[HN Gopher] Fiction Is History: A journey through Joseph Conrad'...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Fiction Is History: A journey through Joseph Conrad's life at sea
        
       Author : benbreen
       Score  : 51 points
       Date   : 2022-08-19 03:42 UTC (19 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.laphamsquarterly.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.laphamsquarterly.org)
        
       | AlbertCory wrote:
       | No one has any comments on this? OK, here we go:
       | 
       | How many great novels in English were written by someone for whom
       | it was a _third_ language? Jeez. Even Nabokov spoke English _as a
       | youth_ , along with Russian and French.
       | 
       | I think the question of "history" is very interesting.
       | Personally, I'd much rather read the _Master and Commander_
       | series a third time than read a boring history of the Napoleonic
       | Wars. But Conrad 's books are always regarded as "fiction" even
       | though you learn an awful lot about life back then, which you
       | wouldn't get from a history book.
        
         | panzagl wrote:
         | O'Brien wasn't actually alive during the Napoleonic Wars- so
         | how did he get the details to write his stories? He read
         | history and had enough imagination to interpret it, rather than
         | look at it as a 'boring' recitation of facts.
        
           | AlbertCory wrote:
           | He's actually interviewed on YouTube, amazingly enough.
           | 
           | When he was young, he was sick and confined to his house,
           | where they had a complete collection of the _Gazette_ and
           | lots of other stuff. Basically, he spent his entire life
           | learning about the period.
           | 
           | So he digested all that stuff that we'd probably never get
           | to. What's your point?
        
       | MichaelCollins wrote:
       | Tl;dr: Conrad wrote books similar or related to experiences he
       | actually had, and some aspects of those things are similar to
       | experiences you can have today.
       | 
       | Conrad wrote a story about a boat trip in the Congo during which
       | he witnessed violence. Jasanoff also went on a boat trip on the
       | same river, and although not witnessing the sort of violence
       | Conrad wrote about, felt feels she gained insight into the "look
       | and feel" of the landscape Conrad wrote about.
       | 
       | Okay, not sure I see the point of any of this, except to say that
       | Conrad wrote about things similar to his life experiences. But I
       | think that's table-stakes knowledge for anybody reading one of
       | Conrad's books.
        
         | AlbertCory wrote:
         | Probably why no one commented on it all morning.
         | 
         | Having an experience that gives you the "look and feel" only
         | matters if you then communicate it to the reader.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2022-08-19 23:01 UTC)