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Download this text: Romance
Product Description
Romance is a novel co-authored by Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford. It was the second of their three collaborations.
Customer Review: Conrad & Ford's concept of Romance
About this collaborative novel published in 1903, Conrad said, "There's easy style, plenty of action, a romantic atmosphere, and a happy ending after no end of real hair's breadth escapes." It was both his and Ford's idea of what Romance was, and they made a serious attempt to capture it in this story.
There's a hero, of course (John Kemp), and a heroine (Seraphina), and after suffering all kinds of adventures (mainly in Jamaica and Cuba) involving smuggling, piracy, sea chases, shootings, men sworn to loyalty, and lots of near mishaps, they are united and at peace. Much of the intrigue that takes place on Jamaica was based on fact, and Conrad did a lot of research on politics on the island (and Cuba) during the 1820s, when the book is set. But the book suffered the same fate as some of Fenimore Cooper's novels in that it was relegated to the "boys' adventure literature" category rather than taken as a serious work of art. (The critics are probably right.) The dialogue is especially weak. The cultural differences, though, encountered in the book are handled deftly by the authors, especially the Spanish ways of Seraphina as contrasted with Kemp's English background. Not considered to be one of Conrad's major achievements.
Customer Review: The teller of tales
Joseph Conrad's Romance is one of his last books, published in 1923 (he died the following year). Conrad's final novels supposedly showed a dramatic falling off of his powers (and I've certainly read some I thought were poor). Why does no-one want to examine the second-rate? Much is to be learned about Conrad from his later books. And Romance is quite readable, enjoyable even, one of the most exciting books I've read for ages. It's a bit like an elder Stevenson, a boy's adventure story, a bit slow in places but still fascinating. It does not move me as some of Conrad's stories have done, even to tears, but it's not bad at all. The co-author is Ford Maddox Hueffer. Was he a collaborator or did he complete Conrad's unfinished manuscript?
The book really is about romance, in all its aspects, and does a credible job of it. Romance is a melodrama, a genre highly coloured and over reliant on the complexities of its plot. The style is beautiful, if mannered and measured in places. Parts of Cuba are beautifully described, as is the sea and ships. Types are evocatively drawn, quick sketches that add verisimilitude without slowing down the plot. There are perhaps a few too many disasters, things going wrong at the right time so as to add to the suspense. Characters are too often obtuse when it is needed to build a climax. It's a real cliff -hanger (literally) and yet the narrative retains enough plausibility (just!) to make the book read like a thriller. One endures the crises, the disasters, the misunderstandings that advance the plot with an almost painful desire to reach the end. You can see the devices used to elaborate the plot and delay the denouement, just as you can see the playful skill of an old gentleman who, teasing you, refuses to tell you the end of a story before all the elaboration of detail that lead up to it.
But the narrative skill is impressive. And the book is self declared about romance, about the illusions and pursuits of youth. It is an old man's book, looking back on an adventurous life, sighing as all old men sigh - and then using a lifetimes' skill in the telling. If this is Conrad in decline, all technique and style but no great truths to impart, it is a decline that many other writers would envy.
No message, no picture of the workings of the human heart, of the intricacies of human nature.But charm, beautiful language and a few days entertainment. Why say no?
Book Categories:
Books / Subjects / Literature & Fiction / General / Classics
Books / Subjects / Literature & Fiction / Classics
Books / Subjects / Romance / General
Books / Refinements / Binding (binding) / Paperback
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