Thomas Moser - Joseph Conrad: Achievement and Decline. Archon Books. 1957

[Introduction]

Guerard - Anticlimax

The early Conrad's apprentice work and his failures strikingly resemble each other in subject matter and in symbolic imagery. Almost all deal in a major way with love. More over, even when the love stroy is apparently  romantic and pure (the usual case in these works), powerful but ambiguous sexual feelings clearly lurk beneath the surface of the prose. The poor early works frequently contain patches of adjectival prose, heavy with images of writhing plant life, and straining mightily to express the "unspeakable" and the "impalpable." (50-51)

더 나아가 그는 콘래드의 첫 소설의 가장 취약한 부분은 니나와 다인이라는 두 남녀의 사랑을 담고 있는 부분이라고 말한다.

They lack the moral and psychological interest of Almayer, the vitality of Babalatchi. Their conventional good looks and their wooden dialogue, consisting primarily of high-flown sentiments, mark them as stereotyped noble savages. Yet their failure is more complex than one simply of dullness. The inconsistency of the lover's attitudes toward each other, the inappropriate imagery used in connection with the lovers -- all these suggest that their creator is so seriously confused that he cannot carry out his artistic intentions. (52)