Skip to main content

Under Western Eyes

Sort Name
Under Western Eyes
Type
Novel
Language
English
Ratings
No reviews

Wikipedia

Under Western Eyes is a 1911 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 Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment; Conrad was reputed to have detested Dostoevsky. It has also been interpreted as Conrad's response to his own early life; his father was a Polish independence activist and would-be revolutionary imprisoned by the Russians, but, instead of following in his father's footsteps, at the age of sixteen Conrad left his native land, only to return briefly decades later.: 89  Indeed, while writing Under Western Eyes, Conrad suffered a weeks-long breakdown during which he conversed with the novel's characters in Polish.: 244 

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 later audience reading it after the Russian Revolutions of 1917 perceived the author's insights differently. Writing to Edward Garnett in 1911, Conrad said "...in this book I am concerned with nothing but ideas, to the exclusion of everything else".

Continue reading at Wikipedia... Wikipedia content provided under the terms of the Creative Commons BY-SA license

Annotation

First published: 1911

Last modified: 2021-12-05 (revision #77810)

Editions

NameFormatISBNRelease Date
Under Western EyesPaperback?1969
Add Edition

Identifiers

LibraryThing Work
23545
Wikidata Work ID
Q3685905

Related Collections

This entity does not appear in any public collection.
Click the "Add to collection" button below to add it to an existing collection or create a new one.

Reviews No reviews

No reviews yet.


Last Modified
2023-09-14