by Joseph Conrad
|
| List Price: | $12.00 |
| Amazon Price: | $10.20 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. |
| You Save: | $1.80 (15%) |
| Average Rating: |  |
| Lowest New Price: | $4.44 |
| Availablitiy: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
|
 |
|
Product Description
Conrad's most technically ambitious work is a psychologically penetrating portrait of a young woman's transformation from a vulnerable, almost tragic figure to a self-respecting woman--and Conrad's only novel to feature a female protagonist.
Customers who bought this item also bought
Average Customer Review:
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
 Conrad's Strangest Triumph, 2007-02-16
So well-crafted, so engaging, so powerfully written - it's hard believing "Chance" was written by Joseph Conrad. Not that Conrad didn't write great books, just that nothing in "Lord Jim," "Heart Of Darkness," or the rest of his tough, unsettling oeuvre prepares you for the wry warmth and hidden sunlight of "Chance."
Well, you do have Marlow again. The narrator of "Jim" and "Darkness" is back here telling another story about people he doesn't actually know first-hand. This time the central character is young Flora de Barral, set adrift in England by her father's scandal-plagued financiering. Haunted and helpless, her wide blue eyes giving her the look of "a forsaken elf," Flora takes what comes in life, seemingly unable to function for herself. Can she find her own way? Will she become ruthless if she tries?
All this may sound precious and twee, very much in the style of period romances more suited to Henry James than what you expect from the shamelessly macho Conrad, with his damned souls sailing heedless into typhoons. Yet Conrad makes this odd Merchant-Ivory production work by making you care for Flora in a way that draws you in more deeply than even the classic "Lord Jim" ever did. "Jim" was a philosophical novel; "Chance" is a uniquely intuitive one, more about feelings than ideas, yet quite brilliant in its concept all the same.
Published in 1913, one year before World War I would change forever the genteel world it so painstakingly describes, "Chance" was the one book by Conrad that clicked with readers in his own lifetime. It's been disregarded since, as modern readers embrace more dour Conrad fare like "The Secret Agent" and "Nostromo."
It's our generation's loss. Missing "Chance" is missing the other side of Conrad, the bleak nihilist discovering for once "the precise workmanship of chance, fate, providence, call it what you will." Other Conrad books feature broken-up narratives and odd framing devices, but the structural convolutions in "Chance" actually propel the story rather than hold it back.
Marlow's narration is a marvel of storytelling economy, carrying you across windswept moors and the high seas, not to mention a source of much dry wit as the rather mysterious misogynist fires many shots across the bow of womankind. "Mainly I resent that pretence of winding us around their dear little fingers, as of right," he snorts.
Is Flora exhibit A in this case against? Certainly she winds the helplessly infatuated Captain Anthony around her finger, despite her apparent total lack of reciprocal devotion. Flora does love, only it is in a flawed way, for her crabbed, corrupt father who believes the two of them too good for the rest of the world. Yet love can be a form of redemption despite itself.
Women, Conrad writes, can be fiendish and dumb, yet they are "never dense." "There is in woman always, somewhere, a spring." Realizing that spring here is at the heart of "Chance," and makes for Conrad's strangest triumph, the one book of his that not only makes you feel smarter for reading it, but happy to be alive.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
 An obscure gem from one of history's greatest writers, 2006-12-13
My first Conrad read was Victory, and I have been hooked ever since. I chose Chance because it was Conrad's first commercial success, and I was curious to see what the public liked better than so many other great novels such as Lord Jim. As other reviewers have suggested, the ending must have been the difference. There is far more sweet than bitter, and it's usually the other way around in his books, especially the love stories. I suspect we may learn more from sad stories than from happy ones, but in any event, Chance is not without pain and suffering. As the capable narrator Marlowe repeatedly emphasizes, the novel's heroine, Flora, leads a difficult life. Her father is one of the great villans in literature. He really steals show from Marlowe--well, almost.
What I like most about Conrad's use of the narrator, particularly in Chance, is his role as an interpreter. In most novels, the reader must examine the story itself for the life lessons Conrad so uniquely presents. Marlowe enables Conrad to speak more directly to the reader, and I found him doing so more in Chance than in Lord Jim. There are a few arguably gratutious digressions--one about the differences between men and women comes to mind--but that's Marlowe.
The bottom line: if in reading Lord Jim, you really enjoyed Marlowe's character, you will love the extra depth and insight Chance provides. If you love Conrad, then I expect you will find this to be one his most enjoyable books. And, if you have never read Conrad, but are curious, this is an excellent novel to start with, for it cannot be sterotyped as a South Seas adventure novel full of Pacific atmosphere and nautical terms.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
A sublime piece of work, 2004-06-29
From the author famous for seminal works like The Heart of Darkness, The Secret Agent and Nostromo this novel is often left unmentioned within his repertoire of books. This is unfair. I would say Chance is Conrad's most beautiful story, the construction of the plot masterly from start to conclusion, and probably the only novel of his which genuinely leaves a good feeling and makes the reader smile. His handling of the material from Marlow the teller of the tale, the way the novels flits from present to the past and back again flawlessly, surprises one how so far ahead Conrad was compared to the standard straight-line story telling that dominated writing of that era. But bottomline is despite the technical perfection, a story would only succeed its telling if it has heart. Here Conrad never faltered and one feels for the heroine in the story, and it would be hard not to let out a whoop of bemused joy once the final page is turned. Simply sublime.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
Marlow does it again, 2004-04-29
Chance is a wonderful Conrad novel that no one really pays attention to nowadays. True, it does not have the same magic as Lord Jim or Heart of Darkness, but it is brilliant in that Conradian way. It features the return of Marlow, so it is an especially interesting read for Conrad fans who have been with Marlow through other novels and stories. His role in this book is less hands-on. He does not have a very strong tie to the two characters he most discusses. He does, however, have a more active role in the actual narration. His audience this time is not passive, but questions his analyses and puts in their own ideas. A hilarious example:
"You are the expert in the psychological wilderness. This is like one of those Redskin stories where the noble savages carry off a girl and the honest backwoodsman with his incomparable knowledge follows the track and reads the signs of her fate in a footprint here, a broken twig there, a trinklet dropped by the way."For those unfamiliar with Marlow, the commentator is refering to his capacity for putting together pieces of information to create a sketch of a person, and we have to filter through some of Marlow's pretensions to get a real view of what is going on in his story. At one point, he compares women to electricity. Both have been captured, "but what sort of conquest would you call it? (Man) knows nothing of it. And the greater the demand he makes on it in the exultation of his pride the more likely it is to turn on him and burn him to a cinder." Ah, Marlow, you rambling fool. This is the novel that brought Conrad popular success, rather late in his career. It is one of his only female characters with a dominant role, but don't expect a strong feminist type. Flora de Barral is naive, at the mercy of others and their wills. I didn't feel quite as close to the characters, and Conrad tries a little too hard to philosophize on the role of chance and circumstance in our lives. Still, very enjoyable, witty, pure Conrad that you shouldn't miss.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
Excellent, 2002-02-14
This book is just perfect. It's very well written. Conrad shows an understanding of the predicament of women of his time. Conrad advances the plot though the voice of the characters, who tell a story, which involves another character telling a story, etc. At one point the tale is six levels deep; but such is the skill of Conrad that you do not notice and are never lost. One of Conrad's two or three best. A book I was sad to end because I was enjoying it so much.
Price is accurate as of the date/time indicated. Prices and product availability are subject to change. Any price displayed on the Amazon website at the time of purchase will govern the sale of this product.
|
Store Categories
|