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Plutarch's Lives, written at the beginning of the second century A.D., is a brilliant social history of the ancient world by one of the greatest biographers and moralists of all time. In what is by far his most famous and influential work, Plutarch reveals the character and personality of his subjects and how they led ultimately to tragedy or victory. Richly anecdotal and full of detail, Volume I contains profiles and comparisons of Romulus and Theseus, Numa and Lycurgus, Fabius and Pericles, and many more powerful figures of ancient Greece and Rome.

The present translation, originally published in 1683 in conjunction with a life of Plutarch by John Dryden, was revised in 1864 by the poet and scholar Arthur Hugh Clough, whose notes and preface are also included in this edition.

• Sales Rank: #37021 in Books
• Brand: Plutarch/ Clough, Arthur Hugh (EDT)/ Atlas, James (INT)/ Dryden, John (TRN)
• Published on: 2001-04-10
• Released on: 2001-04-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 8.00" h x 1.10" w x 5.20" l, 1.06 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 784 pages

Review
"A Bible for heroes."

Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Greek

From the Inside Flap
Plutarch's Lives, written at the beginning of the second century A.D., is a brilliant social history of the ancient world by one of the greatest biographers and moralists of all time. In what is by far his most famous and influential work, Plutarch reveals the character and personality of his subjects and how they led ultimately to tragedy or victory. Richly anecdotal and full of detail, Volume I contains profiles and comparisons of Romulus and Theseus, Numa and Lycurgus, Fabius and Pericles, and many more powerful figures of ancient Greece and Rome.
The present translation, originally published in 1683 in conjunction with a life of Plutarch by John Dryden, was revised in 1864 by the poet and scholar Arthur Hugh Clough, whose notes and preface are also included in this edition.

Most helpful customer reviews

163 of 172 people found the following review helpful.
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By A Customer
Plutarch's history isn't always the most accurate -- he clashes with Arrian and Quintus Curtius on Alexander, for example -- but it sure is a lot of fun...Plutarch weaves in lots of interesting little anecdotes and his narrative arcs are always complete without being too long. It's also great for leisurely reading; there are so many Lives, you can pick one up on any rainy afternoon, long car drive, or what have you, and don't even need to know a whole lot of context to get the gist of what's going on. For fans of history and biography, or just stories in general, this is as good as it gets.
I recommend the Modern Library edition because it's complete (with the two volumes, that is) and because the Dryden translation is very colorful even though it's old-school -- you're bound to pick up a lot of cool vocabulary. Also, don't quite know how to put it, but his translation just seems more...classic. It fits, get it.

102 of 110 people found the following review helpful.
Invaluable source and historical document.
By Robert J. Crawford
After having read McCullogh's splendid series on Rome, I turned to this fat, dense book with great expectations. I was not disappointed: the stories are endlessly fascinating, from their basic details on ancient history to the bizarre asides that reveal the pre-Christianised mind-set of the author.
Like all great books, this one can be read on innumerable levels. First, there is the moralising philosophy that is perhaps the principal purpose of the author to advance - each life holds lessons on proper conduct of great and notorious leaders alike. You get Caesar, Perikles, and Alcibiades, and scores of others who are compared and contrasted. Second, there is the content. Plutarch is an invaluable source of data for historians and the curious. Third, there is the reflection of religious and other beliefs of the 1C AD: oracles and omens are respected as are the classical gods. For example, while in Greece, Sulla is reported as having found a satyr, which he attempted unsuccesfully to question for its auguring abilities during his miltary campaign in Greece! It is a wonderful window into the mystery of life and human belief systems. That being said, Plutarch is skeptical of these occurances and both questions their relevance and shows how some shrewd leaders, like Sertorious with his white fawn in Spain, used them to great advantage.
Finally, this is a document that was used for nearly 2000 years in schools as a vital part of classical education - the well-bred person knew all these personalities and stories, which intimately informed their vocabulary and literary references until the beginning of the 20C. That in itself is a wonderful view into what was on people's minds and how they conceived things over the ages. As is well known, Plutarch is the principal source of many of Shakespeare's plays, such as Coriolanus and Julius Caesar. But it was also the source of the now obscure fascination with the rivalry of Marius and Sulla, as depicted in paintings and poetry that we still easily encounter if we are at all interested in art. Thus, this is essential reading for aspiring pedants (like me).
Of course, there are plenty of flaws in the work. It assumes an understanding of much historical detail, and the cases in which I lacked it hugely lessened my enjoyment. At over 320 years old, the translation is also dated and the prose somewhat stilted, and so it took me 300 pages to get used to it. Moreover, strictly speaking, there are many inaccuracies, of which the reader must beware.
Warmly recommended as a great and frequently entertaining historical document.

69 of 75 people found the following review helpful.
Dryden, Clough and Others
By Mark D. Dietz
First off, let me clarify that what follows is a review of a particular edition of Plutarch's Lives, the current (2001) edition from Modern Library Classics. It is not a review of the book itself and will not provide any information on the relevance of this wonderful classic or the many lives it includes or the ingenious structure of paralleling the lives of Greeks and Romans or the importance of this text to the history of biography. Several other reviews here do a fine job of that and I see no reason to cover the same ground. Moreover, I've noted rather a lot of confusion about this edition in reviews here on Amazon (see particularly the reviews associated with the hardbound Modern Library volumes). I am still researching the Dryden edition, but thought I might offer a few comments to provide clarity and a better understanding of this edition for those whose buying decisions are based on the nature and quality of a particular translation.

"The Dryden Translation" - this unusual phrasing (which appears on the cover) has become the traditional descriptor for this version of the Lives. In fact, Dryden is not, properly speaking, the translator of this book. In one article in Wikipedia he is described as an overseer for the edition and in another as editor-in-chief, but he is also described as having simply "lent" his name to the enterprise. I am still researching this, but I should not be surprised if Jacob Tonson, the publisher, was not more involved in editing than was Dryden. [Update: I have found some indications that Dryden may have had a fairly significant editorial role -- see "Dryden as Cambridge Editor" by Arthur Sherbo in Studies in Bibliography, Vol 38, (1985) pp 251-261. I am still surprised, however, that Dryden is so often given as the translator of this volume in various less detailed references to the book. Encyclopedia Britannica, for example, has Dryden as the translator; Wikipedia, much to my surprise, does not -- what can I say? sometimes the amateurs outdo the professionals.]

