An Outcast of the Islands

#485
Title: An Outcast of the Islands
Author: Joseph Conrad
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 1896/2008
312 pages

Conrad writ small. Think of this as a sketch for Heart of Darkness to think the best of it. As is often the case in Conrad, men are flawed and the protagonist tumbles down a slippery slope, women are monstrous or associated with man's internal monster/savages (i.e., non-white people), savages abound and are sly and disgusting in their primativeness, and the not-very-heroic hero is subsumed by the darkness. Only here, there's more racism and less narration that stays close to the narrator. The segments where the non-white natives talk among themselves serve as not-very-convincing exposition. Ah, well. Conrad got better with practice.