Typhoon

Rating:
Summary: A 1903 Classic Novel of the Sea
Review: Great narration on the audio book captures the British and Scottish dialects, but it's so smooth that it's easy to be lulled into dreamland. I had to go back to the excerpts on Amazon and replay parts of the tape to catch the true impact of Conrad's words.

Captain Mac Whirr, a short, fat, dull but dependable seaman, commands the Nan-Shan for a Siamese merchant firm. He writes twelve letter a year to his uncaring wife and has two children who barely know him. During typhoon season in the China Sea Jukes the first mate tells the Captain to change course to avoid the looming storm, but Mac Whirr will think of nothing but forging straight ahead. The Captain and Jukes as well as Solomon Rout the chief engineer (Long Sol, Old Sol or father Rout to his shipmates and Solomon Sez to his wife who quotes pearls of wisdom from his letters to anyone who'll listen) and the Bosun are at the center of the crisis that follows.

During a storm like no other the actions of everyman are almost predetermined by their biases, intrenched beliefs and in some cases ability to react. In six short chapters Conrad develops a great story of how different men behave in a fight for survival.

The tale of the last leg is told in pieces from letters home. The Captain's letter is barely read by his wife who has no idea what happened. Solomon's is sentimental and cherished by his beloved. Jukes reveals the most. Unsurprisingly we find that Captain Mac Whirr wasn't so dumb after all.

It would probably be better read than listened to and deserves at least four stars for the classic it is.

Rating:
Summary: A 1903 Classic Novel of the Sea
Review: Great narration on the audio book captures the British and Scottish dialects, but it's so smooth that it's easy to be lulled into dreamland. I had to go back to the excerpts on Amazon and replay parts of the tape to catch the true impact of Conrad's words.

Captain Mac Whirr, a short, fat, dull but dependable seaman, commands the Nan-Shan for a Siamese merchant firm. He writes twelve letter a year to his uncaring wife and has two children who barely know him. During typhoon season in the China Sea Jukes the first mate tells the Captain to change course to avoid the looming storm, but Mac Whirr will think of nothing but forging straight ahead. The Captain and Jukes as well as Solomon Rout the chief engineer (Long Sol, Old Sol or father Rout to his shipmates and Solomon Sez to his wife who quotes pearls of wisdom from his letters to anyone who'll listen) and the Bosun are at the center of the crisis that follows.

During a storm like no other the actions of everyman are almost predetermined by their biases, intrenched beliefs and in some cases ability to react. In six short chapters Conrad develops a great story of how different men behave in a fight for survival.

The tale of the last leg is told in pieces from letters home. The Captain's letter is barely read by his wife who has no idea what happened. Solomon's is sentimental and cherished by his beloved. Jukes reveals the most. Unsurprisingly we find that Captain Mac Whirr wasn't so dumb after all.

It would probably be better read than listened to and deserves at least four stars for the classic it is.

Rating:
Summary: He will take you into the storm, novice and mariner alike.
Review: I first read this story in high school, 1973, and read it all the time since. Its a quick intense read. I did spend 10 years at sea in Alaska commercial fishing and of all the books on storms, this is still my favorite. Some people don't like Conrad's Lord Jim, but I like all his works. Farley Mowat also has some great sea stories that I feel are pretty realistic. The Serpents Coil, and Grey Seas Under are the two I liked best, and The Boat that Wouldn't Float is one of the funnyest I have read.

Rating:
Summary: "Perfidy, Violence, and Terror"
Review: It has been over 30 years since the first time I read this book. Coming back to it after all this time, my overwhelming impression was how much Conrad had compressed into so few pages. TYPHOON can easily be read in a single sitting; but don't plan on going to bed right after. Not without a good stiff drink.

The Nan-Shan, a steamer of Siamese registry but with English officers, and with a cargo of Chinese coolie laborers returning from a stint overseas, encounters a deadly typhoon and somehow survives it. We see the story unfold through the eyes of Jukes, the first mate, who is awed by his stoic Captain MacWhirr's quiet resolve in the face of a storm of the century.

Reading it, I felt transported to the Northridge Earthquake of 1994. A sound as of all the demons of hell -- shaking and rolling in six directions at once -- flashes of light from exploding transformers -- barefooted stumbling for my boots in a world of broken glass and crockery -- found by the police hours later walking down the street, stunned, with blood pouring from my ankle and a gallon jug of water in my hand.

