾注在解密我們自身的神話和我們對他人的闡釋上，重新塑造著我們關於“世界的其他部分”和“我們”的認知。第二個認知更艱巨，照鏡子是最難的。——諾姆·喬姆斯基
目錄 · · · · · ·
前 言（安德魯·魯賓）
序 言
縮略語表
第一部分 康拉德的書信
第一章 個體性的訴求
第二章 性格、角色和編織機，
第三章 虛構小說的主張，1896—1912
第四章 戰火世界，1912—1918
第五章 新秩序，1918—1924
第二部分 康拉德的短篇小說
第六章 過去和現在
第七章 現在的技藝
第八章 真理、理念和形象
第九章 陰影線
年表，1889—1924
1899 年2 月8 日致R.B. 坎甯安·格雷厄姆的信
精選書目
注 釋
索 引2
“The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.”
Novelist Joseph Conrad was born #onthisday 1857. Of Polish parentage, Conrad became a seaman and voyaged widely in the East, the setting for many of his most famous novels. He became a British subject in 1886, settled in England in 1894 and devoted himself to literature. He slowly established himself as one of the greatest of all English-speaking novelists, with Lord Jim, (1900), Nostromo, (1904), and Under Western Eyes, (1911). Speaking of the portrait, which depicts Conrad before the sea, the author's wife praised the artist for having 'raised a lasting memorial to an artist and a friend'.
"Sleepe after toyle, port after stormie seas,
Ease after warre, death after life does greatly please"
On this day 1924 Joseph Conrad dies of a sudden heart attack aged 66. His epitaph is fromEdmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene
Sleepe after toil....
Joseph Conrad, author of the novels "Heart of Darkness" and "Lord Jim", died on August 3rd 1924. He explored racial prejudice, moral conflict and the inevitable violence of human nature
‘Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality’ – novelist Joseph Conrad was born #onthisday in 1857. He wrote these words in his novel Under Western Eyes, published in 1911. This portrait by artist Sir Muirhead Bone was made in the 1920s http://ow.ly/V4PPO
"They wanted facts. Facts! They demanded facts from him, as if facts could explain anything."
--from "Lord Jim" (1900) By Joseph Conrad
“No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one’s existence--that which makes its truth, its meaning--its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream--alone.”
―from HEART OF DARKNESS
Lord Jim is a classic story of one man's tragic failure and eventual redemption, told under the circumstances of high adventure at the margins of the known world which made Conrad's work so immediately popular. But it is also the book in which its author, through a brilliant adaptation of his stylistic apparatus to his obsessive moral, psychological and political concerns, laid the groundwork for the modern novel as we know it. READ an excerpt here:http://knopfdoubleday.com/book/30813/lord-jim/
Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski was born in Terekhove, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire on this day in 1857.
“The very young have, properly speaking, no moments. It is the
privilege of early youth to live in advance of its days in all the beautiful
continuity of hope which knows no pauses and no introspection.”
― from "The Shadow-Line: A Confession" By Joseph Conrad
The masterpiece of Joseph Conrad’s later years, the autobiographical short novel The Shadow-Line depicts a young man at a crossroads in his life, facing a desperate crisis that marks the “shadow-line” between youth and maturity.This brief but intense story is a dramatically fictionalized account of Conrad’s first command as a young sea captain trapped aboard a becalmed, fever-wracked, and seemingly haunted ship. With no wind in sight and his crew disabled by malaria, the narrator discovers that the medicine necessary to save the sick men is missing and its absence has been deliberately concealed. Meanwhile, his increasingly frightened first mate is convinced that the malignant ghost of the previous captain has cursed them. Suspenseful, atmospheric, and deceptively simple, Conrad’s tale of the sea reflects the complex themes of his most famous novels, Lord Jim and Heart of Darkness..
“The very young have, properly speaking, no moments. It is the
privilege of early youth to live in advance of its days in all the beautiful
continuity of hope which knows no pauses and no introspection.”
― from "The Shadow-Line: A Confession" By Joseph Conrad
The masterpiece of Joseph Conrad’s later years, the autobiographical short novel The Shadow-Line depicts a young man at a crossroads in his life, facing a desperate crisis that marks the “shadow-line” between youth and maturity.This brief but intense story is a dramatically fictionalized account of Conrad’s first command as a young sea captain trapped aboard a becalmed, fever-wracked, and seemingly haunted ship. With no wind in sight and his crew disabled by malaria, the narrator discovers that the medicine necessary to save the sick men is missing and its absence has been deliberately concealed. Meanwhile, his increasingly frightened first mate is convinced that the malignant ghost of the previous captain has cursed them. Suspenseful, atmospheric, and deceptively simple, Conrad’s tale of the sea reflects the complex themes of his most famous novels, Lord Jim and Heart of Darkness..
