Tales of Unrest

Reader Reviews
In these tales, people are put under heavy mental stress by fatal accidents, hostile environments or insoluble doubts. Their reactions become uncontrollable. The short stories give a good picture of Conrad's themes, story building with surprising outcomes and view on mankind: `Morality is not a method of happiness'. In `Karain: a Memory', a Malay war-chief makes an odyssey trying to kill a woman who left her native village with a white man. He becomes haunted by the spirit of his dead brother. In `The Lagoon', the adduction of a woman turns into a fatal accident. `There is no Light and no peace in the world; but there is death - death for many. I left him in the midst of the enemies; but I am going back.' In `An outpost of Progress', two lonely `progressive' colonialists become haunted by their hostile environment; `a suggestion of things vague, uncontrollable, and repulsive, whose discomposing intrusion tries the civilized nerves.' In `The Return', a marriage turns sour on the impossible `certitude of love and faith'. In `The Idiots', a less successful offspring puts a marriage under extreme pressure. These sometimes furiously written stories with their high evocative power of landscapes, feelings and conflicts should not be missed.


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