The Shadow-Line: A Confession (Vintage Classics)
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Product Description
A young and inexperienced sea captain finds that his first command leaves him with a ship stranded in tropical seas and a crew smitten with fever. As he wrestles with his conscience and with the increasing sense of isolation that he experiences, the captain crosses the ‘shadow-line’ between youth and adulthood. In many ways an autobiographical narrative, Conrad's novella was written at the start of the Great War when his son Borys was at the Western Front, and can be seen as an attempt to open humanity’s eyes to the qualities needed to face evil and destruction.
About the Author
Joseph Conrad (originally Józef Teodor Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski) was born in the Ukraine in 1857 and grew up under Tsarist autocracy. In 1896 he settled in Kent, where he produced within fifteen years such modern classics as Youth, Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, Typhoon, Nostromo, The Secret Agent and Under Western Eyes. He continued to write until his death in 1924.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I prefer Conrad's short pieces to his long pieces. This, one of his very best short pieces, is similar in theme to his best long piece, Lord Jim. In this late, short work, Conrad seemed to leave behind his cacophony of words that, for example, Nostromo and the The Secret Agent suffer from. The writing is simpler, less wordy and more evocative than much of Conrad's. You can really breeze through The Shadow Line, which is something that can be said of very few Conrad works.
The story, too, is exciting and poignant. A young man is appointed to his first command and has to take his ship the 800 miles from Bangkok to Singapore, but the voyage is 'cursed' by plague and calm weather. There are hints of the supernatural, and an underlying metaphor of war (WW1 was raging while the book was being written).
The Shadow Line's opening 'youth', newly appointed to his first command, may be an old man's idea of youth - brash, rude, arrogant and ignorant (see Murakami's Kafka on the shore for another old man's, quite different, idea of youth), but it's an attractive, charismatic idea nonetheless. The character's development, through 'the shadow line', into maturity, is completely convincing.
The story, too, is exciting and poignant. A young man is appointed to his first command and has to take his ship the 800 miles from Bangkok to Singapore, but the voyage is 'cursed' by plague and calm weather. There are hints of the supernatural, and an underlying metaphor of war (WW1 was raging while the book was being written).
The Shadow Line's opening 'youth', newly appointed to his first command, may be an old man's idea of youth - brash, rude, arrogant and ignorant (see Murakami's Kafka on the shore for another old man's, quite different, idea of youth), but it's an attractive, charismatic idea nonetheless. The character's development, through 'the shadow line', into maturity, is completely convincing.
1 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Style - 4/5
Plot - 4/5
Readability - 3/5
One of the things that struck me about this particular story was the way style of the writing reflected the situation (read it to see what I mean, and it's not often I'll say that about one of JC's books!). The other thing that struck me about this story was that there is much more scenic variety than in most of the other JC stories I've read, which tend to focus on a very limited geographical area. I also liked the nice touch of superstition/ghost story that creeps in.
Plot - 4/5
Readability - 3/5
One of the things that struck me about this particular story was the way style of the writing reflected the situation (read it to see what I mean, and it's not often I'll say that about one of JC's books!). The other thing that struck me about this story was that there is much more scenic variety than in most of the other JC stories I've read, which tend to focus on a very limited geographical area. I also liked the nice touch of superstition/ghost story that creeps in.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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12 reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Crank the Windlass and set sail
3 Sep 2002
Format:Paperback
I enjoyed reading about the main characters experience of crossing the line from youthfulness into true adulthood. Conrad's eloquent, descriptive, and almost surreal writing style allows the reader to almost experience the stagnation, heat, and frustration that envelop the characters in this book. Perhaps not Conrad's best book, but certainly a good read, and it is quite short and to the point. Especially if you have an affinity for sailing and the power and majesty of the sailing vessels of old. I have always felt that there is a certain amount of effort required to enjoy Conrad's books, but I also feel that this, in a sense, is directly proportional to effort in life. The more you put in, the more you get out.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Sink or Swim
7 Dec 2007
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
THE SHADOW-LINE is not one of Conrad's more obscure works, but neither is it among his most famous. It is short, beautiful and very accessible, and deserves to be read. It is about growing up, growing into ones self and conscience, with the understanding that sometimes external events come along to force the maturation process nearly overnight, and if you are lucky, you swim. As he states in the author's note that has accompanied the text since the second edition, his mind was on his son Borys and his comrades who were off fighting in World War I at the time. The landscape of his story, though, comes out of his own youthful experience at sea.
The unnamed first person narrator of THE SHADOW-LINE has already distinguished himself at sea but is still a young man given to youthful emotion and brashness. He has decided that despite friendships, his love of the sea and his skills, that there is an absence of meaning to his career and he is emphatically throwing it off at a South Seas port with the intention of going home. But then he is made the one offer he cannot resist: his own command of a full-masted commercial barque that has come to port after the captain had gone mad with disease and was buried at sea. The narrator quickly pushes to get back out on the open seas despite the fact that the first mate seems to be growing increasingly sick. Suddenly stuck out where he had originally wanted to be, the narrator is faced with the spread of illness across the crew and the discovery that his deceased predecessor had destroyed the ship's pharmacy in his derangement. The responsibility of the situation would be terrible in any circumstances, much less a first command.
The Penguin edition contains a lengthy critical introduction (ridden with spoilers, by the way), an annotated critical bibliography, and text notes. The latter define technical and arcane terms but also note where the story dovetails with facts of Conrad's own life. All of these are useful, but the novel itself is what is valuable here, with its memorable characters and honest descriptive passages of both exterior and interior worlds.
The unnamed first person narrator of THE SHADOW-LINE has already distinguished himself at sea but is still a young man given to youthful emotion and brashness. He has decided that despite friendships, his love of the sea and his skills, that there is an absence of meaning to his career and he is emphatically throwing it off at a South Seas port with the intention of going home. But then he is made the one offer he cannot resist: his own command of a full-masted commercial barque that has come to port after the captain had gone mad with disease and was buried at sea. The narrator quickly pushes to get back out on the open seas despite the fact that the first mate seems to be growing increasingly sick. Suddenly stuck out where he had originally wanted to be, the narrator is faced with the spread of illness across the crew and the discovery that his deceased predecessor had destroyed the ship's pharmacy in his derangement. The responsibility of the situation would be terrible in any circumstances, much less a first command.
The Penguin edition contains a lengthy critical introduction (ridden with spoilers, by the way), an annotated critical bibliography, and text notes. The latter define technical and arcane terms but also note where the story dovetails with facts of Conrad's own life. All of these are useful, but the novel itself is what is valuable here, with its memorable characters and honest descriptive passages of both exterior and interior worlds.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
A Lesser Known Classic
6 May 2006
Format:Paperback
One of Conrad's best novels, less profound than Heart of Darkness, certainly, but more economically written and featuring a narrator that more readers will identify with.
The Shadow Line is a nice sequel of sorts to Conrad's great story "Youth." In that, he showed how we often interpret events differently as youngsters and years later as adults. In The Shadow Line, the young protagonist has to improvise under stress to deal with the big world he's grown into.
Like all Conrad's works, this is wordy and slow by current standards, but well worth the time and effort to read it. Great practice for high-school seniors and college freshmen who want to step up to real literature.
The Shadow Line is a nice sequel of sorts to Conrad's great story "Youth." In that, he showed how we often interpret events differently as youngsters and years later as adults. In The Shadow Line, the young protagonist has to improvise under stress to deal with the big world he's grown into.
Like all Conrad's works, this is wordy and slow by current standards, but well worth the time and effort to read it. Great practice for high-school seniors and college freshmen who want to step up to real literature.
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