Dryden also provided a "Life of Plutarch" which is included in this edition only by way of a two short excerpts in Clough's Preface.

Arthur Hugh Clough's Preface and Revisions - Clough was a nineteenth century poet. Clough's preface was, for me, a major reason I became interested in the Modern Library edition. I found the preface quite intriguing. It is a solid piece of work from an individual who was neither a full time scholar, nor a particularly notable prose writer. In a couple of cases, the argument at the very beginning of the preface for example, he seems to drop his thoughts without fully completing them. But this is a minor problem in an otherwise well thought out and informative discussion of Plutarch and his book.

The text itself - One of the reviewers here on Amazon calls this Clough's "train wreck" assuming that the difficulties in the text must lie with Clough because, concludes the reviewer, Dryden is a much better prose writer. Few would doubt that Dryden was a better prose writer, but I strongly suspect that the translation in this case (not Dryden's as I have already pointed out) was aided by Clough's hand. I am having trouble getting a copy of the original (pre-Clough) "Dryden" translation, although I should very much like to do a comparison. Once Clough's version came out, publishers seem to have had no reason to go back to the original which provides at least some indication that Clough had resolved some of the problems with the text. As a result, the pure "Dryden" editions are older and more expensive.

I find the text quite readable. It is not a "modern" translation (I hate using the word "modern" here because I think of Clough as a modern, perhaps I should say it is not a twentieth or twenty-first century translation). This text is clearly more given to complex clausal structures than we would expect in a popular translation today. I think it more than has its merits. I'm not sure but that the complex clausal structures might not have their own virtue in a text like this. Certainly one of the interesting qualities in Plutarch is a kind of questioning of sources that the syntax of this edition brings out rather nicely. I say that, however, as a non-classicist with little or no Greek, so I cannot be sure whether it really does reflect the original.

Notes - My chief concern with the text would be that it lacks annotation or other textual apparatus beyond an index. This is particularly peculiar given that the cover states that it includes notes by Clough! I am trying to get my hands on an earlier edition of the Clough revision to see what it might contain in the way of notes. Nonetheless, I'm not quite sure what to make of the Modern Library advertising notes on the cover, but providing none. Until I know better what these notes might entail, I'm loath to make any judgment. [Update: I attempted to contact Random House about my concerns but, to my surprise, I could not get them to understand that I was not referring to the notes in the preface, but rather to notes for the text itself! I hate to be too hard on Random House over something like this, notheless, I still feel I should provide some warning to potential buyers. The language on the cover suggests that this book includes Clough's notes. It does not. I have, since I first wrote this, purchased a copy of an early edition with the Clough edits. In all honesty Clough's notes are few and far between, but there is enough of value in them that, in my opinion, at least, they should have been included. And, not to be too snarky, but Clough and Random House deserve editors who understand the difference between textual notes and notes to a preface.]

Introduction by James Atlas - I wish I could speak more highly of the Modern Library introduction, but I am afraid I felt it was lacking on many levels. It fails in anyway to clarify the nature of the translation. One would think that it would at least contain some mention of the relevance of this particular text (why reprint it now?), of the curious assignment of Dryden's name as translator to a book that he did not translate, and of the role that Clough played as a nineteenth century editor of a seventeenth century text.

Additionally, and perhaps most warranting concern, Atlas's introduction covers such similar ground to Clough's Preface (even using many of the same quotations) that it feels rather curiously redundant.

The cover - I cannot close without commenting on the cover. It looks like wallpaper for a nineteenth century classicist's study. And quite honestly, I like it.

I've given the book four stars because I see no reason to visit the sins of this particular edition upon the text as a whole, and the text has plenty of merits both as a translation and as a classic of literature.

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• Sales Rank: #3662181 in Books
• Published on: 2003-09-09
• Released on: 2003-09-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 8.97" h x .88" w x 5.97" l,
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

From the Inside Flap
Essays That Scored. Essays That Bored.

What?s the scariest part of the college application? For most, it?s that big white space
where an essay is supposed to go. This book puts you in the admissions officer?s seat;
we give you the intimate details?test scores, GPAs, demographic information, and of course, essays?of 89 elite college hopefuls. You?ll find out where they applied and
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1. Eighty-nine real-life essays written by applicants to Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Yale, MIT, and more

2. Complete application profiles of all the students, including where
they got in and where they didn?t

3. Insider advice: Interviews with admissions pros at Amherst College, Bates College, Bowdoin College, Claremont McKenna College, Johns Hopkins University, Macalester College, Middlebury College, New College of Florida, Northwestern University, United States Coast Guard Academy, Wellesley College, Williams College, and Yale University

Inside you?ll find essays written for applications to the following colleges:
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Macalester College
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Middlebury College
New College of Florida
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Smith College
Stanford University
Swarthmore College
Tufts University
United States Air Force Academy
United States Coast Guard Academy
United States Naval Academy
University of Chicago
University of Notre Dame
University of Pennsylvania
Washington and Lee University
Washington University in St. Louis
Wellesley College
Wesleyan University
Williams College
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From the Hardcover edition.

• Sales Rank: #475674 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-22
• Released on: 2002-10-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 9.19" h x 1.22" w x 6.07" l, 1.48 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 592 pages

Amazon.com Review
Joseph E. Persico presents FDR as one of America's great spymasters. "Few leaders were better adapted temperamentally to espionage than Franklin Roosevelt," writes Persico, author of Nuremberg and Colin Powell's autobiographical collaborator. "FDR compartmentalized information, misled associates, manipulated people, conducted intrigues, used private lines of communication, scattered responsibility, duplicated assignments, provoked rivalries, held the cards while showing few, and left few fingerprints." He was a kind of principled Machiavellian who hoped to achieve several clear ends, such as getting the United States into the Second World War, even though most of the public wanted nothing to do with it (before Pearl Harbor). FDR then pursued these goals with the fervor of an opportunist: "the devious route to a desirable goal; inconstant behavior directed toward constant ends; the warship hiding behind a smoke screen but steered by a moral compass."

