Hugh Clifford - The Genius of Mr. Joseph Conrad. [Third World Perspectives]. 1904

[원래 North American Rewiew에 실린 글]

[정리]

1904년에 발표된 이 글은 콘래드의 작가로서의 독특함과 장점, 그리고 필자의 제국주의적이고 인종주의적인 시각을 드러내고 있다. 콘래드의 일생의 지기이자, 아시아와 아프리카의 여러 곳에서 식민지 행정관으로, 그리고 문필가로서 명성을 떨친 휴 클리포드는 폴란드 출신으로 영국으로 귀화한 콘래드가 다른 영국 작가들이 보여주지 못한 독특함을 보여주고 있다고 이야기 한다.

It[The manner] is wholly unlike that of any writer who has hitherto used the English languages as his vehicle of ｅxpression, and may indeed be regarded, in some sort, as embodying a discovery of yet another use to which our tongue can be put.

거기다 선원으로서의 콘래드의 이력이 인간 전반에 대한 이해의 폭과 깊이를 더했음을 지적하면서, 그의 초기 작품들 [올메이어]와 [추방자]가 갖는 힘에 대해서도 지적한다.

True or false, the figures in these books live for us, and above and beyond them are the power of presentment, the marvellous faculty for the absolute creation of atmosphere, the genius of description, adn the individual, finished style.

콘래드의 문체가 갖는 강점, 분위기를 환기 시키는 능력, 장면 묘사의 생생함, 거기에다 상상력을 더해 마법적인 느낌을 주는 것(?) 등을 이야기하면서 The Nigger나 [로드 짐], [어둠의 심연]이 이룬 성취를 칭찬한다. 그런데, [어둠]에 대한 설명에서 특히 아프리카와 아프리카 원주민을 신비화하고 야만적인 대상으로 비하함으로써 당대의 인종주의적인 담론을 그대로 노정시킨다.

 

[발췌]

(11) It[The manner] is wholly unlike that of any writer who has hitherto used the English languages as his vehicle of ｅxpression, and may indeed be regarded, in some sort, as embodying a discovery of yet another use to which our tongue can be put.

[콘래드의 독특성]

(13) [Youth]의 마지막 부분 - the tiny picture, clean-cut as a cameo, that imprints itself upon the imagination, and yet has clinging about it the half-mystical haze of fancy and of sentiment which is one of the secrets of this writer's magic.

[장면 묘사의 생생함과, 콘래드의 놀라운 기억력에 대한 칭찬]

(14) For nearly twenty years he visited half the ports of all the earth, rubbed shoulders with most of the races of mankind, and everywhere looked upon all things with the seeing eye which delved beneath the surface.

(15)

The fact that he debated within himself seriously as to the choice of the language in which he should elect to write, will be found to be full of significance to any thoughtful student of his work. French at first attracted him more than English. Flaubert and Guy de Maupassant fascinated him as did no modern English authors, and, so far as he can be said to have any literary parents, they are to be sought for in France, not in England or America. The love of the one and only word was a passion born quick and whole in him, and for a space he thought that the more delicate, subtle and dainty speech would best serve his purposes. But for many years he had sailed under the old Red Ensign; his friends were mostly English; his sympathies were with the men of English race whom he had found scattered through the crannies of the world. Men of British breed, it seemed to him, would perhaps understand the things of which he had to tell as no other men could do. In the end, therefore, he decided upon the use of English; but admiration of the French stylists, of French delicacy and workmanship, of French subtlety, of French illusiveness and allusiveness, remained strong in him, and to this influence he owes not a little of the force, the vividness, the distinction of his prose. [Let any man possessed of the critical faculty read a page of Mr. Conrad's work with this knowledge in his mind, and he will find that a very real light is cast thereby upon the more effective peculiarities of his style.] Add to this, that the author is a Sclav by birth and tradition, and that he possesses in an intensified form the sombre but strongly individual outlook of his people, and it will be recognized that he combines in his person a mental equipment of so unusual a character that, backed as it is by literary instinct and ability of a very high order, it could not fail to produce remarkable results.

(16) Almayer - the lonely, broken, melancholy Almayer, with the altruism of strong affection forcing itself upward his mean and trivial ambition, being a peculiarly arresting figure. He was creation - no mere puppet of mechanical contrivance - a man, intensely pathetic in his failure and his impotence, very weak, very human, very lovable, and the stroy of his tragedy moves us deeply.

- Willems - the Outcast, is a character which exists, in which we cannot but believe. He is vital as truth itself, and the study of his degradation is as pitiless as it is strong.

-  True or false, the figures in these books live for us, and above and beyond them are the power of presentment, the marvellous faculty for the absolute creation of atmosphere, the genius of description, adn the individual, finished style.

(17) The Nigger에 대한 칭찬 [17 아래 쪽]

(18) The Heart of Darkness - grips me as does no other short story in our literature.

- the mystery and the gloom of savage places obsesses the imagination. the incomprehensible savage life 등등의 구절은 아프리카와 아프리카의 원주민을 신비화하고 있으며, 그들을 savage라고 부름으로써 인종주의적인 시각을 노골적으로 드러내고 있다.