Under Western Eyes (novel)
| Author | Joseph Conrad |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel |
|
Publication date
|
1911 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Preceded by | The Secret Sharer |
| Followed by | Freya of the Seven Isles |
Under Western Eyes (1911) is a novel by Joseph Conrad. The novel takes place in St. Petersburg, Russia, and Geneva, Switzerland, and is viewed as Conrad's response to the themes explored in Crime and Punishment; Conrad was reputed to have detested Dostoevsky. It is also, some say, Conrad's response to his own early life; his father was a famous revolutionary imprisoned by the Russians, but, instead of following in his father's footsteps, at the age of sixteen Conrad left his native land forever. Indeed, while writing Under Western Eyes, Conrad suffered a weeks-long breakdown during which he conversed with the novel's characters in Polish.
This novel is considered to be one of Conrad's major works and is close in subject matter to The Secret Agent. It is full of cynicism and conflict about the historical failures of revolutionary movements and ideals. Conrad remarks in this book, as well as others, on the irrationality of life, the opacity of character, the unfairness with which suffering is inflicted upon the innocent and poor, and the careless disregard for the lives of those with whom we share existence.
The book's first audience read it after the failed Russian Revolution of 1905. A second audience read it after the Russian Revolutions of 1917, which changed the reader's perception of the author's insight.
Writing to Edward Garnett in 1911, Conrad said « ...in this book I am concerned with nothing but ideas, to the exclusion of everything else ».
The narrator, an English teacher of languages living in Geneva, is narrating the personal record of Kyrilo Sidorovitch Razumov. Razumov is a student in the University of St. Petersburg in the early 1910s. Razumov never knew his parents and has no family ties. He is trusted by his fellow students, many of whom hold revolutionary views, but Razumov takes no clear position on any of the great questions of his time because he considers all of Russia his family. (A better view, perhaps, would be to say that Razumov has no family to fall back on, feels isolated from his contemporaries, takes no interest in the "great issues" of the day, and merely seeks a middle-class secure position within the Czarist system - thus, very ironically, he sees "all Russia" as his "family.")
Mr. de P—, the brutal Minister of State, is assassinated by a team of two, but the bombs used also claim the lives of his footman, the first assassin and a number of bystanders.
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