A good example of this is his relationship with the celebrated aviator Charles Lindbergh. Roosevelt asked J. Edgar Hoover to keep tabs on Lindbergh because he was a critic of the administration, and FDR suspected he was a closeted Nazi (not true, but perhaps an understandable opinion). Roosevelt's Secret War reveals how FDR created a huge intelligence operation and then ran it--he "built espionage into the structure of American government," says Persico. There were plenty of successes (Roosevelt knew about Hitler's plans to invade Russia before they did it), but also failings: Soviet agents burrowed into FDR's administration at the highest levels. One of the best sections of the book addresses a perennial question: Did FDR know the Japanese were about to bomb Pearl Harbor and let them do it because he believed the sneak attack would propel the public into supporting war against the Axis powers? Persico argues that FDR didn't know: "The clues seem to lead to that conclusion like lights on a well-marked runway." He makes a convincing case that "Pearl Harbor was a catastrophe, not a conspiracy." Roosevelt's Secret War is a unique contribution to our understanding of FDR--no other book treats America's longest-serving president as a spymaster--and it will appeal to readers interested in the Second World War and the cloak-and-dagger world of espionage. --John Miller

From Publishers Weekly
Blending anecdotes, speculations and documented facts into an exciting story of collecting and transmitting information in wartime, Persico (Nuremburg: Infamy on Trial) offers a clear-eyed take on FDR's approach to intelligence. For Persico, Roosevelt was someone to whom dissimulation was second nature, and who enjoyed for their own sake the trappings of secret agentry: clandestine meetings, reports done in invisible ink, codes and ciphers. Roosevelt built espionage into the very structure of American government well before Pearl Harbor, Persico shows. The president preferred human sources over electronic ones and the intuition of field agents to the conclusions of technocrats, but he incorporated electronic intelligence comprehensively into strategic and operational planning. Roosevelt's was the decisive influence in creating the Office of Strategic Services. Under "Wild Bill" Donovan, this initially unstable amalgam of dilettantes, poseurs and experts achieved an enviable record of successes during the war. Roosevelt, however, was by no means dominated by his intelligence services. As we see him here, the president listened, processed and drew his own conclusions. He rejected, for example, repeated OSS recommendations to modify the principle of unconditional surrender rather than risk exacerbating Stalin's distrust of the Western alliance, and he respected the Faustian bargain that kept Russia in the war, even in the face of growing evidence that the U.S. was the target of a major Soviet espionage offensive. Such examples are rife throughout the book, showing how Roosevelt's use of intelligence decisively shaped the war and helped define the peace that followed. (On-sale Oct. 9)Forecast: This book should sell solidly to intelligence enthusiasts, but it doesn't connect clearly to any current issues or make major revelations, and is not quite strong enough to create its own buzz.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Philatelist turned President Franklin D. Roosevelt was intrigued by the world and eager to know what other nations were doing. This book keys in on the Machiavellian side of his personality, meshing it with his interest in secrecy. The author of four previous books on espionage and World War II, the biographer of Nelson A. Rockefeller (The Imperial Rockefeller), and the collaborator on Colin Powell's autobiography (My American Journey), Persico is well prepared to tackle the topic of FDR and espionage. While there are no startling revelations, the text covers a fascinating dimension of the American presidency. Persico contrasts FDR's dissembling with Truman's dislike of double-dealing; the latter terminated the OSS only to create the CIA within two years after the start of the Cold War. The author concludes that espionage is, ironically, most successfully used by leaders of free societies. World War II historians and military buffs will welcome this extremely well-written book. Recommended for all libraries. William D. Pederson, Louisiana State Univ., Shreveport
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Most helpful customer reviews

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Growing up in that area it was great to see all those important names and to know ...
By Kathryn Murdoch
Growing up in that area it was great to see all those important names and to know now what went on behind the scenes.. I loved "Wild Bill Donovan". And "A Man Called. Intrepid " and The Brothers" I want to get a Hopkins Book.

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
recommend it history buffs
By james l. moody
As a student of WW ll history this opened a lot of different doors for me. Very well done would, recommend it history buffs.

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Thoroughly enjoyed it
By jeri ray
Engrossing, informative and a real page turner! This is the best book I have read on the genesis of the VIA.

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? Ebook Free The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (Modern Library Classics), by Laurence Sterne

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Introduction and Notes by Robert Folkenflik


Rich in playful double entendres, digressions, formal oddities, and typographical experiments, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman provoked a literary sensation when it first appeared in England in a series of volumes from 1759 to 1767. An ingeniously structured novel (about writing a novel) that fascinates like a verbal game of chess, Tristram Shandy is the most protean and playful English novel of the eighteenth century and a celebration of the art of fiction; its inventiveness anticipates the work of Joyce, Rushdie, and Fuentes in our own century. This Modern Library Paperback is set from the nine-volume first edition from 1759.

• Sales Rank: #585122 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09-21
• Released on: 2004-09-21
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 8.00" h x 1.20" w x 5.40" l, 1.15 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 704 pages

From the Inside Flap
Introduction and Notes by Robert Folkenflik

Rich in playful double entendres, digressions, formal oddities, and typographical experiments, "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman provoked a literary sensation when it first appeared in England in a series of volumes from 1759 to 1767. An ingeniously structured novel (about writing a novel) that fascinates like a verbal game of chess, "Tristram Shandy is the most protean and playful English novel of the eighteenth century and a celebration of the art of fiction; its inventiveness anticipates the work of Joyce, Rushdie, and Fuentes in our own century. This Modern Library Paperback is set from the nine-volume first edition from 1759.

About the Author
Robert Folkenflik is a professor of English at the University of California at Irvine. His books include Samuel Johnson, Biographer; The Culture of Autobiography: Constructions of Self-Representation; and The English Hero: 1660—1800. He lives in California.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
CHAPTER I

I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me; had they duly consider'd how much depended upon what they were then doing;-that not only the production of a rational Being was concern'd in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind;-and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions which were then uppermost:--Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly,--I am verily persuaded I should have made a quite different figure in the world, from that, in which the reader is likely to see me.-Believe me, good folks, this is not so inconsiderable a thing as many of you may think it;-you have all, I dare say, heard of the animal spirits, as how they are transfused from father to son, &c, &c.-and a great deal to that purpose:-Well, you may take my word, that nine parts in ten of a man's sense or his nonsense, his successes and miscarriages in this world depend upon their motions and activity, and the different tracks and trains you put them into; so that when they are once set a-going, whether right or wrong, 'tis not a halfpenny matter,--away they go cluttering like hey-go-mad; and by treading the same steps over and over again, they presently make a road of it, as plain and as smooth as a garden-walk, which, when they are once used to, the Devil himself sometimes shall not be able to drive them off it.

