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The Strange Short Fiction of Joseph Conrad: Writing, Culture, and Subjectivity by Daphna Erdinast-Vulcan, and: Envisioning Africa: Racism and Imperialism in Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' by Peter Edgerly Firchow, and: Joseph Conrad and the Imperial Romance by Linda Dryden (review)

2002; Modern Humanities Research Association; Volume: 32; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/yes.2002.0027

2222-4289

Keith Carabine,

Joseph Conrad and Literature

TheStrange Short FictionofJosephConrad. Writing, Culture, andSubjectivity. By DAPHNA ERDINAST-VULCAN. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. i999. + 191 PP ?40. Envisioning Africa.RacismandImperialism in Conrad's 'Heartof Darkness'.By PETER EDGERLY FIRCHOW. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. 2000. Xvi + 258 pp. $34.95. Joseph Conradand theImperialRomance. By LINDADRYDEN. Basingstoke: Macmillan; New York: St Martin's Press. 2000. xii + 228 pp. ?42.50. Daphna Erdinast-Vulcan'slatestbook confirmsthat she is among the finestmodern commentators on Conrad's work, combining a fine intelligence with a remarkable ability to explain, negotiate, and use a range of theoretical approaches. TheStrange ShortFictionis divided into two parts and seven chapters, each beginning with a lucid, courteoussurveyof the huge theoreticaland criticalmaterialon theparticular issue she has located in the particularstoryor stories.Inevitably,perhaps, the chief problem in this kind of study is that the move from the frameworkof ideas to the individual story can seem contrived or conversely the story is wrested to meet the theoreticalagenda. This is the case perhapswith Erdinast-Vulcan'sreadingof'The Idiots'and, especially, 'Falk'where her solemn conclusion that 'the narrator'sstory' is one 'of initiation into Lacanian symbolic order and the symbolic castration it entails'(p. I28), seems at odds with the narrator'srelaxed, self-mocking,humorous tone and constantguying of Herman's (andthe bourgeoisreader's?)squeamishness over the taboo of cannibalism. Usually, however, the theoretical positions initiate illuminating and provocative interpretations of the stories. Two examples must suffice.Partii, Chapter4, 'The Romantic Paradox',openswith a brilliantdiscussion of modern views of Romanticism's ambivalent stance towardsthe self, subjectivity, and the imagination: and Erdinast-Vulcan'ssubsequent readings of 'A Smile of Fortune'and 'Freyaof the Seven Isles'fullyjustifyher claim 'thatthe ambiguityand complexity of Conrad's attitude to the Romantic tradition is symptomatic of the unresolvable ideological tension and the ambivalence which lies at the core of Romanticism itself' (p. 134). Similarly, her reading of 'The Tale' accepts the familiarclaim that it dramatizes'a state of epistemologicaluncertainty'.But calling upon Foucault and French feminist theory, Erdinast-Vulcanpersuasively argues, through a close attention to the story's language, complex structure, and the Officer'speculiarformulations(suchas 'Somewherewhere there was no choice but between truth and death'), that 'The Tale' 'is, in fact, a subversion of the most fundamental Platonic paradigm, the cultural episteme which conflates light, visibility,knowledge, and the truth;which equates knowledgewith mastery;which is so centralto Modernityitself' (p. 174). Peter Firchow's magisterial study should be required reading for everybody embroiled in the post-Achebe and heated postcolonialcriticaldebate of the lasttwo decades which accuses Conrad and often finds him guilty of endorsing racism and 'of really supportingimperialismwhile seeming to subvert it' (p. 3). I do not have space to do justice to the subtlety and power of his argument, but I would recommend all readersto studyhis introductionwhich begins with a carefulsurvey and definitionof termsthatAchebe and subsequentinterpretershave far too easily taken for granted. At the time Conrad was writing, 'the word racism did not exist' (though, of course, the phenomenon certainly did!). Moreover, as Firchow demonstrates, the word racein the modern primary sense of 'one of the great divisionsof mankind,having certainphysicalpeculiaritiesin common' rankedonly Reviews 310 YES, 32, 2002 fourth at the turn of the century to definitions that are no longer current: '(a) "A limited group of persons descended from a common ancestor; a house, family, kindred";(b) "Atribe, nation, or people, regardedas of common stock";and (c) "A group of severaltribesor peoples, forminga distinctethnical stock",e.g "thewhole German race" '. These last senseswere subsequently'whollyreplaced by termslike nationand ethnic group,but for Conrad and his contemporaries they constituted the first and foremost accepted meanings of racewhen referringto another ethnic or national group' (p. 5). Such terminological confusion has bedevilled the critical debate and Firchow, following FrankReeves in BritishRacialDiscourse (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), forwards three categories; 'weak', 'medium', and 'strongracism'.The former'is the belief that races (howeverdefined, including ethnic and national groups) do exist and that they help to account for social phenomena'; 'medium' racism is identical except for the addition of the belief that certain races are superior and others inferior; and strong racism advocates the suppressionor elimination of inferior'races' (p. I ). In Chapters i and 2 Firchow...