An Infinity of Anguish

Book Reviews An Infinity of Anguish Joseph Conrad. The Collected Letters of Joseph Conrad. Volume V, 1912-1916. Frederick R. Karl and Laurence Davies, eds. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Ix + 721 pp. $120.00 IN 1913, after Henry James had unaccountably warned Lady Ottoline Morrell that the 55-year-old Conrad "has lived life at sea—dear lady, he has never met 'civilised' women," she recorded that his "appearance was really that of a Polish nobleman. His manner was perfect, almost too elaborate; so nervous and sympathetic that every fibre of him seemed electric, which gave him the air of a highly-polished and wellbred man... though he always had the talk and manner of a foreigner." During the five years covered in this volume, Conrad published Chance, Victory and The Shadow-Line. His personal life was also eventful . He failed to notice the Götterdämmerung and while on holiday got trapped in Poland at the outbreak of the war. As they finally left Cracow, his wife, Jessie, noticed a huge pail of human limbs in the railroad station. As the big guns thundered across the channel from Flanders he worried about his son Borys who had joined the army, and was impressed when the 43-year-old Ford volunteered for combat. He was revolted when the homosexuality of Norman Douglas and Roger Casement was made public, and immediately dissociated himself from these two old friends. He had a love affair with the reckless and ravishing young journalist Jane Anderson ("To put it shortly she's quite yum-yum"). Rejuvenated by this passion, Conrad, who had scarcely been able to drag his gouty carcass across the room, now went on dangerous Q-boat missions and took his first airplane flight during two months of war service. Isolated and lonely at his house in Kent, overworked and ill, he was burdened by domestic and financial problems. He slaved away at his writing, amid constant noise and interruptions, but could not earn enough to support himself. Living hand to mouth, he survived on advances from his agent, J. B. Pinker ("I am sure you won't mind if I ask you to send me £7 this evening as I really do want it") and sales of his manuscripts to the generous American collector John Quinn ("you now have in your possession every scrap of my (completed) writings up to 317 ELT 40:3 1997 date"). Conrad cunningly retained and then, when desperate, fortunately "discovered" an endless supply of material, which Quinn keenly gobbled up. Irritable, gloomy and depressed, Conrad frequently complained of physical exhaustion and creative sterility. His letters—stiff, formal, elaborately phrased—are bulletins of despair mixed with pathetic pleas for company, sympathy and money: "I have been the victim for the last 10 days of the most abominable neuralgia on the right side of the face. I haven't slept for more than an hour at a time the whole of this week. It's awful. I wanted to begin a story (short) but I simply can do nothing.... Still I am trying to write—I don't know what and I don't know what for—really. The very sunlight seems grim, sinister." Despite his past responsibilities as a sea captain, Conrad found it difficult to cope with the problems of everyday life. He found imaginative writing a form of exquisite torture, converted nervous energy into phrases and felt as if he had written each work with his blood. He contemplated a blank page with shivers but felt, once he began, that he had to go on. But he needed crisis and frenzy to force his work to a conclusion. Even proofs, which required constant judgment and the power of decision, were agony. Jessie described Conrad, "his hands dug deep in his hair—cursing Fm afraid—printers—proofreaders, etc, casting collar and tie into the waste paper basket . . . relaxing [? lapsing] into utter despair." The emotional turmoil, she felt, was all terribly "Polish." Conrad was deeply attached to his family, who, along with his patrons, kept him from going off the deep end. He describes the stolid Jessie as that "monumental person." The "sprite-like" John "insists...