Hugh Clifford - The Art of Mr. Joseph Conrad. [Critical Assessments I]. 1902.

[원래 The Spectator]

(정리)

1902년도에 발표된 이 글 역시도 콘래드의 작품이 공들여서 쓴 뛰어난 작품이고 묘사의 장점으로 분위기를 정확하게 창조하고 있음을 칭찬하고 있다. 하지만 여기서도 [어둠]에 대해서 이야기하면서 '야만성과 그 원주민, 또 원시적 자연?의 접촉이 백인을 타락시킨다'는 식의 당대 담론에 충실한 해석을 내놓고 있다는 점에 주목할 필요가 있다. (going Fantee - Fanti, Fante = go native)

(발췌)

(292) Mr. Conrad's stories resemble nothing so nearly as some elaborated piece of mosaic. (정교한 모자이크 작품을 닮았다는 말) Each of them is made up of an immense number of minute atoms, one and all of which bear witness to the skill and finished workmanship brought to their fashioning, one aand all of which, apart from the parts, so that that whole, lacking any tiniest fragment, would be marred and incomplete. This is why Mr. Conrad's books, to be appreciated at their full worth, must not only be read, but must be read moe than once. The mind of their author is so subtle, he has put into them so much thought, so much delicacy of touch, so much that is at once allusive and elusive, that at every reperusal some hitherto undetected nicety is revealed.

(293) Description unquestionably is his forte, and the most remarkable of his gifts is the power which his strength in this direction gives him for the absolute creation of atmosphere.

(294) [HD] - while the inefficiency of certain types of European 'administors' is mercilessly gibbeted, the power of the wilderness, of contact with barbarism and elemental men and facts, to effect the demoralisation of the white man is conveyed with marvellous force.