Pray, my dear, quoth my mother, have you not forgot to wind up the clock?--Good G-! cried my father, making an exclamation, but taking care to moderate his voice at the same time,--Did ever woman, since the creation of the world, interrupt a man with such a silly question? Pray, what was your father saying?--Nothing.

CHAPTER II

--Then, positively, there is nothing in the question, that I can see, either good or bad.--Then let me tell you, Sir, it was a very unseasonable question at least,-because it scattered and dispersed the animal spirits, whose business it was to have escorted and gone hand-in-hand with the HOMUNCULUS, and conducted him safe to the place destined for his reception.

The Homunculus, Sir, in how-ever low and ludicrous a light he may appear, in this age of levity, to the eye of folly or prejudice;-to the eye of reason in scientifick research, he stands confess'd-a Being guarded and circumscribed with rights:--The minutest philosophers, who, by the bye, have the most enlarged understandings, (their souls being inversely as their enquiries) shew us incontestably, That the Homunculus is created by the same hand,-engender'd in the same course of nature,-endowed with the same loco-motive powers and faculties with us:--That he consists, as we do, of skin, hair, fat, flesh, veins, arteries, ligaments, nerves, cartileges, bones, marrow, brains, glands, genitals, humours, and articulations;--is a Being of as much activity,--and, in all senses of the word, as much and as truly our fellow-creature as my Lord Chancellor of England.-He may be benefited, he may be injured,-he may obtain redress;-in a word, he has all the claims and rights of humanity, which Tully, Puffendorff, or the best ethick writers allow to arise out of that state and relation.

Now, dear Sir, what if any accident had befallen him in his way alone?--or that, thro' terror of it, natural to so young a traveller, my little gentleman had got to his journey's end miserably spent;--his muscular strength and virility worn down to a thread;-his own animal spirits ruffled beyond description,-and that in this sad disorder'd state of nerves, he had laid down a prey to sudden starts, or a series of melancholy dreams and fancies for nine long, long months together.--I tremble to think what a foundation had been laid for a thousand weaknesses both of body and mind, which no skill of the physician or the philosopher could ever afterwards have set thoroughly to rights.

CHAPTER III

To my uncle Mr. Toby Shandy do I stand indebted for the preceding anecdote, to whom my father, who was an excellent natural philosopher, and much given to close reasoning upon the smallest matters, had oft, and heavily, complain'd of the injury; but once more particularly, as my uncle Toby well remember'd, upon his observing a most unaccountable obliquity, (as he call'd it) in my manner of setting up my top, and justifying the principles upon which I had done it,-the old gentleman shook his head, and in a tone more expressive by half of sorrow than reproach,-he said his heart all along foreboded, and he saw it verified in this, and from a thousand other observations he had made upon me, That I should neither think nor act like any other man's child:--But alas! continued he, shaking his head a second time, and wiping away a tear which was trickling down his cheeks, My Tristram's misfortunes began nine months before ever he came into the world.

--My mother, who was sitting by, look'd up,-but she knew no more than her backside what my father meant,--but my uncle, Mr. Toby Shandy, who had been often informed of the affair,-understood him very well.

CHAPTER IV

I know there are readers in the world, as well as many other good people in it, who are no readers at all,-who find themselves ill at ease, unless they are let into the whole secret from first to last, of every thing which concerns you.

It is in pure compliance with this humour of theirs, and from a backwardness in my nature to disappoint any one soul living, that I have been so very particular already. As my life and opinions are likely to make some noise in the world, and, if I conjecture right, will take in all ranks, professions, and denominations of men whatever,-be no less read than the Pilgrim's Progress itself---and, in the end, prove the very thing which Montaigne dreaded his essays should turn out, that is, a book for a parlour-window;-I find it necessary to consult every one a little in his turn; and therefore must beg pardon for going on a little further in the same way: For which cause, right glad I am, that I have begun the history of myself in the way I have done; and that I am able to go on tracing every thing in it, as Horace says, ab Ovo.

Horace, I know, does not recommend this fashion altogether: But that gentleman is speaking only of an epic poem or a tragedy;-(I forget which)-besides, if it was not so, I should beg Mr. Horace's pardon;-for in writing what I have set about, I shall confine myself neither to his rules, nor to any man's rules that ever lived.

To such, however, as do not choose to go so far back into these things, I can give no better advice, than that they skip over the remaining part of this Chapter; for I declare before hand, 'tis wrote only for the curious and inquisitive.

Shut the door.

I was begot in the night, betwixt the first Sunday and the first Monday in the month of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighteen. I am positive I was.-But how I came to be so very particular in my account of a thing which happened before I was born, is owing to another small anecdote known only in our own family, but now made public for the better clearing up this point.

My father, you must know, who was originally a Turky merchant, but had left off business for some years, in order to retire to, and die upon, his paternal estate in the county of ---, was, I believe, one of the most regular men in every thing he did, whether 'twas matter of business, or matter of amusement, that ever lived. As a small specimen of this extreme exactness of his, to which he was in truth a slave,-he had made it a rule for many years of his life,-on the first Sunday night of every month throughout the whole year,-as certain as ever the Sunday night came,--to wind up a large house-clock which we had standing upon the back-stairs head, with his own hands:-And being somewhere between fifty and sixty years of age, at the time I have been speaking of,-he had likewise gradually brought some other little family concernments to the same period, in order, as he would often say to my uncle Toby, to get them all out of the way at one time, and be no more plagued and pester'd with them the rest of the month.

It was attended but with one misfortune, which, in a great measure, fell upon myself, and the effects of which I fear I shall carry with me to my grave; namely, that, from an unhappy association of ideas which have no connection in nature, it so fell out at length, that my poor mother could never hear the said clock wound up,-but the thoughts of some other things unavoidably popp'd into her head,-& vice versâ:-which strange combination of ideas, the sagacious Locke, who certainly understood the nature of these things better than most men, affirms to have produced more wry actions than all other sources of prejudice whatsoever.

But this by the bye.

