Any Joseph Conrad fans? What about his writing appeals to you?

>>8506429
There are probably SJWs on sites like Twitter and tumblr who thinks he's racist, so let's talk about dumb women and liberals instead

>>8506429
I really enjoyed The Nigger of the Narcissus
really the atmosphere of the ship on the night before the voyage starts
then the storm and the crews heroics
also the near mutiny and the conniving cockney chav character was a pleasure to hate -he'd probably be a Chelsea supporter if he were alive today
plus the word Nigger is right there in the title
I rate it an 8

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>>8506429

Reading Conrad is on my back-burner but I want to do it, for personal reasons which will become immediately clear.

OP's pic related is the source of the name for the big spaceship in Alien, my favorite film. Meanwhile, the Nigger of the Narcissus, which the other anon mentioned, is the source of the name for the small escape pod which Ripley uses at the end of the movie.

It's my understanding that Conrad's work gives off fully modern senses of alienation, the nautical, threats and violence, things like that. In that sense the themes are wholly of a piece with those explored in the first few alien movies, beyond the "surface" name-dropping used in the first movie (even "Sulaco" is mentioned as the mother-ship in the next movie, another word deriving from Conrad). Since Scott clearly had Conrad on the brain while directing the orignial, I would go as far as to suggest he brought some of Conrad's influence into the production of the film itself, again beyond simple name-dropping. Non-verbal atmosphere, theming as far as he could influence it within the confines of an already-established script, things like that.

I also consider it to be very interesting that Apocalypse Now was released in 1979, the same year as Alien. In a sense, this is a signal year for Conrad's adaptation into film. The next step is for me to actually read him at some point.

Actually I bet I could do this soon. I find that I enjoy reading the souce text for modern, violent flicks once in a while. As proof, please consider this autistic comparison of the original short story "Who Goes There?" versus its 1982 adaptation as John Carpenter's "The Thing".

There are at least three "texts" in an adapted screenplay which is then actually filmed and released: the original (shakespeare, homer, conrad, that one guy's story idea, etc), the adapted screenplay, and finally the completed film as the third text. I like to compare the creative process among these. The process of /making/ such a movie is thus a highly /literary/ enterprise (exchange of notes, re-writes, etc), even if the end product is a series of images and sound.

>>8506429
I like the way he writes younger people and power struggles. "Youth, a narrative" and "The Shadow Line" are probably my favorites.

I'm currently wading through Nostromo. While I can't say I'm a fan of the back-and-forth way in which the novel's cast jostles for possession of the narrative focus, I adore Conrad's prose -- it is 'telly' by modern standards, but by the same token avoids overuse of dialogue, and has a wonderful undercurrent of world-weary humanism which meshes well with my own life perspective.

There was something about Nostromo I couldn't put my finger on. All the characters were great, the story was fine, the prose was fine and don't regret the time I spent reading it BUT maybe I was expecting a HoD: South American edition.