In a novella which remains highly controversial to this day, Conrad explores the relations between Africa and Europe. On the surface, this is a horrifying tale of colonial exploitation. The narrator, Marlowe journeys on business deep into the heart of Africa. But there he encounters Kurtz, an idealist apparently crazed and depraved by his power over the natives, and the meeting prompts Marlowe to reflect on the darkness at the heart of all men. This short but complex and often ambiguous story, which has been the basis of several films and plays, continues to provoke interpretation and discussion. Heart of Darkness grew out of a journey Joseph Conrad took up the Congo River; the verisimilitude that the great novelist thereby brought to his most famous tale everywhere enhances its dense and shattering power. Apparently a sailor’s yarn, it is in fact a grim parody of the adventure story, in which the narrator, Marlow, travels deep into the heart of the Congo where he encounters the crazed idealist Kurtz and discovers that the relative values of the civilized and the primitive are not what they seem. HEART OF DARKNESS is a model of economic storytelling, an indictment of the inner and outer turmoil caused by the European imperial misadventure, and a piercing account of the fragility of the human soul.
English
奥地の出張所に着いてみると、25歳のロシア人青 年がいた。青年はクルツの崇拝者だった。青年から、クルツが現地人から神のように思われていたこと、手下を引き連れて象牙を略奪していたことなどを聞き出 した。一行は病気のクルツを担架で運び出し、船に乗せた。やがてクルツは "The horror! The horror!"[2]という言葉を残して息絶えた。
注釈 [編集]
Heart of Darkness - Google 圖書結果
Joseph Conrad - 2004 - Fiction - 76 頁... make, and rather less pretty in shape, but I had expended enough hard work on her to make me love her. No influential friend would have served me better ...
Joseph Conrad was born on this day in 1857.
《黑暗的心》 (Heart of Darkness ,1899)王潤華譯 ，台北:志文， 1970， 18元 新潮文庫
我之所以能夠知道這篇演講，是讀了DAVID BROOKS在紐約時報(2010年12月23日)寫的The Sidney Awards作品簡介: 去年, William Deresiewicz 在美國西點軍校發表一場反建制文化觀點的演講:他告訴那些在”狂熱的成就偏執”的體制下長大的幹部，如何與之抗衡之。它探討如何成為領導人而不致淪為組織人。
(It’s about how to be a leader, not an organization man.)以下WilliamDeresiewicz的演講”孤獨與領導 (Solitude and Leadership)”。
它是去年10月對美國西點軍校一年級生所作的，隨後刊登於The American Scholar (2010年春季號。原文可參考http://www.theamericanscholar.org/solitude-and-leadership/)
它是去年10月對美國西點軍校一年級生所作的，隨後刊登於The American Scholar (2010年春季號。原文可參考http://www.theamericanscholar.org/solitude-and-leadership/)
.....但我覺得這一領導力想法是錯誤的，甚至是危險的。為了解釋為什麼，我想花幾分鐘談論小說《黑暗之心》(Heart of Darkness)，也許你們當中很多人讀過它。如果你還沒讀過的話，你大概看過改編自它的電影《現代啟示錄》(Apocalypse Now)。小說中的馬洛(Marlow)在電影中化身為威拉德上尉(Captain Willard，由Martin Sheen飾演)。小說中的庫爾茨(Kurtz)在電影中為庫爾茨上校(馬龍白蘭度Marlon Brando扮演)。但是，這本小說的背景不是越南，而是關於比利時殖民地剛果，事情比越南戰爭早三代前。馬洛不是軍官，而是民間商船的船長，他是取得比利時皇家經營專利權的公司派出的船長，沿剛果河上溯去找一位藏身於叢林並自立為土匪的經理，他的行徑就像電影裡的庫爾茲上校。 ......
*****http://www.campus.org.tw/public/cm/cm10/0110/0110-11.htm
《黑暗之心》
歌珊 (歷史工作者)
真理隱身於黑暗。
清理軍旅期間遺留的筆記本。六大本生命黑暗時期的紀錄。泛黃、黯淡的扉頁，內容有我從卡夫卡、康拉德、扥瑪斯曼、福樓拜等的作品抄下來的句子。還有一本小冊子，摘錄當年聽華格納音樂的片段感想。此外是一大批父親寫給我的信，散發著腐敗的氣味。
