Product Description

Hailed as one of Joseph Conrad's finest literary achievements, this is the story of a young man unwittingly caught in the political turmoil of pre-Revolutionary czarist Russia.

A gripping novel that ultimately questions our capacity for moral strength and the depths of human integrity. This new edition includes commentary and a reading group guide.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #769262 in Books
• Published on: 2001-07-10
• Released on: 2001-07-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

From the Publisher
10 1.5-hour cassettes

From the Inside Flap
Hailed as one of Joseph Conrad's finest literary achievements, this is the story of a young man unwittingly caught in the political turmoil of pre-Revolutionary czarist Russia.

A gripping novel that ultimately questions our capacity for moral strength and the depths of human integrity. This new edition includes commentary and a reading group guide.

About the Author
Jeffrey Meyers, a distinguished biographer, is the author of Hemingway, D.H. Lawrence and Joseph Conrad. He lives in Berkeley, California.

Customer Reviews

But each heart knows sorrow after its own kind
Joseph Conrad is one of the most wonderful writers for me (although there are a couple of his novels that I am yet to come to grips with). Often novels give me cause to reflect on my life and my place in the universe, but this one is so personal to me that I wonder if my recommendation can be meaningful to others. You see, the narrator of Under Western Eyes is an English speaking man, an older man, an observer, who becomes a possessor of secret knowledge which reflects on the things he sees taking place around him - of the one holding the secret, of the ones ignorant of it. But the second most important character is a young woman, Natalie Haldin, living away from Russia with her mother (in Geneva). And by chance I have a work-based friendship with a colleague who happens to be a Russian woman living away from Russia (in Australia). The last chapter telling of the final meeting between Natalie and the narrator - for quite personal reasons (but it is so well written) was an emotional torment for me, my final meeting has yet to occur - I hope!
The most important character in the novel (I discount the narrator, as I would myself, although he is of great importance - you may think the greatest) is a young student, Razumov, who betrays Natalie's brother and then is imposed on by the powers to spy on Russian dissidents in Geneva. There he meets Natalie and others who are totally unaware of his role in Natalie's brother's betrayal and subsequent execution. But it is known that he was a fellow student of Natalie's brother so they are drawn to him. Would Natalie and Razumov become romantically allied? Only if the secret is kept?

I will not answer these questions. But I will say that Razumov, weak throughout the novel with the same sort of uncertainties that challenge me, turns out to be the most courageous of characters and, in fact, is afforded one tiny morsel of reward.

Conrad is a great user of words although he does say very early on that words are the great foes of reality (page 1). The title of this review is a quote. Here are two more):
The man who says he has no illusions has at least that one (page 188)
There is always something to weigh down the spiritual side in all of us (page 122)

While the novel may not have the same personal impact for you as it did for me, it is very engaging and rewarding. Typically for Conrad though, the writing is very dense, and for me at least, needed lots of time and reflection.

The Greatest Russian Novel...
...of the 20th Century written in English by a Pole! Honestly, you could remove any and all of the prepositional qualifiers from that assertion, and I'd still be willing to defend it. Under Western Eyes is a superb novel in every way - in emotional impact, in intelligence, and in narrative art - and it is very specifically a Russian novel as well as a novel about Russia. Anecdotes suggest that Conrad wrote it in response to his reading of Dostoevsky; if so, he exceeded his model in dazzling narrative acrobatics and in intelligence.

The central character, Razumov, is the most dislikable anti-hero in all fiction, so it's an amazing feat of empathy by which Conrad brings us to care about his fate. Conrad's genius as a narrator is his ability to place himself and the reader in a realm of detachment, so that every event and every character can be observed from several angles at once. The "unreliable narrator" is child's play for Conrad. I don't want to spoil any of the prismatic effect of Conrad's narrative structure by telling any more of the tale of Under Western Eyes, but I will mention that the title is not insignificant.

The Russia portrayed in this novel is a land of cynicism and naivete intertwined - hyper-emotionalism and psychological repression in equal measure - omnicompetent surveillance and hopeless myopia - ruthless bureaucracy and utter disorganization - a land in short of oxymoronic self-destruction. This is NOT, however, the Russia of Communism! The novel was written in 1911! This is Russia as it existed under the Tsarist autocracy, and everything about it clamors for revolution. It's interesting to compare Conrad's portrayal of the old regime with the nostalgic and idealized version served up by Vladimir Nabokov in his memoir "Speak, Memory." Nabokov wrote far more beautiful sentences, but Conrad saw deeper. The horror for us, post-Stalinist readers, in Conrad's depiction of the pre-revolutionary state-of-things is that we KNOW that change will not change much, that autocratic, arbitrary repression will be replaced by...more of the same.

Conrad wrote two novels aground, away from the sea - this one and The Secret Agent. They are among his best. Some readers of today seem to find Conrad's style involuted and dry, and blame it on his status as a 'second-language' writer. To my mind, they are missing the point, the complex lensing of perspective through the minds of Conrad's narrative intermediaries. This is a book to be read slowly and observantly; the effort will be rewarded.

Spectacular study of the gray between anthithesis
It was a relief to find Conrad's Under Western Eyes somewhat less surreal and more concise; yet the complexity and subtlety prove to be no less daunting as the readers are lured into the very same maze in which the main character Razumov finds himself trapped in.

As a time when "men were sacrificing their lives for ideas", 1911 was not meant for moderates who wished to stay neutral between anarchy and hierachy. Razumov, a steadfast philosphy student in St. Petersburg is involuntarily enmeshed in a radical's political intrigue, and to put it in plain "matter-of-fact" tone, he betrays the anarchist. But the brilliancy of Conrad is the way he makes this statement grow by exploring the soft tissue of human interaction in between the hard mechanism of change. Razumov has no choice as the system's teaching induces him to turn in the "criminal" who is dismantling order in society. After the authorities dispatch Razumov to Geneva with a mission, he willingly accepts without realizing he is actually losing his individuality instead of regaining it as he once supposed. To spy on the radical's sister and mother does not lie coherent with his righteous character, yet Razumov's rigid faith in czarist bureacracy and inability to choose for himself lead to more lies. It is still truth however, that redeemds Razumov despite fate's little surprises to keep his betrayal in the shadow. And not unlike fellow St. Petersburg student Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment, Razumov finds salvation in the betrayed radical's sister's deep love for him. Also like Raskolnikov, Razumov is at last reconciled to his existence through physical suffering.

Conrad was by no means denouncing the blossom of revolution, he grazed at the thorns and showed us the many shades of reformation. No idealism remains pure in the real world; in this case, Haldin's kind of pursuit fuses with political murder as his compatriots in Geneva embrace a bureaucratic order. All this is coolly observed by Conrad's Western eyes-an outsider to the struggle and the inner turmoil of Russia to find a balance amongst the blinding clashes of change.