Nostromo

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Overview

Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard is a novel of great political and psychological importance in modern literature. Set in the fictional South American nation of Costaguana – a land wracked by war and revolution – Conrad paints a mesmerizing portrait of man’s vulnerability to greed and corruption. Through a unique narrative style and vivid characterization, Conrad delves into an account of human frailty with an ironic twist; it is a story without heroes.
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Nostromo (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

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Overview

Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard is a novel of great political and psychological importance in modern literature. Set in the fictional South American nation of Costaguana – a land wracked by war and revolution – Conrad paints a mesmerizing portrait of man’s vulnerability to greed and corruption. Through a unique narrative style and vivid characterization, Conrad delves into an account of human frailty with an ironic twist; it is a story without heroes.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781420929713
  • Publisher: Neeland Media
  • Publication date: 1/1/2007
  • Pages: 264
  • Product dimensions: 6.00 (w) x 9.00 (h) x 0.60 (d)

Meet the Author

Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad, (1857-1924) born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, was a Polish-born English novelist. Most of his works featured a nautical setting and depicted trials of the human spirit by the demands of duty and honor. Before he started writing, Conrad joined the French merchant marines and later joined the British navy. Some of his numerous works include, Heart of Darkness, The Arrow of Gold, The Secret Agent, An Outcast of the Islands, and Lord Jim.

Biography

Joseph Conrad (originally Józef Teodor Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski) was born in the Ukraine in 1857 and grew up under Tsarist autocracy. His parents, ardent Polish patriots, died when he was a child, following their exile for anti-Russian activities, and he came under the protection of his tradition-conscious uncle, Thaddeus Bobrowski, who watched over him for the next twenty-five years. In 1874 Bobrowski conceded to his nephew's passionate desire to go to sea, and Conrad travelled to Marseilles, where he served in French merchant vessels before joining a British ship in 1878 as an apprentice.

In 1886 he obtained British nationality and his Master's certificate in the British Merchant Service. Eight years later he left the sea to devote himself to writing, publishing his first novel, Almayer's Folly, in 1895. The following year he married Jessie George and eventually 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. Today Conrad is generally regarded as one of the greatest writers of fiction in English -- his third language. He once described himself as being concerned "with the ideal value of things, events and people" in the Preface to The Nigger of the Narcissus he defined his task as "by the power of the written word ... before all, to make you see."

Author biography courtesy of Penguin Group (USA).

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    1. Also Known As:
      Jósef Teodor Konrad Walecz Korzeniowski (real name)
    1. Date of Birth:
      December 3, 1857
    2. Place of Birth:
      Berdiczew, Podolia, Russia
    1. Date of Death:
      August 3, 1924
    2. Place of Death:
      Bishopsbourne, Kent, England

Read an Excerpt

Nostromo
In the time of Spanish rule, and for many years afterwards, the town of Sulaco--the luxuriant beauty of the orange gardens bears witness to its antiquity--had never been commercially anything more important than a coasting port with a fairly large local trade in ox-hides and indigo. The clumsy deep-sea galleons of the conquerors that, needing a brisk gale to move at all, would lie becalmed, where your modern ship built on clipper lines forges ahead by the mere flapping of her sails, had been barred out of Sulaco by the prevailing calms of its vast gulf. Some harbours of the earth are made difficult of access by the treachery of sunken rocks and the tempests of their shores. Sulaco had found an inviolable sanctuary from the temptations of a trading world in the solemn hush of the deep Golfo Placido as if within an enormous semi-circular and unroofed temple open to the ocean, with its walls of lofty mountains hung with the mourning draperies of cloud.

On one side of this broad curve in the straight seaboard of the Republic of Costaguana, the last spur of the coast range forms an insignificant cape whose name is Punta Mala. From the middle of the gulf the point of the land itself is not visible at all; but the shoulder of a steep hill at the back can be made out faintly like a shadow on the sky.