Now it appears, by a memorandum in my father's pocket-book, which now lies upon the table, "That on Lady-Day, which was on the 25th of the same month in which I date my geniture,-my father set out upon his journey to London with my eldest brother Bobby, to fix him at Westminster school;" and, as it appears from the same authority, "That he did not get down to his wife and family till the second week in May following,"-it brings the thing almost to a certainty. However, what follows in the beginning of the next chapter puts it beyond all possibility of doubt.

---But pray, Sir, What was your father doing all December,-January, and February?--Why, Madam,-he was all that time afflicted with a Sciatica.

CHAPTER V

On the fifth day of November,1 1718, which to the æra fixed on, was as near nine kalendar months as any husband could in reason have expected,-was I Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, brought forth into this scurvy and disasterous world of ours.-I wish I had been born in the Moon, or in any of the planets, (except Jupiter or Saturn, because I never could bear cold weather) for it could not well have fared worse with me in any of them (tho' I will not answer for Venus) than it has in this vile, dirty planet of ours,-which o' my conscience, with reverence be it spoken, I take to be made up of the shreds and clippings of the rest;--not but the planet is well enough, provided a man could be born in it to a great title or to a great estate; or could any how contrive to be called up to publick charges, and employments of dignity or power;-but that is not my case;----and therefore every man will speak of the fair as his own market has gone in it;-for which cause I af-firm it over again to be one of the vilest worlds that ever was made;---for I can truly say, that from the first hour I drew my breath in it, to this, that I can now scarce draw it at all, for an asthma I got in scating against the wind in Flanders;--I have been the continual sport of what the world calls Fortune; and though I will not wrong her by saying, She has ever made me feel the weight of any great or signal evil;---yet with all the good temper in the world, I affirm it of her, That in every stage of my life, and at every turn and corner where she could get fairly at me, the ungracious Duchess has pelted me with a set of as pitiful misadventures and cross accidents as ever small Hero sustained.

CHAPTER VI

In the beginning of the last chapter, I inform'd you exactly when I was born;-but I did not inform you, how. No; that particular was reserved entirely for a chapter by itself;-besides, Sir, as you and I are in a manner perfect strangers to each other, it would not have been proper to have let you into too many circumstances relating to myself all at once.-You must have a little patience. I have undertaken, you see, to write not only my life, but my opinions also; hoping and expecting that your knowledge of my character, and of what kind of a mortal I am, by the one, would give you a better relish for the other: As you proceed further with me, the slight acquaintance which is now beginning betwixt us, will grow into familiarity; and that, unless one of us is in fault, will terminate in friendship.--O diem præclarum!--then nothing which has touched me will be thought trifling in its nature, or tedious in its telling. Therefore, my dear friend and companion, if you should think me somewhat sparing of my narrative on my first setting out,-bear with me,-and let me go on, and tell my story my own way:--or if I should seem now and then to trifle upon the road,--or should sometimes put on a fool's cap with a bell to it, for a moment or two as we pass along,--don't fly off,-but rather courteously give me credit for a little more wisdom than appears upon my outside;-and as we jogg on, either laugh with me, or at me, or in short, do any thing,--only keep your temper.

Most helpful customer reviews

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Hilarious, yet deeply philosophical
By Bee349
One of the most hilarious, yet deeply philosophical, novels of all time.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
Postmodern before the modern
By EA Solinas
A line from the movie "adaptation" put it best: this was a postmodern novel before there was any modernism to be post to.

Simply put, Laurence Sterne threw out all the literary conventions of what a novel should be and how it should be arranged, a few hundred years before more recent writers like Calvino, Joyce and Danielewski did. The result is "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman," a gloriously rambling, richly entertaining sort-of-novel.

"I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me." So begins Tristram, who starts his life story with his "begetting," and attempts to tell the story of his birth and life, as well as the descriptions of relatives -- his lovable uncle Toby, his eccentric dad, his patient mother (who's in labor for most of the book).

But as he tries to tell us about his life, Tristram keeps getting sidetracked by all the stories that surround him -- his uncle's romance with the Widow Wadman and the war in which he received a nasty wound in a sensitive spot, the French, the doctor who delivered him, letters in multiple languages, the parson, the personal history of the midwife, and what curses are appropriate for what occasions.

Most novels are pretty straightforward -- they have a beginning, a middle and an end. But "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman" totally ignores that, by having a beginning that lasts for the whole book, dozens of "middles," and no real end (it just stops at a suitable spot). All of this is without a real structure.

And he took this postmodern, break-all-the-rules mentality all the way, by including odd little illustrations -- when speaking of the death of Parson Yorick, Sterne includes a black page. Random empty pages. Asterisks instead of important paragraphs. And a bunch of squiggly lines to demonstrate precisely how the narratives in previous chapters looked.

At first glance, Sterne's writing style was pretty typical of his period -- detailed, somewhat formal in tone, and very talky. It takes a little while for Tristram to start dipping out of of his narrative -- at one point, he starts interrupting himself in midsentence. By the middle of the book, he's completely lost control of his own story.

And he twisted it around with lots of bawdy humor (such as poor Uncle Toby's groin injury, which causes quite a few problems), and the continuous comic stumbles of all the characters. On the subject of his own name, Tristram describes his dad's reaction: "Melancholy dissyllable of sound! which to his ears was unison to Nincompoop, and every name vituperative under heaven.")

Life is too rich to be encapsulated in a single story -- that's the problem with "Tristram Shandy," whose story is a classic comic delight of premodernist-postmodern skill.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful.
Sterne's best since 1766
By Seffi Miller
A book doesnt survive for 240 years if it doesn't have value. I came upon this book because I once had the luck to meet the SF writer John Brunner in a pub, and inter alia he recommended it. The worst (or at any rate most difficult) thing with this book is the punctuation -- sometimes Sterne (the writer) is talking to you, sometimes to somebody off-stage -- sometimes he uses commas to indicate a pause which may take him off in a new direction, sometimes a hyphen. If you can get over all this, you are sitting down to have a chat with the most interesting person you are ever likely to meet, namely Tristram Shandy, who has the driest sense of humour ever wished on a body -- and the most logical (and therefore intensely amusing) father Walter, and the sweetest natured of all uncles (Toby,as narrow in his own way as Walter) whose servant Trim can turn the dropping of a hat into a drama -- and one must not forget his mother, who always wins arguments by never arguing...And yet others. Sterne can stretch the description of single moments to cover pages, and make you burst out laughing at the end of it (or often in the middle). Did Sterne think of his book as a stage play? The characters are brought wonderfully to life,but the narrative unfolds with so many long (usually interesting) asides -- and sometimes asides of asides -- and with such a complicated ebb-and-flow that you probably cannot make sense of it on a proscenium. What's that you ask? -- But what is the plot? -- well, Tristram takes half the book to get born, and a goodly time to be nearly dealt a life-changing blow by a window, and then there is the business of him running faster than Death through France, and the affair of his Uncle Toby with the Widow Wadman...really, you ask too much wanting a plot as well! If you needs must have a plot, I have a fine garden round the back, and you may choose your own, and I will pay my gardener extra to tend it for you.

