Making landfalls into literatun

EVELYN Waugh dismissed
his wartime attempt to be
something other than a writer
as a mistake. It was the duty
of artists, he said, to follow
their art, not to attempt the
life of the man of action.

It would be interesting to
know what Kipling would
have said. He liked to give the
impression — “knowing-
ness”, Angus Wilson said,
was his most irritating liter-
ary fault —— that he knew the
life of soldiers, engineers,
builders and craftsmen of all
sorts from the inside. Pure
nonsense, of course: Kipling
was the pure writer in the pur-
est form, someone who did
notl“"g but push a pen from
sch lays to death.

Yet he nevertheless suc-
ceeded in getting inside men
of action more successfully
than almost any other writer
of his times. Joseph Conrad,
of course, runs him close. Yet
Conrad had been a man of
action, and for a very long
time, before he picked up a
pen. Would his writing have

__wnr_ke;L as K.iRlLl&'S did. had

he not been to sea?

This is only one of many
Conrad mysteries dealt with
in Jeflirey Meyers’s arresting
"and highly readable biogra-
phy. He sharply deromanti-
cises the myth of Conrad the
compulsive mariner. Ford
Madox Ford, Conrad’s close
friend in later life, stated
flatly that, “he detested the
sea as a man detests a cast-off
mistress” and, in Meyers’s
view, sea life had “often been
a boring failure” to Conrad.

Tbi" is not surprising. He
left ind because he had to,
went 'to sea in the miscon-
ceived belief that seafaring
was an adventure and then
got trapped in it. Though he
spent 20 years of his life as'a
seafarer, and 16 _of them,
between 1878 and 1894, more
or less continually afloat, his
pay even as a captain was
miserable, he found it diflEi-
cult to get employment, he
had more than his fair share
of shipboard quarrels, and he
found little joy in voyaging.

Though the age became one
of steam, he served and com-
manded under sail, a physi-
cally harsh and dangerous
way of making a living. The

John Keegan reviews the new biography of Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad:
A Blography
by Jeffrey Meyers
John Murray, £20

wonder is that he did not suf-
fer more than his one serious
injury. To the dangers of the
trade was added the tedium
felt by a highly intelligent and
over-sensitive man in the
unchanging routines of watch
on, watch off.

Nevertheless, as Meyers
emphasises, the years at sea
“prepared him for a literary
career by giving him technical
expertise, exposing him to
exotic experience, trusting
him with immense responsi-
bilities, forrning his character
and providing him with an
honourable code of conduct”.
They also certainly gave him
his extraordinary command
of English, the origins of
which are usually held to be

_t_hg second great Coilra_xi_7

mystery.
He insisted from the start
on going to sea in English
ships, on the grounds that the
English were the seafaring
nation. What that ensured
was that a French-speaking
Pole learnt fluency in a for-
eign language by the only
means possible in maturity:
from absolutely having to
understand the meaning of a
term, a phrase, a colloquial-
ism, because misunderstand-
ing would mean at best a
torrent of salt-water curses,
at worst a ship-breaking
smash of spars and Cordage.
Sixteen years at sea in Eng-
lish ships “internalised” Eng-
lish for Conrad. His mastery
of the language may not be
such a mystery after all.
Minimising the second
mystery does not dispose of
the third: how did Conrad
turn mundane shipboard
experience into psychological
novel form? Henry James was
always looking for “convert-
ible literary stuff” and Kip-
ling seemed able to turn the
most transient of impressions
into a brilliant work of
imagination.

James and Kipling, ‘how-

 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
  
  
   
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
   
 

ever, were writers from the
start. Conrad did not even
begin trying to construct a
work of fiction — Almayer' s
Folly — until he was 32, and
then, Meyers says, “in idle-
ness as a holiday task”.

Conrad himself confessed
that “the conception of a
planned book was entirely
outside my mental range
when I sat down to write”.

Moreover he had had}
through his own doing, an
abbreviated education and
had deprived himself of the
adult company of educated
people. These are normally
serious impediments to a suc-
cessful literary career.

The answer seems to be —
leaving aside the obvious per-
ception that Conrad had per-
fectly extraordinary gifts of
psychological insight — that
childhood experience burst

Joseph Conrad: Highly intelligent, over-sensitive

unbidden to the surface from
the depths where he had bur-
ied it during the time the
demands of the sea had mono-
polised his concentration.

His father was a compul-
sive if unsuccessful writer,
and Conrad in youth had tried
to write in the rhetorical, pat-
riotic vein his father
favoured. Yet when he came
to write a book, he had to
piece the technique together
strand by strand, rather as he
had taught himself the ele-
ments of seamanship.

It was a painful process.
Almayer’s Folly took five
years to write, sentence by
sentence. Prose never gushed
out of him, as it did from Kip-
ling. Even in later years,
when he had come ashore for
good and made the acquaint-
ance of almost every signifi-
cant man of letters in

   

contemporary England -
list of his friends emphz
how tinselly and parocl
the London literary wo‘
today — he often exha
himself by the effort to l
novel going. Parts of
tromo, one of his gre
had to be supplied by
Madox Ford, who sur
fully imitated his style i
place, while Conrad *
another against a deadlii
Meyers takes the view
Conrad’s genius was ft
by his Polish backgroun
enforced exile from his 1
land. Yet Meyers’s
exhaustive account of hi
ject’s voyaging contra

 

‘Sixteen years at
in English shi]
“internalised
English for Com

- that view. He leaves one

that the period Conrad
afloat or on the beach w
experience that made 1
writer, and that his in
life was largely an exert
turning landfalls —— i
East Indies, the Congo,
zuala — into fiction.