On the other side, what seems to be an isolated patch of blue mist floats lightly on the glare of the horizon. This is the peninsula of Azuera, a wild chaos of sharp rocks and stony levels cut about by vertical ravines. It lies far out to sea like a rough head of stone stretched from a green-clad coast at the end of a slender neck of sand covered with thickets of thorny scrub. Utterly waterless, for the rainfall runs off at once on all sides into the sea, it has not soil enough--it is said--to grow a single blade of grass, as if it were blighted by a curse. The poor, associating by an obscure instinct of consolation the ideas of evil and wealth, will tell you that it is deadly because of its forbidden treasures. The common folk of the neighborhood, peons of the estancias, vaqueros of the seaboard plains, tame Indians coming miles to market with a bundle of sugar-cane or a basket of maize worth about three-pence, are well aware that heaps of shining gold lie in the gloom of the deep precipices cleaving the stony levels of Azuera. Tradition has it that many adventurers of olden time had perished in the search. The story goes also that within men's memory two wandering sailors--Americanos, perhaps, but gringos of some sort for certain--talked over a gambling, good-for-nothing mozo, and the three stole a donkey to carry for them a bundle of dry sticks, a water-skin, and provisions enough to last a few days. Thus accompanied, and with revolvers at their belts, they had started to chop their way with machetes through the thorny scrub on the neck of the peninsula.

On the second evening an upright spiral of smoke (it could only have been from their camp-fire) was seen for the first time within memory of man standing up faintly upon the sky above a razor-backed ridge on the stony head. The crew of a coasting schooner, lying becalmed three miles off the shore, stared at it with amazement till dark. A Negro fisherman, living in a lonely hut in a little bay near by, had seen the start and was on the lookout for some sign. He called to his wife just as the sun was about to set. They had watched the strange portent with envy, incredulity, and awe.
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Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4
( 17 )
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Sort by: Showing 1 – 20 of 17 Customer Reviews

  • Anonymous

    Posted March 16, 2005

    Is this the same guy who wrote 'Heart of Darkness?'

    I didn't finish the book. The characters were two-dimensional, the exposition difficult to follow, and the premise disappointing.

    2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted March 27, 2005

    Slightly difficult to finish, but a good read in the end!!!

    NOSTROMO was a long book to get through - I had to stop a few times to look up a word in the dictionary, but it was a fascinating story that sparked me into critical thought. However, this is not a book for someone looking for a quick literary revelation, so to speak. Even as an advanced placement (AP) English student in the middle of my senior high school year, it took patience and concentration to get drawn into this book. But once that was done, the richness of the characters, the descriptive narratives, intricate symbolism, and enlightening themes drew me into the author's mind. And having finished NOSTROMO, it would almost be an understatement to say that Conrad must have been brilliant. If you absorb this book with all of its essential elements, it is absolutely incredible what lessons you can learn for your life just from the pages.

    2 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted April 29, 2013

    I really struggled to get through this book. I mean really, real

    I really struggled to get through this book. I mean really, really struggled. Whereas I can usually get through a book this size in about 10 days, it took a month and was highly unenjoyable for the first half. Now I really didn't like Heart of Darkness to begin with, but this story is completely written differently. In that book as well as Lord Jim, Conrad uses Marlow as a narrator who tells a progressive, linear story. I hear that Nostromo is written in a way similar to Ulysses, In Search of Lost Time, and To The Lighthouse in that it is not a flowing, chronological story--but a sting of scenes that appear in an order that has no rhyme or reason. It's supposed to be part of the "fun" for the reader to piece together, but I found it difficult when the author digresses to something that happened who knows when in relation to the main plot. The characters were also hard to form a picture of as Conrad refers to each one with several different names. Nostromo is also known as Capataz de Cargodores and Gran Battista--none of which are his actual name! And the way the author uses words from French, Italian and Spanish is also confusing, but the B&N Classics edition is good at providing footnotes.

    All of this notwithstanding, the basic plot is a good one. It has a moral and a powerful tone. Among the redeeming qualities, it compares the incorruptible, pristine silver to the "incorruptible" Nostromo (who barely appears in the novel until the latter half). At the end of the novel (a few pages from the finish), there is an exchange between said main character that did bring tears to my eyes and a sympathy to a seemingly incorruptible man. The message of the book is timeless, and that's why I suspect this is hailed as one of the best of all time--though I considered it a tough read.

    Conrad considered it something, but not what he was hoping for. I agree, but I'm glad I read it. Conrad was rushed by his publisher and even had to have Ford Maddox Ford help him with the manuscript (thanks for an informative introduction Barnes and Noble). If one wishes to try their hand at reading this, I suggest not to get bogged down trying to keep track of all the characters or what's happening to whom--hang in there until Deccoud's letter to his sister (about halfway) and it will become much better.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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