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The Mercury 13: The True Story of Thirteen Women and the Dream of Space Flight, by Martha Ackmann

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For readers of The Astronaut Wives Club, The Mercury 13 reveals the little-known true story of the remarkable women who trained for NASA space flight.

In 1961, just as NASA launched its first man into space, a group of women underwent secret testing in the hopes of becoming America’s first female astronauts. They passed the same battery of tests at the legendary Lovelace Foundation as did the Mercury 7 astronauts, but they were summarily dismissed by the boys’ club at NASA and on Capitol Hill. The USSR sent its first woman into space in 1963; the United States did not follow suit for another twenty years.

For the first time, Martha Ackmann tells the story of the dramatic events surrounding these thirteen remarkable women, all crackerjack pilots and patriots who sometimes sacrificed jobs and marriages for a chance to participate in America’s space race against the Soviet Union. In addition to talking extensively to these women, Ackmann interviewed Chuck Yeager, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, and others at NASA and in the White House with firsthand knowledge of the program, and includes here never-before-seen photographs of the Mercury 13 passing their Lovelace tests.

Despite the crushing disappointment of watching their dreams being derailed, the Mercury 13 went on to extraordinary achievement in their lives: Jerrie Cobb, who began flying when she was so small she had to sit on pillows to see out of the cockpit, dedicated her life to flying solo missions to the Amazon rain forest; Wally Funk, who talked her way into the Lovelace trials, went on to become one of the first female FAA investigators; Janey Hart, mother of eight and, at age forty, the oldest astronaut candidate, had the political savvy to steer the women through congressional hearings and later helped found the National Organization for Women.

A provocative tribute to these extraordinary women, The Mercury 13 is an unforgettable story of determination, resilience, and inextinguishable hope.


From the Hardcover edition.

• Sales Rank: #599081 in Books
• Brand: Ackmann, Martha
• Published on: 2004-07-13
• Released on: 2004-07-13
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 8.00" h x .70" w x 5.20" l, .45 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 280 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In dynamic prose, Ackmann, senior lecturer in women's studies at Mount Holyoke College, relates the story of 13 female pilots who fought to become part of the nation's space program at its inception. Their tale is uplifting, a narrative of their dedication-perhaps obsession might be a better word-and sacrifice in an attempt to aid the nation in the space race against the Soviets and to experience the thrill of space flight. The story is also a depressing indictment of the rampant sexism that kept them from achieving their goal and kept the country from making productive use of their considerable talents. These 13 women, among the most accomplished pilots in the world at the time, went through many of the same challenging, even excruciating tests undergone by NASA's original seven male astronauts but, unlike the latter, the women did so in relative obscurity and often against the express wishes of all arms of the nascent space program. That each woman passed all the tests, often with scores exceeding those of the males, carried absolutely no weight with an entrenched bureaucracy. Ackmann has done a magnificent job of gathering information, conducting interviews and weaving the strands into an utterly compelling book that deserves to be widely read well beyond the circles of the usual readers about the space program. 16 pages of photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Adult/High School-In the early days of the space race, women were barred from U.S. astronaut training, but some questioned the wisdom of this policy. At the Lovelace Foundation, in a secret "girl astronaut program," a select group of female pilots underwent the same comprehensive battery of psychological and physical tests required of male candidates. Now known as the Mercury 13, these women had many aviation honors, interesting lives, and (as shown in several well-chosen black-and-white photographs) great charm. Most made crushing sacrifices to prove they had "the will, the ability and the courage" to fly in space but, despite their resounding success, received no recognition. This account finds dramatic structure in the divergent personal and political paths of two of the century's greatest female pilots, Jerrie Cobb and Jackie Cochran. Cobb, the first to be chosen for testing, helped pick subsequent participants and ultimately became a champion of their cause in the political arena. The older and more influential Cochran had opened doors to female pilots in the past, but effectively opposed female participation in the space program. Once the battle was lost in Congress, it was another 40 years before a woman finally commanded a space flight. Mercury 13 is both an outstanding work of research and an exceptionally readable and well-told story. Readers will gain new perspectives on space, medicine, women, and American culture, and will appreciate the magnitude of what was lost when the women were grounded.
Christine C. Menefee, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
In the annals of this country's space program, the names of the original, legendary "Mercury 7" astronauts--Alan Shepard, John Glenn, and the rest--have achieved iconic status, while another group of pilots, eventually called the "Mercury 13," have languished in obscurity. The difference between the two has everything to do with issues of gender and the discriminatory attitudes that were endemic during the early 1960s, and nothing to do with their qualifications or expertise. In a long overdue group portrait, Ackmann reveals the previously unrecognized contributions of these 13 courageous women pilots, whose ambition and determination to become a part of the burgeoning space program were as fervent as that of their male counterparts, but who were denied access to the prerequisite training, testing, and preparation necessary to achieve their goals, simply because they were women. Ackmann's engrossing examination of the early days of the aerospace industry delivers both a stinging indictment of an intolerant society and a stirring endorsement of women whose valor and dedication remain inspirational. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Most helpful customer reviews

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful.
Wonderful detail, but not the best book on the subject.
By Science Designer
I am an admirer of this fascinatingly readable, lucid and scholarly book, with some very interesting stories of intriguing people. However I found a much superior assessment of the "Mercury 13" program in Burgess and French's book Into That Silent Sea: Trailblazers of the Space Era, 1961-1965 (Outward Odyssey: A People's History of S). In one extraordinary chapter, they capture the true cultural, historical and social context of this program far better than this entire book-length treatment. They also contrast the Soviet women in space program against American efforts far better.