「看柯拉波導演的《現代啟示錄》，改編自康拉德《黑暗之心》的越戰電影。黃昏如死亡之初吻。電影散場了，夾在擁擠的人潮裡感到無比的孤單。好冷台北。他們大概都要回家了罷。我無家可歸。」一九八三年十一月二十三日的筆記，是在一家廉價的旅館留下的隨興之作。
我二十歲，自高雄北上服兵役。應該就是那時候迷上了康拉德(Joseph Conrad, 1857~1924)。不知道是從陳蒼多或是王潤華的翻譯本開始的，《黑暗之心》(Heart of Darkness ,1899)的第一幕也是黃昏的場景，船長 馬羅向他的朋友述說他的非洲之旅。沿著剛果河，馬羅尋找一個叫克如智的謎樣人物。克如智深入原始叢林，為一家比利時貿易公司收購象牙。當地的土著將它視若 為神並奉為領袖。馬羅感到他與克如智之間有種神秘的關聯，一路追尋。河流宛如電纜一般蛇行至剛果的內陸商站，深入西方帝國的地圖。不過當馬羅來到克如智的 象牙王國，克如智已經瘋狂且奄奄待斃。克如智並不像傳說中是「同情、科學與進步的使者」、「為了歐洲委託我們身上的主義的帶路人」；他在叢林稱王，巧取豪 奪，殺人如麻。
事實上存在兩種形象的克如智。一個是帶有理想色彩的克如智。祂吟唱著吉卜林的詩人《白人的負擔》(The White Man's Burden)：「你如何將我們自枷鎖、自摯愛的埃及的黑夜解放出來？」克如智強加白人的「文明」給非洲土著，但卻不願真心與他們融合。他本身脫離了文明生活，長年沉溺於孤獨而靈魂終至腐蝕殆盡。克如智不只是殖民主義的共犯，同時也是受害者。這是另一個墮落的克如智。
馬羅的追尋彷如是歐洲人探索自內心幽暗世界的旅程。理想的克如智終於與貪婪無度的帝國主義者面對面了。克如智彌留之際的遺言「恐怖啊，恐怖啊」，似乎是對吉卜林詩句的詮釋，是對西方支配型態的一個註腳。
《現代啟示錄》(Apocalypse Now)建立在康拉德故事所傳達的一個文化強加另一個文化的後果及其隱喻。克如智穿上軍服成寮越邊界自組土著軍隊的殺人魔。維勒上尉奉命捕殺克如智而展開黑暗之旅。或者說，這部電影是探索美國殖民主義在遠東失敗的曖昧理由。
「讀康拉德的小說，《明天》、《追憶法爾克》、《亞密福斯特》、《颱風》。康拉德的文字實在難以征服。」一九八四年三月三十日的軍中筆記。
從中壢到台北，服役的假期我總是到台大附近買書，或跑到西門町二輪戲院看電影，然後固定到一家廉價旅館住下來。夜燈初上，飄搖似鬼火。我在黑暗中追尋我的 良人。旅館房內氤氳著對街霓虹燈水氣，藻荇交錯。康拉德的遊魂總在我身旁行走。他說故事的方式很特殊：故事中的人物不是單線進行，而是以該人物某一時刻的 出現給予人留下深刻的印象開始，之後忽前忽後、多線迂迴的敘述使該人物的形象漸趨豐滿成熟。
康拉德聲調淡淡的說著一個又一個海上冒險的故事，有時就在旅館角落安靜的抽煙。他說他的確到過剛果，圓了兒時的夢：「深夜裡，在非洲的河岸邊，在一艘可憐的小蒸氣船上，星空下一片黑暗，我立於非洲大陸的中心，點燃煙草，感覺很孤獨。」我閱讀了康拉德的《剛果日記》。
「我覺得就像我也被埋在一個寬大、充滿說不出口的秘密的墳墓裡。我感覺到一種不可容忍的重量壓著我的胸部，潮濕泥土的味道，我無法看見的但存在的勝利的腐敗，一個穿不透的夜晚和黑暗.....。」我抄自《黑暗之心》的軍旅筆記。廉價旅館裡我抄寫所讀過的書，並經常做夢，夢見父親巨大的身影在樓梯口背光而立。他轉過身出示他手掌不可告人的命運，反覆說著：「恐怖，恐怖」。
我追溯自身生命的河流，淵面黑暗，而上帝的恩典在水面上行走。
從軍隊退伍多年了。有時候朦朧間，我夢見自己是一隻蝸牛匍伏在犀利的刮鬍刀鋒，迷失了路。到如今，這夢的重量仍在我心底發出沉重墮落的響聲。
A Critical Study of Joseph Conrad
- 256 ページ - Google ブック検索結果https://books.google.com.tw › books
- このページを訳すR.N. Sarkar, J.K. Biswas - 1996
... John Hopkins Abinger Harvest (1936) Madame Bovary ( 1857) Tom Jones (Leonard Orr, Theodore Billy - 1999 - Literary Criticism
In Joseph Conrad: A Commemoration, ed. Norman Sherry. London: ... Joseph Conrad's Mind and Method: A Study of Personality in An. London: Faber & Faber. Meyer, Bernard Constant. ... London: Thames & Hudson. , ed. 1973. Conrad: TheRichard J. Hand - 2005 - Literary Criticism
“Christopher Hampton's Adaptation of Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent”, Conradiana 32:3 (Fall 2000b), 195–202. ——, “Staging an ... Hartnoll, Phyllis, The Theatre: A Concise History (London: Thames and Hudson, 1985). Hastings, Basil ...Cedric Watts - Literary Criticism
The Life of Joseph Conrad. Oxford: Blackwell, 1994. Karl, Frederick R. Joseph Conrad: The Three Lives. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; London: Faber ... London: Thames & Hudson, 1972, rpt. 1988; New York: Scribner's, 1977. Watt, Ian.J. H. Stape, Stape, John Henry Stape, Visiting Professor of English J H Stape - 1996 - Literary Criticism
Conrad and His World. London: Thames &c Hudson, 1972, reprinted 1988; New York: Scribner's, 1977. Handsomely illustrated and well-informed brief summary of the main events of Conrad's life and literary career. Excellent starting-point for
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