
The Shadow-Line
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Narrated by:
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Fred Williams
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By:
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Joseph Conrad
About this listen
It is the qualities, both individual and collective, needed to confront the ship's crisis that symbolize the qualities needed by humanity, not only to face evil and destruction but also to come to terms with life.
©1923 Joseph Conrad (P)2000 Blackstone AudiobooksListeners also enjoyed...
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Story of taking on responsibilities
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The introspection of the moment
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The writing is at times magnificent – impeccably phrased, filled with wisdom – and yet also at times wearyingly wordy. Every line of conversation, for example, every turn of a man’s head or change of expression, is minutely described and overanalyzed in a way no modern writer would dare. Conrad takes paragraphs to say things that nowadays would take a sentence or two, and his philosophical asides can sometimes be hard to follow.
Another problem is that the story is oddly shapeless, in that the first quarter or so is concerned with incidents on shore, at a private hostelry for seamen, that lead in a roundabout way to the young narrator’s taking command of the ship. We learn a lot more than we need to about this establishment and the various characters who reside there. And yet, maybe because of its exotic Asian setting, I found this seemingly extraneous portion quite fascinating and enjoyable – easily as enjoyable, in fact, as the adventure at sea.
What made the book so enjoyable, I think, was the really superb reading by Fred Williams. He has the perfect voice and delivery for it, to the point where I actually searched Audible for other things he’s narrated. A couple of commenters have criticized his reading; I’m baffled by this, and agree with something I came across in an audiobook review: “Fred Williams’s mature, gravelly voice carries all the weight of age and experience as surely as if the graying Conrad himself were, years later, telling the tale of his own first command. It is a harrowing but heartwarming story read with the wizened dignity that only an older reader can create. Let’s hear more from Fred Williams.”
Old-fashioned seafaring tale. Superb narration.
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The narrator’s languid delivery may, for some, complement the pace of the story itself, but I found it a bit too much.
Overall, strongly recommended for any fan of Conrad’s sea stories.
Good story, and well-honed characters
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Wonderful rendition all round
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-- Joseph Conrad, The Shadow-Line
One of Conrad's later novels. This one was published in 1917. The story is pretty straight forward, the plot direct. It isn't an elaborate story, but one that explores that moment, that shadow-line between youth and adulthood. The basic story involves a young officer, suddenly thrust into command. During his first voyage he is tested and learns about strength, duty, obligation, etc. It is a story about maturity, wisdom, experience.
I'm not sure if my love of sea stories is directly tied to Conrad, or if my love of Conrad comes from my love of sea stories. The genre and the writer are both so closely mixed in my brain. What I do know is I love the morality of Conrad. I love his affection for men, for work, for duty, for the sea. I also love his modernist bent toward psychology and the untidy unknown. Mostly, I love the clean, tight precision of his prose (which often conflicts with his ambiguous narratives). This isn't top-shelf Conrad, but shouldn't be ignored by his devoted fans.
A Reflexion on Maturity
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A simpler, lighter novel by Conrad
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Monotone delivery
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The story is of a young man on his first real command, and though it's told in retrospect at the end of his career the narration was out of sync with the story, which needed to be told more vigorously, and by a person you could imagine once was a man of action. I was disappointed - though clearly others thought different - and might have given it an extra star had it been read as it should have been.
Disappointed
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