Nevertheless, I would still recommend this book as a very interesting read into a fascinating time in American history, and congratulate the author on her impressive research, including the fullest personal interviewing with the original candidates ever undertaken.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
All systems go!
By S. A. Cartwright
Here's a book that has potential to fuel a few debates. Written by Martha Ackmann, a professor of Women's Studies at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, the topic hits an unexpected intersection of interests: Early days of manned space flight at NASA, and women's rights.
Most readers won't have heard of The Mercury 13, an unofficial group of stalwart women airplane pilots, all tested for potential to become astronauts by the private Lovelace Foundation at the dawn of the space race. While national focus lasered on Alan Shepherd, John Glenn, and the rest of the famous and flamboyant Mercury 7 astronauts who flew the first orbital missions, Jerrie Cobb and her compatriot lady flyers quietly matched, and sometimes surpassed, the test results of the male heros. Accomplished flyers, and businesswomen, the individuals of this group held many aeronautical records and won many air derbys. Some were graduates of the WAC programs of the Second World War, spearheaded by Jackie Cochran. Ackmann paints vivid portraits of each potential astronaut-candidate, and one can easily like these devoted flyers. (Interestingly, the author focuses heavily on the self-destructive political infighting between Cochran and Cobb for leadership of the women-in-space program.)
It's fascinating to "uncover" this group some forty years later. Who knew? Beyond a few publicity shots that appeared in Life magazine and in hometown papers, the women were hidden, unsanctioned as an official group of any kind, almost a curiosity. Yet, many points raised by Professor Ackmann are provocative: Women weighed less than male counterparts - and would require less rocket fuel; and why was there a requirement of jet-flying experience for astronauts when many animals (female, no less!) were sent aloft in the space capsules.
So where's the argument? Clearly, Ackmann launches this retrospective on the women-in-space efforts with the intention of demonstrating blatant sexism and its negative effects. Viewed through the lens of post-feminism, one clearly sees malfeasance - from President Johnson who nixes any further testing, to a Neanderthal congressman who jokes about the need for women in space for reproductive purposes to colonize planets. Yet, a young and innocent John Glenn just can't see beyond what he and America know as the social norms of the times. In 1963, the nation was a decade away from any kind of equal opportunity awareness, and perhaps two decades away from the emergence of political correctness. Were the male leaders of the space program worried about protecting an existing social order, or just worried about beating the Russians to the moon? Therein, the debate. (Enjoy it - far better for you to argue this with your spouse than waste another hour on Reality TV.)

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful.
A Must Read!
By Ryan
Here is the story of 13 heroic women who were willing to risk it all for the unattainable dream of spaceflight. Their story is one of striking courage and resilience. As a 14 year old girl, I am proud to call the Mercury 13 my heroes!

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> Ebook Victory: An Island Tale (Modern Library Classics), by Joseph Conrad

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Victory: An Island Tale (Modern Library Classics), by Joseph Conrad

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Set in the islands of the Malay Archipelago, Victory tells the story of a disillusioned Swede, Axel Heyst, who rescues Lena, a young English musician, from the clutches of a brutish German hotel owner. Seeking refuge at Heyst’s remote island retreat on Samburan, the couple is soon besieged by three villains dispatched by the enraged hotelier. The arrival on the island paradise of this trio of fiends sets off a terrifying series of events that ultimately ends in catastrophe.

“With Victory, Conrad inaugurated a new style and aesthetic,” writes Peter Lancelot Mallios in his Introduction. “The tremendous literary sophistication to be found in Victory does not result in the exclusion of the popular reader.”

The text of this Modern Library Paperback Classic was set from the first British edition, published by Methuen & Co. in 1915.

• Sales Rank: #3061715 in Books
• Published on: 2003-07-08
• Released on: 2003-07-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 7.97" h x .94" w x 5.26" l, .68 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Review
“I am glad that I am alive, if, for no other reason, because of the joy of reading this book.” —Jack London

From the Publisher
Founded in 1906 by J.M. Dent, the Everyman Library has always tried to make the best books ever written available to the greatest number of people at the lowest possible price. Unique editorial features that help Everyman Paperback Classics stand out from the crowd include: a leading scholar or literary critic's introduction to the text, a biography of the author, a chronology of her or his life and times, a historical selection of criticism, and a concise plot summary. All books published since 1993 have also been completely restyled: all type has been reset, to offer a clarity and ease of reading unique among editions of the classics; a vibrant, full-color cover design now complements these great texts with beautiful contemporary works of art. But the best feature must be Everyman's uniquely low price. Each Everyman title offers these extensive materials at a price that competes with the most inexpensive editions on the market-but Everyman Paperbacks have durable binding, quality paper, and the highest editorial and scholarly standards.

From the Inside Flap
Set in the islands of the Malay Archipelago, "Victory tells the story of a disillusioned Swede, Axel Heyst, who rescues Lena, a young English musician, from the clutches of a brutish German hotel owner. Seeking refuge at Heyst's remote island retreat on Samburan, the couple is soon besieged by three villains dispatched by the enraged hotelier. The arrival on the island paradise of this trio of fiends sets off a terrifying series of events that ultimately ends in catastrophe.
"With "Victory, Conrad inaugurated a new style and aesthetic," writes Peter Lancelot Mallios in his Introduction. "The tremendous literary sophistication to be found in "Victory does "not result in the exclusion of the popular reader."
The text of this Modern Library Paperback Classic was set from the first British edition, published by Methuen & Co. in 1915.

Most helpful customer reviews

54 of 56 people found the following review helpful.
A Lesson Learned
By John K. Olson
Victory presents a philosophical story of a man who learns that his own philosophy has robbed him of a life worth living. The novel is Conrad's answer to the prevailing view that only facts matter, that emotions such as love have no basis in reality.

The protagonist, Axel Heyst, is the son of a philosopher who once wrote, "Of the strategems of life, the most cruel is the consolation of love." His philosophy Conrad compares to a "terrible trumpet which had filled heaven and earth with ruins..."After his father dies, Heyst wanders the globe, looking "only for facts" until he becomes enchanted with a South Sea archipelago. Therafter, he is drawn to two people who provide models of friendship and love. Morrison, a small craft owner whose generosity has left him bankrupt, Heyst helps out of his bind only to fail to understand why the man is so grateful and anxious to repay him. But it is the girl Lena who fills him with an emotion that he cannot express or understand until the novel's end. After rescuing her from a life of exploitation, Heyst takes her back to his island where he is determined to live apart from the world.

