The Craft of Conrad by Leonard Moss (review)

Given its focus on evaluating technique, Leonard Moss's The Craft of Conrad is reminiscent of the author's 1967 study of Arthur Miller. Indeed, Moss's recent book might have been published at least half a century ago: it contains close readings of primary texts, focuses on aesthetic unity and the contributing elements of paradox, irony, ambiguity, and metaphor, while reminding readers that form and content are indivisible. An inherently New Critical or formalist work is not in itself problematic, of course; there is room for all modes of reading, even or perhaps especially for those that are no longer fashionable. But if one wanted to reassert the importance of a specific interpretative practice attached to a specific period or movement in the history of literary criticism, the work would have to be especially strong; one would need to be transparently self-conscious and reflective about one's methodology, and explicit about the value of returning—perhaps with a new awareness, given everything that has happened since—to this way of reading. Apart from the book's more superficial shortcomings—clumsy citations and numerous typographical errors, including some incorrect pagination in the index—Moss's book ends up exposing the limitations rather than the enduring value of the critical approach it advocates.

Moss opens his introduction by briefly situating Conrad in relation to the history of Western literature: following the Athenian playwrights and Shakespeare, Conrad dramatizes the paradoxes that structure masculine identity. Moss writes, "In his most powerful fiction, Conrad adapted an ancient story format that traces the degradation of a noble but shadowy standard by an individual desperately trying to enact it" (xiii). Conrad's particular challenge, given his philosophical preoccupation with paradox, the fact that he wrote not plays but imaginative prose, and his situation as a turn-of-the-century writer influenced by his nineteenth-century forbears, was to resist using explication or commentary, to rely instead on suggestive images, dialogue, and narrative structure to make his point. Moss's point is that one must evaluate Conrad's strategies against Conrad's self-professed aim in the Preface, which was to make his readers "hear," "feel," and "see."¹ In other words, Moss orients his assessment with the familiar distinction between showing and telling: while Conrad was a "superb craftsman," he sometimes "indulged his formidable talent for commentary" to a fault; that is, "he sometimes tells more than he shows" (xiii). In short, Moss promises to examine where "reflection and analysis" emerge as innovative aspects of Conrad's art, and where they become excessive or intrusive (xiv). Missing here is an account of the study's critical context. We need more than a list (provided in the endnotes) of critical studies and articles that take up literary craft in general or in Conrad specifically. In addition, a more specific discussion about the construction of masculine identity might have been helpful, if only to lay the groundwork for examining where paradox (or its absence) in Conrad's fiction subverts or reinforces sociocultural ideals. However, Moss's focus is not on ideology or making constructs transparent; rather, he reads the conflicts that structure masculine identity as exemplary of human nature in an attempt to identify where Conrad's "determination to elucidate this 'invisible truth' sometimes displaced artistic criteria" (23).

In chapter 1, '"The Test of Manliness,"' Moss identifies and explores three different character types (Moss uses the term "stereotypes") found in six works spanning Conrad's career. These types are defined by how Conrad's male protagonists respond when human or natural elements challenge their ideals of masculine excellence: they emerge from their tests either in a state of "moral triumph, or inconclusive suspension between contrary reactions, or integration" (2). Moss discusses the first and third character types before delving into the tragic outcomes of the second. Moral triumph belongs to Typhoon's Captain MacWhirr, whose brief, factual enunciations reflect a straightforward disposition. Given MacWhirr's limited speech, Conrad must use an articulate omniscient narrator to convey the...