Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), Within the Tides (PMC 1984; first published on one volume, 1915; dates of first publication of each story given in brackets after their titles below)
I bought this now rather battered old Penguin paperback soon after it was published – several of the opening pages detached themselves from the spine, their glue dried out, and they now flap about helplessly. I don’t know why I haven’t got round to reading it for such a long time. This volume contains four longish short stories by the great Polish author, writing in what I think was his third language (he became a British subject in 1886); all have a seafaring element, reflecting his own experience in the merchant marine.
The Planter of Malata (1913): set in ‘a great colonial city’ in the far east, like so much of Conrad’s fiction, this is the longest in the collection at just under 70 pages. It’s a taut, tense story about a solitary, fiercely independent man (Renouard) who tends his remote silk plantation aided only by one European assistant and a team of native workers (there’s some unreconstructed language reflecting the imperialist/colonial attitudes of many Europeans at the time). On a rare visit to the city, he falls passionately in love with a spirited woman.
As often happens in a Conrad story, Renouard finds himself in a tricky moral position if he is to try to declare his love. In a foreword Conrad refuses to apologise for the way he works out this intriguing situation. The narrative has an aesthetic of its own, he insists, and his forceful central characters have a psychological nature to which he must be true. Good for him.
Some of the descriptions of Felicia, the object of Renouard’s love, are a little on the purple side, but there’s a fiery intensity in the telling of this story.
The Partner (1911): Another typical Conradian structure here: a frame narrator tells the story to an interlocutor. He insists it’s a ‘true’ story about a mysterious shipwreck, unlike the fables manufactured by local boatmen who spin yarns for tourists taken on sightseeing trips to the notoriously dangerous local rocks. This is the only story in the collection set in England. There’s a lot of skulduggery and treachery involved, with murder and blackmail in the mix. Stirring stuff, if a bit lurid and far-fetched.
The Inn of the Two Witches (1913): Set in Spain during the Napoleonic wars, this is Conrad’s attempt to tell a seriously spooky story about some sinister witch-like innkeepers whose hospitality leaves a lot to be desired. This time the narrative is supposedly based on an old found MS written by one of the sailors involved in the Gothic plot. It’s not an entirely successful device, and the scariness is diluted a little by its intrusiveness – but there are some seriously spine-tingling moments.
Because of the Dollars (1914): Back in the far east, this is a powerful story of another typical Conrad protagonist, an honourable man who finds himself in a morally challenging situation. He’s transporting old-currency dollars for local traders who have to change to the new denominations, and this makes his little steamer a target for thieves. Once again there’s a woman whose precarious position is one of the factors that poses a dilemma for him. As with the other stories, the complicated plot veers close to boys’ own adventure, but it’s entertainingly done.