Beside that almost 4
thing else in his life
unimportant. There i
exception. Like Kiplin
married a woman who
but he found unattra
even repellent. It was
surprise to his close f1
when he took up, durii
First World War, with a
tiful adventuress,
Anderson — about V
Meyers has discovered
more than was previ
publicly known.

The affair, however, (1
last. Jessie Com‘ad w
much mother as wife at
alrnost-orphan husband
recognised that he nu
mothering more
romance.

Jessie’s soothing infl
apart, however, Conra:
literally self-made.
sense, he himself was hi
greatest creation.


 

 cgrarnnrairs

John Keegan reviews the new biography of Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad:
A Biography

, by Jeffrey Meyers

John Murray, £20

wonder is that he did not suf-
fer more than his one serious
injury. To the dangers of the
trade was added the tedium
felt by a highly intelligent and
over-sensitive man in the
unchanging routines of watch
on, watch ofi.

Nevertheless, as Meyers
emphasises, the years at sea
“prepared him for a literary
career by giving him technical
expertise, exposing him to
exotic experience, trusting
him with immense responsi-
bilities, forming his character
and providing him with an
honourable code of conduct”.
They also certainly gave him
his extraordinary command
of English, the origins of
which are usually held to be
the second great Conrad
mystery. ‘_"‘

He insisted from the start
on going toisea in English
ships, on the grounds that the
English were the seafaring
nation. What that ensured
was that a French-speaking
Pole learnt fluency in a for-
eign language by the only
means possible in maturity:
from absolutely having to
understand the meaning of a
term, a phrase, a colloquial-
ism, because misunderstand-
ing would mean at best a
torrent of salt-water curses,
at worst a ship-breaking
smash of spars and Cordage.
Sixteen years at sea in Eng-
lish ships “internalised” Eng-
lish for Conrad. His mastery
of the language may not be
such a mystery after all.

Minimising the second
mystery does not dispose of
the third: how did Conrad
turn mundane shipboard
experience into psychological
novel form? Henry James was
always looking for “convert-
.ble literary stuff” and Kip-

ing seemed able to turn the
nost transient of impressions
nto a brilliant work of
magination.

James and Kipling, “how-

    

Joseph Conrad: Highly mtelhgent, over-sensitive

ever, were writers from the
start. Conrad did not even
begin trying to construct a
work of fiction — Almayefs
Folly — until he was 32, and
then, Meyers says, “in idle-
ness as a holiday task”.

Conrad himself confessed
that “the conception of a
planned book was entirely
outside my mental range
when I sat down to write”.

Moreover he had had,‘
through his own doing, an
abbreviated education and
had deprived himself of the
adult company of educated
people. These are normally
serious impediments to a suc-
cessful literary career.

The answer seems to be --
leaving aside the obvious per-
ception that Conrad had per-
fectly extraordinary gifts of
psychological insight — that
childhood experience burst

unbidden to the surface from
the depths where he had bur-
ied it during the time the
demands of the sea had mono-
polised his concentration.

His father was a compul-
sive if unsuccessful writer,
and Conrad in youth had tried
to write in the rhetorical, pat-
riotic vein his father
favoured. Yet when he came
to write a book, he had to
piece the technique together
strand by strand, rather as he
had taught himself the ele-
ments of seamans hip.

It was a painful process.
Almayer’s Folly took five
years to write, sentence by
sentence. Prose never gushed
out of him, as it did from Kip-
ling. Even in later years,
when he had come ashore for
good and made the acquaint-
ance of almost every signin-
cant man of letters in

‘#6

11'teratuI‘e

contemporary England -— the

list of his friends emphasises '

how tinselly and parochial is
the London literary world of
today — he often exhausted
himself by the eflort to keep a
novel going. Parts of Nos-
tromo, one of his greatest,
had to be supplied by Ford
Madox Ford, who success-
fully imitated his style in one
place, while Conrad wrote
another against a deadline.

Meyers takes the view that .

Conrad’s genius was formed
by his Polish background and
enforced exile from his native
land. Yet Meyers’s ow_n
exhaustive account of his sub-

ject’s voyaging contradicts

‘Sixteen years atsea

in English ships
“internalised’? .
English for Conrad’

\

that view. He leaves one_ines-

that the-period Conrad spent
afloat or on the beach was the
experience that made him a
writer, and that his writing
life was largely an exercise in
turning landfalls — in the
East Indies, the Congo, Vene-
zuala — into fiction.

Beside that almost every-
thing else in his life looks

unimportant. There is one‘

exception. Like Kipling, he
married a woman _whom all
but he found unattractive,
even repellent. It was not a
surprise to his close friends
when he took up, during the
First World War, with a beau-
tiful adventuress, Jane
Anderson — about whom
Meyers has discovered much
more than was previously
publicly known.

The affair, however, did not

last. Jessie Conrad was as’

much mother as wife and her
almost-orphan husband soon

recognised that he needed ,

mothering more than.
romance.

Jessie’s soothing influence
apart, however, Conrad was
literally self-made. In a
sense, he himself was his own

greatest creation.

/