A biography
Reading Gavin Young's In Search of Conrad has been a real treat and a revelation. There has indeed been a "Lord Jim" although his real name was Augustine Podmore Williams who, unlike the real "Lord Jim", lived to the age of 64 and was buried in 1916 in a since long-forgotten cemetery in Singapore.
The unforgettable Lord Jim
And there has been a real "Olmeijer" about whom Conrad wrote in Almayer's Folly - the story was even made into a movie which I shall try to get.
And, of course, Conrad's Lingard and Almayer Country, Borneo, is today as mysterious as it was then despite now being called Kalimantan. And Celebes is now Sulawesi, and Makassar, the source of Macassar oil, is now called Ujung Pandang.
The men's fashion for oiled hair - oiled with Macassar oil, that is - had become so widespread in the Victorian and the Edwardian period that housewives began to cover the arms and backs of their chairs with washable cloths to preserve the fabric coverings from being soiled. This small cloth became known as an antimacassar - or should that now be an anti-ujungpandang?
Gavin Young's unique travel book In Search of Conrad has made me want to read Conrad's stories all over again: Lord Jim ; Almayer's Folly ; Tales of Unrest ; An Outcast of the Islands ; Youth ; The End of the Tether ; The Rescue ; et al.
La vida es sueño.