It's only after his island is invaded by two criminals that Heyst discovers how much his actions toward Morrison and Lena were motivated by love. When he learns that the jealous hotelkeeper, Schomberg, has told everyone that "the Swede" had swindled his friend out of all his money before sending him to England to die, Heyst becomes upset, even though he had never cared what the world thought of him. When the malefactors Jones and Ricardo threaten Lena's life, he at last becomes involved in the world that he had left behind.

Suspenseful and chilling, Heyst's fight with the criminals ends with a victory having multiple meanings. Unlike with his other work, Conrad falls back on the plot device of coincidence to make a satisfactory ending, but the artifice only slightly mars a book that should be read as much for its message as for its story.

36 of 36 people found the following review helpful.
Paradise was lost forever
By Guillermo Maynez
"Victory" is not so much a conventional novel as a fable, with strong influences of the Bible, Milton's "Paradise Lost" and Shakespeare's "The Tempest". This story is absolutely marginal, that is, it occurs to people who inhabit the margins of the world, the margins of society, and within the margins of a common life. The characters also operate in one or the other of the two extremes of morality. Axel Heyst, a Swede son of a bitter and disenchanted philosopher, is extremely influenced by the parental way of thinking, to the point that he follows the advice provided by his dying father. When Heyst, disconcerted at the foot of the bed, asks him what is the proper way to live, Heyst senior answers: "Look on, and make no sound". So, after his father dies, Axel emigrates to the colonies in Southeastern Asia, where he makes a living as a merchant, coming and going about the islands. Heyst is a distant but kind guy, always with a smile on his face and willing to help others, but always refusing any kind of intimacy. One day, he enters a business about a coal mine with an associate, the death of whom (not a murder) he is later accused of provoking, which gives him a reputation throughout the islands as a mysterious, somewhat mischievous man. His main detractor is a hotel keeper, one Schomberg, a hateful, coward, and calumnious man. After the business goes broke, Schomberg escalates his tirades about "that Swede", slowly developing an irrational hatred towards him. Meanwhile, unaware of his reputation and of Schomberg's hatred, Heyst decides to stay on the remote island where the coal mine used to be, totally isolated from humanity, except for the silent and shadowy company of his servant, Wang.

One day, on account of old business affairs, Heyst travels to the island where Schomberg's hotel is, and stays there. There he meets a young woman who plays in a "ladies orchestra", managed by a sinister couple who practically treats their employees as slaves. The girl, Lena, tells Heyst that the hideous Schomberg has been sexually harassing her, and begs him to get her out of there. Heyst, attracted by the beauty and mystery of the girl, manages to smuggle her out of the hotel and take her to his island. This, of course takes Schomberg's hatred to extremes. A little time later, three criminals arrive to the hotel. They force Schomberg to host illegal gambling, and make his life hell, practically taking over the place. As the secretary of the boss (one Mr. Jones), Martin Ricardo, reveals their past (true or imaginary, but certainly scary), Schomberg comes up with an idea. He tells them that Heyst keeps vast amounts of money on the island. Ricardo convinces his boss to go there and assault him. He hides from his boss the fact that there is a girl, for Mr. Jones has an irrational hatred and fear of women. Meanwhile, Heyst and Lena lead a loving, peaceful life. It's easy to see here the metaphor of Adam and Eve. One day, the three thugs arrive, almost dead, and Heyst rescues and shelters them, but with a gloomy feeling of something bad to come.

It would be foolish to reveal anything more. The rest is a hair-rising game of psychological chess, where suspense and tension are almost unbearable. The intruders in Paradise and the primeval Man and Woman struggle to achieve their ends, in sequences of undescribable beauty and sadness.

As I said at the beginning, this is more a fable than a common novel. I think it is wrong to do what another reviewer here, Bruce Kendall (otherwise an excellent one) did: to concentrate on novelistic technique. Yes, the narrator begins by being a casual follower of the story, and ends by being omniscient. Yes, some of Heyst's and Lena's dialogues are almost corny. Yes, the allusions to Paradise Lost are too obvious. But that's not the content nor the point. This is a powerful, moving, unforgettable tale of innocence violated, of pure evil against goodness, of the pain stupid and useless people can inflict on persons who are only minding their own business. It is also a cautionary tale about the perils of isolation. About the dangers incurred on by giving up on people, on love, on trust. At some point, Heyst wishes he had learned to hope and to fight as a young man. So many subjects, the quality of character development, so beautiful a literature (you will find passages and sentences that are real poetry), make for a great piece of art. Joseph Conrad grows in time as one of the quintessential writers of history.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Distance and closeness and a way to bridge the gap.
By frumiousb
_Victory_ is the first Conrad that I have read since reading _Heart of Darkness_ and _The Secret Sharer_ in high school. I was unsure what to expect before I picked up the book. In any case, I didn't expect it to be what it was-- so contemplative and so concerned with notions of isolation and the ability to act.

Despite the abstract themes, the book is neither slow nor unreadable. An adventure story wraps the whole thing up:

A recluse on a deserted island breaks his solitude and rescues a girl from a life with a semi-shady gang. This act of kindness starts a chain of events that brings violence and change to his small world.

The story moves along nicely, and you can read for the plot even if you are uninterested in the bigger issues the book raises. I found that I was interested in them. Heyst (the main character) has been infected by his father's skepticism and analytical viewpoint and never manages to find a way after that to engage with the world or other people in it. His few attempts at engagement are awkward and almost unwilling.

Everybody in the book is to some degree isolated. Wang removes himself from Chinese society to go native. Mrs. Schomberg is locked behind her mask of fear. Mr. Jones and Ricardo are set apart because of the obsessive fear the Gentleman has of women. Alma/Magdalena/Lena is set apart by her past. Everybody is trying to connect, but (with the exception of Lena) always on their own terms and always within limits.

It's tempting to read Conrad's own background and separations into the mix, but I'll leave that to the Conrad scholars.

Worth reading.

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