Youth
by Joseph Conrad
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Polish-born writer Joseph Conrad's novels and short stories usually involve grizzled sailors past their prime battling their inner demons. The story Youth: A Narrative represents something of a departure from the formula that made Conrad famous. It's a semi-autobiographical tale that features Marlow, the same character that stood in for the author in Heart of Darkness recounting an early sea voyage that went terribly awry..
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ari.joki In Masefield's "Bird of Dawning" and Conrad's "Youth" we find a young naval officer with infinite enthusiasm for seafaring and deep love of the seas. This enthusiasm and love persist even in the face of banalities of life and disastrous events.
Member Reviews
Oh man, can a Polish guy prove to be such a word-smith of English language? Such lucidity, such craft, such force of imagination...can one read him and fail to see the image he intends to interweave with 26 dumb symbols...pass the bottle.
Short (really just a story) but exciting, with a closing that makes me feel as if I've finally reached the exotic shore, near wrecked but nonetheless with a feeling of exultation due to salvation. I'm sure there's all sorts of metaphors and stuff, too.
But no, I'm still not interested in Heart of Darkness or others by Conrad tyvm.
But no, I'm still not interested in Heart of Darkness or others by Conrad tyvm.
The way Conrad reflects a raging inferno off a still ocean, the impatient youth off tired old age, the contrasts all... prepare the reader to wonderfully appreciate the serenity of tropical nature and the imagery that glides along like the scented breeze off a luscious island.
"Youth! Ah me, youth! the splendour and the mad beauty of youth! Too soon fled, too quickly wilted, is there any mountain we would not climb to get just one more sweet hit of that hangoverless ambosia called YOOOOUUUUTH!?!" Etc.
A seafaring yarn told by Marlow to his drinking companions -- the same basic form as (the longer and later) "Heart of Darkness."
This is a story about a young man's (early 20's) first trip to Bangkok from England. Oh, the adventures he has!
"This could have occurred nowhere but in England, where men and sea interpenetrate, so to speak—the sea entering into the life of most men, and the men knowing something or everything about the sea, in the way of amusement, of travel, or of bread-winning.
"By all that’s wonderful, it is the sea, I believe, the sea itself—or is it youth alone? Who can tell? But you here—you all had something out of life: money, love—whatever one gets on shore—and, tell me, wasn’t that the best time, that time when we were young at sea; young and had nothing, on the sea that gives nothing, except hard knocks—and sometimes a chance to feel your strength—that only—what you all regret?"
"By all that’s wonderful, it is the sea, I believe, the sea itself—or is it youth alone? Who can tell? But you here—you all had something out of life: money, love—whatever one gets on shore—and, tell me, wasn’t that the best time, that time when we were young at sea; young and had nothing, on the sea that gives nothing, except hard knocks—and sometimes a chance to feel your strength—that only—what you all regret?"
May 15, 2022Spanish
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Conrad ranked
16 works; 2 members
Book Titles Mentioned In Newberry Medal And Honor Books
884 works; 3 members
Author Information
Joseph Conrad is recognized as one of the 20th century's greatest English language novelists. He was born Jozef Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski on December 3, 1857, in the Polish Ukraine. His father, a writer and translator, was from Polish nobility, but political activity against Russian oppression led to his exile. Conrad was orphaned at a young age show more and subsequently raised by his uncle. At 17 he went to sea, an experience that shaped the bleak view of human nature which he expressed in his fiction. In such works as Lord Jim (1900), Youth (1902), and Nostromo (1904), Conrad depicts individuals thrust by circumstances beyond their control into moral and emotional dilemmas. His novel Heart of Darkness (1902), perhaps his best known and most influential work, narrates a literal journey to the center of the African jungle. This novel inspired the acclaimed motion picture Apocalypse Now. After the publication of his first novel, Almayer's Folly (1895), Conrad gave up the sea. He produced thirteen novels, two volumes of memoirs, and twenty-eight short stories. He died on August 3, 1924, in England. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Awards and Honors
Notable Lists
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Gute Schriften (149)
dtv zweisprachig (Englisch)
Bibliothek Suhrkamp (386)
Insel-Bücherei (Nr. 511)
Fischer Taschenbuch (50422)
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Is contained in
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Jugend
- Original title
- Youth
- Original publication date
- 1898
- People/Characters
- Charles Marlow (Second mate on the Judea); Capt. John Beard; Jenny Beard (wife of Capt. John Beard); Mahon (sailor on Judea)
- Important places
- Falmouth, Cornwall, England, UK
- Related movies
- The Young One (2016 | IMDb)
- First words
- This could have occurred nowhere but in England, where men and sea interpenetrate, so to speak—the sea entering into the life of most men, and the men knowing something or everything about the sea, in the way of amusement, ... (show all)of travel, or of bread-winning.
- Quotations
- O youth! The strength of it, the faith of it, the imagination of it! To me she was not an old rattle-trap carting about the world a lot of coal for a freight--to me she was the endeavor, the test, the trial of life. I think o... (show all)f her with pleasure, with affection, with regret-- as you would think of someone dead you have loved. I shall never forget her. . . . Pass the bottle.
Pass the bottle.
You fight, work, sweat, nearly kill yourself, sometimes do kill yourself, trying to accomplish something — and you can't. Not from any fault of yours. You simply can do nothing, neither great nor little — not a thing in t... (show all)he world — not even marry an old maid, or get a wretched 600-ton cargo of coal to its port of destination.
Oh the glamour of youth! Oh the fire of it, more dazzling than the flames of the burning ship, throwing a magic light on the wide earth, leaping audaciously to the sky, presently to be quenched by time, more cruel, more pitil... (show all)ess, more bitter than the sea—and like the flames of the burning ship surrounded by an impenetrable night.
He was a dismal man, ... who either had been in trouble,or was in trouble,or expected to be in trouble – couldn't be happy unless something went wrong
... what friend would throw your years and your weariness in your face? - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)And we all nodded at him: the man of finance, the man of accounts, the man of law, we all nodded at him over the polished table that like a still sheet of brown water reflected our faces, lined, wrinkled; our faces marked by toil, by deceptions, by success, by love; our weary eyes looking still, looking always, looking anxiously for something out of life, that while it is expected is already gone--has passed unseen, in a sigh, in a flash--together with the youth, with the strength, with the romance of illusions.
- Original language
- English
- Disambiguation notice
- This work contains the single story Youth. Some editions titled simply Youth also contain Heart of Darkness or another story as well, and should be separated out.
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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Statistics
- Members
- 535
- Popularity
- 55,591
- Reviews
- 9
- Rating
- (3.78)
- Languages
- 8 — Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese (Portugal), Spanish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 80
- ASINs
- 28