Or, replace it with an equivalent experience of your own. Conrad had looked death in the face and learned how to face it. His Captain MacWhirr stands fast in the fury and doesn't let his imagination of untold horrors interfere with guiding the ship through the storm. At one point, he tells Jukes in the wheelhouse, "We must trust her [the ship] to go through it and come out the other side, That's plain and straight."

Conrad is a wise teacher and a great writer. TYPHOON did more than survive a second reading: It awed me a second time. If I may quote once more from the book: "MacWhirr had sailed over the surface of the oceans as some men go skimming over the years of existence to sink gently into a placid grave, ignorant of life to the last, without ever having been made to see all that it may contain of perfidy, of violence, and of terror."

MacWhirr's initiation into this perfidy, violence, and terror shows us how we might likewise survive the storms and shipwrecks of our own lives. What an incredible book!

Rating:
Summary: Conrad the master!
Review: Joseph Conrad was a master of language. In a brief but classic book, you will experience the incredible power of a typhoon while on a steamer as if you were there. Especially real is the scene in the chart room after the initial damage. It is very dark, and Captain MacWhirr lights matches to see his surroundings. Conrad's concise descriptions make you feel even the flame of the match as it burns down. If only this book were longer! I would have loved to know more about Captain MacWhirr's adventures. I HIGHLY recommend this book, as well as Conrad's "Heart of Darkness."

Rating:
Summary: Conrad the master!
Review: Joseph Conrad was a master of language. In a brief but classic book, you will experience the incredible power of a typhoon while on a steamer as if you were there. Especially real is the scene in the chart room after the initial damage. It is very dark, and Captain MacWhirr lights matches to see his surroundings. Conrad's concise descriptions make you feel even the flame of the match as it burns down. If only this book were longer! I would have loved to know more about Captain MacWhirr's adventures. I HIGHLY recommend this book, as well as Conrad's "Heart of Darkness."

Rating:
Summary: A storm and how to survive it
Review: Taking maximum advantage from his long years at sea, and from his innate insight into the human soul, Conrad tells an outright and direct story about a huge typhoon in the midst of the Yellow Sea. But the book is not so much about the storm in itself, but about the human character and how it reacts to disaster.

Captain MacWhirr is famous for being an efficient, calm, dull and silent man, someone you would trust but not like. He seems to be rather unbrilliant, though, never understanding why people talk so much. The other characters are also interesting, especially Jukes, the "young Turk", vivid and dynamic; Solomon the head engineer, another wise man from the sea, and the disgusting and repugnant "second officer", the type of coward you don't want to be with in this kind of drama.

Human character, then, is revealed by limit-situations much more than at any other time, as war literature fans know, and this tale will leave you wondering how YOU would react if you had to make decisions in the midst of a horrible, and wonderfully depicted, typhoon.

Rating:
Summary: Better than a perfect storm
Review: This novel is unforgettable. Conrad creates a sense of terror regarding the forces of nature that will stand up to any special effects that Hollywood can produce. The scene describing the panic below deck of the Chinese workers is one of the most powerful in literature. Not to be missed.

Rating:
Summary: One part of Conrad's writing agenda
Review: Well, my review title isn't very interesting but I suppose what I am trying to get at is that this story is a sort of metaphysical pornography, and squeezes in a great part of the thoughts Conrad was interested in conveying. Curtcow wrote that the audio tape is prone toward placing one in "dreamland" and this is true, and probably not at all good for the conveyance of a violent story. However, the accents give something to the personalities that I am sure I would have missed had I read this first, especially given the fact that I am an american and the story is 100 years old, written in english, and more importantly,of course, there is the sailors'slang. My own internal linguistic set-up would have had Mac Whirr speaking as I might speak, and that wouldn't have been good. Following this, I guess all americans reading Conrad might want to listen to some of his tales. It is also nice to hear Conrad's smooth sentences, which for the most part remain incredibly unaffected, given his use of metaphor and analogy and simile and the possible fact that he is using metaphor, analogy, and simile all at once. (Either that or I simply can't tell when a particular image described is one of the three.)

I don't agree with the idea that Conrad wrote this with the idea that his readers might ponder how they would react. To me it is more like a Quentin Tarentino thing - entertainment before anything. After all, this story, when compared to the very difficult, time-consuming, and at times simply burdensome Nostromo, is quite simple. (Not in any way to deny the extreme fear the story inspires) I guess at times I would have liked to hear more arguing between the sailors, but, come to think of it, the confusion of the typhoon necessarily renders that impossible.

Still, the cover to cover classics edition was quite expensive, and unlike other audio tapes I have (Middlemarch or the Odyssey especially)I doubt one year down the road I will want to listen, as opposed to read, this novella.