Modernist Author Project Pt. l #1

A. "I am well educated...

     I am hardworking...

     I am a businessman...

     I am a navigater...

     I am a man of many cultures...

     I am a man of languages...

     I am a man of pain...

     I am a writer...

     I am an inspiration..

     I am... Joseph Conrad."

B. Joseph Conrad practically grew up on his own working. His parents passed when he was young, approximately when he was six. His mother passed first and his father followed a few years later. A young orphan Joseph, moved with his uncle but later moved out as a teenager. Joseph was quick to look for work. He worked and traveled on French and British ships. He eventually worked his way up to navigate-pilot his own ships. When he wasn't out in sea, he looked for businesses where he could make money. He loved money. At this point in his life, his uncle also passed and all the members of his family whom he loved were gone. Joseph spent most of his time writing, whether it was on shore or off shore. It is said he was even writing when his wife was giving birth. He was friends with other famous writers and much of his literary works inspired other well known writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Virginia Woolf, Thomas Mann, T.S. Eliot, etc.

C. As talked about, Joseph Conrad's parents died at an early stage of his life. I believe this help spark a sense of writing style among him. His father, Apollo, was also a writer and I believe a young Joseph Conrad kept a few journals as sentimental value. Eventually when he grew old, he read his father's journals and understood what he was trying to state. Joseph also spent a great period of his life working and traveling on ships. I believe his experience and time among the crewmen also influenced his writing style. Joseph also spent six years of his life trying to have sex with a women he was close with. He eventually gave up and soon met his wife. She, however, was about 12 years of age apart from him and she was not well educated as he was. Also, as said, Joseph was good friends with authors like Henry James and Stephen Crane.  Finally, I also believe the passing of his uncle, a father figure, had a great impact on his writing style. I believe all these events in Conrad's life a great influence on his writing style.

D. Quotes by Joseph Conrad:

• "I don't like work--no man does--but I like what is in the work--the chance to find yourself. Your own reality--for yourself not for others--what no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it really means"

• "we live as we dream--alone."

• "We live in the flicker -- may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday."

• "the mind of man is capable of anything--because everything is in it, all the past as well as the future"

• "I believe that not a thousand miles from these shores

certain public prints have betrayed in gothic letters their
satisfaction--to speak plainly--by rather ill-natured comments."
• "I have never ordered a man to do any work I was not prepared to do myself."

• "nothing I desire less than to appear as a portenous bore before so many readers"

(There are a few quotes that I did not read from text but found online that caught my interest)