Notes on My Books

Notes on My Books, by Joseph
Conrad

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Title: Notes on My Books
Author: Joseph Conrad
Release Date: December 20, 2006 [EBook #20150]
Language: English
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Produced by Janet Blenkinship and also, thanks to Michael Kerwin of
Occidental College for supplying images of the missing pages from the
book I had in hand, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net

This "O-P Book" Is an Authorized Reprint of the Original Edition,
Produced by Microfilm-Xerography by University Microfilms, Inc.,

Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1966

NOTES ON MY BOOKS
BY JOSEPH CONRAD

GARDEN CITY, N. Y., AND TORONTO DOUBLEDAY, PAGE &
COMPANY MCMXXI
COPYRIGHT, 1920, 1921, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF
TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING
THE SCANDINAVIAN

NOTES ON MY BOOKS

ALMAYER'S FOLLY
I am informed that in criticizing that literature which preys on strange
people and prowls in far-off countries, under the shade of palms, in the
unsheltered glare of sunbeaten beaches, amongst honest cannibals and
the more sophisticated pioneers of our glorious virtues, a
lady--distinguished in the world of letters--summed up her disapproval
of it by saying that the tales it produced were "de-civilized." And in
that sentence not only the tales but, I apprehend, the strange people and
the far-off countries also, are finally condemned in a verdict of
contemptuous dislike.
A woman's judgment: intuitive, clever, expressed with felicitous
charm--infallible. A judgment that has nothing to do with justice. The
critic and the judge seems to think that in those distant lands all joy is a
yell and a war dance, all pathos is a howl and a ghastly grin of filed
teeth, and that the solution of all problems is found in the barrel of a

revolver or on the point of an assegai. And yet it is not so. But the
erring magistrate may plead in excuse the misleading nature of the
evidence.
The picture of life, there as here, is drawn with the same elaboration of
detail, coloured with the same tints. Only in the cruel serenity of the
sky, under the merciless brilliance of the sun, the dazzled eye misses
the delicate detail, sees only the strong outlines, while the colours, in
the steady light, seem crude and-without shadow. Nevertheless it is the
same picture.
And there is a bond between us and that humanity so far away. I am
speaking here of men and women--not of the charming and graceful
phantoms that move about in our mud and smoke and are softly
luminous with the radiance of all our virtues; that are possessed of all
refinements, of all sensibilities, of all wisdom--but, being only
phantoms, possess no heart.
The sympathies of those are (probably) with the immortals: with the
angels above or the devils below. I am content to sympathize with
common mortals, no matter where they live; in houses or in tents, in the
streets under a fog, or in the forests behind the dark line of dismal
mangroves that fringe the vast solitude of the sea. For, their land--like
ours--lies under the inscrutable eyes of the Most High. Their
hearts--like ours--must endure the load of the gifts from Heaven: the
curse of facts and the blessing of illusions, the bitterness of our wisdom
and the deceptive consolation of our folly.
J. C.
1895.

AN OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS
"An Outcast of the Islands" is my second novel in the absolute sense of
the word; second in conception, second in execution, second as it were
in its essence. There was no hesitation, half-formed plan, vague idea, or

the vaguest reverie of anything else between it and "Almayer's Folly."
The only doubt I suffered from, after the publication of "Almayer's
Folly," was whether I should write another line for print. Those days,
now grown so dim, had their poignant moments. Neither in my mind
nor in my heart had I then given up the sea. In truth I was clinging to it
desperately, all the more desperately because, against my will, I could
not help feeling that there was something changed in my relation to it.
"Almayer's Folly" had been finished and done with. The mood itself
was gone. But it had left the memory of an experience that, both in
thought and emotion, was unconnected with the sea, and I suppose that
part of my moral being which is rooted in