GRGR Re: Achebe on Conrad

[jbor]

Yes, there is Charlie Marlow. And the unnamed narrator who opens and closes
the story as well. Achebe is a very astute reader and teacher, however, and
he acknowledges this imbeddedness of the narrative and also notes the ways
in which Marlow's career and point of view are aligned with Conrad's. Here's
an interesting essay on the topic:

http://landow.stg.brown.edu/post/uk/conrad/conrad1.html

It's almost the same sort of separation between author and
character/narrator that Fitzgerald engineers with Nick Carraway, for
example. (If anything Marlow speaks for Conrad more than Carraway does for
Fitzgerald: there is a further ironic distance in the later novel imo.) You
would surely need to admit that *The Great Gatsby* speaks to the reader
about both the society and the eponymous (anti-)hero as well as, if not more
so than Nick. The fact that the Belgian Congo c. 1880 is a more exotic and
less familiar setting to Western readers than 1920s Long Island doesn't make
it any less "real".

best

Btw, which "homos and women" in GR's cast are "stereotypes"? I was wondering
when we'd get to the third part of *that* trifecta ... i.e. "The Mental,
Moral and Physical Inferiority of the Female Sex"   ; )


----------
>From: "David Morris" <fqmorris at hotmail.com>
>To: jbor at bigpond.com
>Subject: Re: GRGR Re: Achebe on Conrad
>Date: Wed, Sep 20, 2000, 7:20 AM
>

>
> I almost hate to bring this up, since the subject devolved so in its last
> round, but doesn't Pynchon use stereotypes, characters who are never
> "fleshed out," for his own specific purposes?  Homo's & Women come most
> prominently to mind.  That's why I earlier said an author's intent is so
> important.  I don't think HoD was ever intended to be a protrayal of a real
> physical journey, much less an encounter with a real culture.  I'd say it is
> all about MARLOW, his journey into HIMSELF.
>
> "The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning of which
> lies within the shell of a cracked nut. But Marlow was not typical (if his
> propensity to spin yarns be excepted), and to him the meaning of an episode
> was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought
> it out only as a glow brings out a haze . . ."
>
> The above discription from the beginnong of HoD is a part of the problem
> that gets cofronted in Marlow's journey, and it has to do with being
> literal-minded, not seing beyond the surface.  Marlow's is a journey into
> the interior.  If we want it to be another novel, that's OUR problem.