Reviews for Set of Six

The average rating for Set of Six based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-02-26 00:00:00 Michael Allison I enjoyed these stories more than I thought I would--Conrad (to me) has a reputation for being verbose and difficult to penetrate, but either he decided to be more concise with these stories, or I have more patience than I used to . Plus, I don't see these stories as having the same weight as some of his better known works, like Heart of Darkness, for example. Whether he succeeded or failed, with HoD, I thought Conrad was attempting to reveal something about humanity, and given that I felt he was more successful than not, I think of it as one of the truly great books (even though I am aware of its problem, and in the main agree with them) However, these six stories are not in that vein. These have the flavor of the raconteur, stories that one might hear in casual conversations with friendly strangers, a story one might hear in an enforced proximity with a casual acquaintance. They are entertaining. though Conrad's style is still ponderous, especially compared to modern tales. Another difference--modern short stories seem to be all of a type; maybe a bit too serious, too intent on illuminating the human condition. These stories are less about illuminating anything, and more about telling an interesting story. Interesting, at least, should you find Conrad's style worth wading through. I did.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-07-09 00:00:00 Delores Lavender Available for free from the always-reliable Gutenberg Project. This version displayed well on my old-school Kindle. Also available free of charge from the University of Adelaide, archive.org, manybooks.net, free-ebooks.net, and the inevitable Google Books. The longest story in this collect, "The Duel", was the basis for the 1977 Ridley Scott movie "The Duellists", starring Harvey Keitel and David Carradine. I haven't seen this movie and I don't know if it is any good. A very enjoyable set of short stories from the time when people thought that a 25-page story was short. Many of the stories are like alternate takes on Conrad's most famous works -- "Gaspar Ruiz" in Heart of Darkness territory (figuratively, not geographically), "An Informer" same for The Secret Agent or Under Western Eyes, and "The Brute" for any number of well-known sea-going stories. "The Duel" is the longest story in the book and also the best, IMHO. The ending of this story had me turning pages like I was reading this year's hot suspense novel. Conrad sometimes writes sentences that have to be read two or three times. This I usually consider an unforgivable flaw. But stick with him, because then he'll come out with a sentence that will knock you flat with its clarity and plain-spoken drama, like "Don't you know yet," he said, "that an idle and selfish class loves to see mischief being made, even if it is made at its own expense? Its own life being all a matter of pose and gesture, it is unable to realize the power and the danger of a real movement and of words that have no sham meaning...." ["The Informer", Kindle location 932] and No man succeeds in everything he undertakes. In that sense we are all failures. The great point is not to fail in ordering and sustaining the effort of our life. ["The Duel", Kindle location 2699] Ditto the untranslated French -- usually a deal-breaker for me, but here something I felt I could put up with. In summary, a great thing to have on your electronic device to prevent you from being in the situation where you're stuck somewhere with nothing to read -- the horror, the horror.