> I think
> Conrad can't write for shit. I performed that same experiment as Sir
> Michael Smith and opened the book to look at it again, and within five
> sentences was stunned with boredom. What a tuneless, rhythmless git
An interesting response (oh, and thanks for the K or -- dare I hope -- the baronetcy?).
I might even agree with "tuneless and rhythmless".
The guy is a very much a *prose* writer and he's determined to avoid anything that smacks of the lyrical. His tone is discursive, conversational, even a little rambling. It's like when your uncle settles down to tell a story -- get comfortable, because this will take a while.
I come from a culture where these leisurely long stories beguiled many an evening, so the slow sidelong setup suits me fine.
Then too Conrad really hits the mark, gets it right, for anybody who's done any sailing. Anyway, here's the incursus to HoD:
--
The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest. The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river, the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the turn of the tide.
The sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an interminable waterway. In the offing the sea and the sky were welded together without a joint, and in the luminous space the tanned sails of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red clusters of canvas sharply peaked, with gleams of varnished sprits. A haze rested on the low shores that ran out to sea in vanishing flatness. The air was dark above Gravesend, and farther back still seemed condensed into a mournful gloom, brooding motionless over the biggest, and the greatest, town on earth.
The Director of Companies was our captain and our host. We four affectionately watched his back as he stood in the bows looking to seaward. On the whole river there was nothing that looked half so nautical. He resembled a pilot, which to a seaman is trustworthiness personified. It was difficult to realize his work was not out there in the luminous estuary, but behind him, within the brooding gloom.
Between us there was, as I have already said somewhere, the bond of the sea. Besides holding our hearts together through long periods of separation, it had the effect of making us tolerant of each other's yarns—and even convictions.
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De gustibus non disputandum. This is the sort of thing that keeps me reading, but maybe it's poison to others.
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Michael Smith mjs at smithbowen.net http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org http://fakesprogress.blogspot.com