Almayer's Folly - Joseph Conrad

I found Conrad, as I think a few of my generation must have done, through the film Appocolypse Now, which based on the novel Heart of Darkness. The film is really moving and quite disturbing and the book opened a new world to me. Not only do I find Conrad's ability to reach vivid realist descriptions and to firmly imprint images on ones mind just astounding but in doing so he somehow maintains the momentum and pace in the writing and keeps ones interest in the prose.

 

JOSEPH CONRAD

 

Published in 1895, Almayer's Folly is set on the Malayan island of Borneo during the 19th century with the backdrop of Dutch colonialism and pioneering explorers setting out to make money from the rich resources of these tropical lands. It's a great setting and the book is written at a time when few people lived in this part of the world and few Europeans had any idea about what it might be like. One can assume that Conrad wrote his book with the knowledge that those reading would almost certainly not not have sampled first hand the tropics or moreover the Malay archipelago. Perhaps this is one driving factor behind the rich imagery that he builds up; he wants people to be able to experience what he has so obviously seen, heard, smelled first hand and he achieves this wonderfully.

Being here in Indonesia, a nation that today shares the island of Borneo and therefore vistas as well as aspects of culture, allows me to read the book with knowledge of the places and and having met people like those described in the novella. Reading the book when you have this knowledge of the people here, of the landscapes, of the villages you realise just how exact the descriptions in the book are.

Every time you pick up the book it involves you and moves you to such a depth. You watch the story unfold before your eyes, unconscious of everything else and when you awake it is as if from a dream. While it isn't a page turner in the traditional sense, Conrad does keep you hungry for more. Style aside. The story itself: tragedy in human endeavor and the plight of the dreamer unable to realise one single ambition. The main protagonist finds himself thrust into a world to which he is not suited and manages to undo everything that has been done for him. Driven by intense motivation but contrantly thwarted by the obstacle of his own lack of a clue as to how to put it into action, the story describes him as he loses every single thing he has.