Joseph Conrad Books

I found the contents of the book to be invaluable to anyone contemplating a career as a flight attendant. The tips on resume preparation, grooming and interviewing could give the reader an advantage when looking for employment in that career field.

As a former flight attendant, I found this book to be a good step-by-step guide to seeking flight attendant employment. The book doesn't provide any magic words that will guarantee success in being selected for a flight attendant position, but I know from experience that those magic words do not really exist. The selection process is largely subjective.

This concise book provides easy-to-follow guidance that should enable any aspiring flight attendant to bring out his or her best qualities and perform well during the selection process. I think the suggestions for conducting research on the different airlines, the section on how to answer those "behavior based" interview questions that most arilines use, and the long list of airline addresses will be helpful to most applicants.

I think this book is a good starting point for anyone interested in becoming a flight attendant. I recommend it as a basic primer for anyone interested in pursuing this career.

I was hoping for a more in depth analysis of obtaining work as a flight attendant and unfortunately, this book failed to deliver. While there are some good points in the book, generally it was a rather ordinary overview which didn't provide much new information.

Joseph Conrad's Romance is one of his last books, published in 1923 (he died the following year). Conrad's final novels supposedly showed a dramatic falling off of his powers (and I've certainly read some I thought were poor). Why does no-one want to examine the second-rate? Much is to be learned about Conrad from his later books. And Romance is quite readable, enjoyable even, one of the most exciting books I've read for ages. It's a bit like an elder Stevenson, a boy's adventure story, a bit slow in places but still fascinating. It does not move me as some of Conrad's stories have done, even to tears, but it's not bad at all. The co-author is Ford Maddox Hueffer. Was he a collaborator or did he complete Conrad's unfinished manuscript?

The book really is about romance, in all its aspects, and does a credible job of it. Romance is a melodrama, a genre highly coloured and over reliant on the complexities of its plot. The style is beautiful, if mannered and measured in places. Parts of Cuba are beautifully described, as is the sea and ships. Types are evocatively drawn, quick sketches that add verisimilitude without slowing down the plot. There are perhaps a few too many disasters, things going wrong at the right time so as to add to the suspense. Characters are too often obtuse when it is needed to build a climax. It's a real cliff -hanger (literally) and yet the narrative retains enough plausibility (just!) to make the book read like a thriller. One endures the crises, the disasters, the misunderstandings that advance the plot with an almost painful desire to reach the end. You can see the devices used to elaborate the plot and delay the denouement, just as you can see the playful skill of an old gentleman who, teasing you, refuses to tell you the end of a story before all the elaboration of detail that lead up to it.

But the narrative skill is impressive. And the book is self declared about romance, about the illusions and pursuits of youth. It is an old man's book, looking back on an adventurous life, sighing as all old men sigh - and then using a lifetimes' skill in the telling. If this is Conrad in decline, all technique and style but no great truths to impart, it is a decline that many other writers would envy.

No message, no picture of the workings of the human heart, of the intricacies of human nature.But charm, beautiful language and a few days entertainment. Why say no?

About this collaborative novel published in 1903, Conrad said, "There's easy style, plenty of action, a romantic atmosphere, and a happy ending after no end of real hair's breadth escapes." It was both his and Ford's idea of what Romance was, and they made a serious attempt to capture it in this story.

There's a hero, of course (John Kemp), and a heroine (Seraphina), and after suffering all kinds of adventures (mainly in Jamaica and Cuba) involving smuggling, piracy, sea chases, shootings, men sworn to loyalty, and lots of near mishaps, they are united and at peace. Much of the intrigue that takes place on Jamaica was based on fact, and Conrad did a lot of research on politics on the island (and Cuba) during the 1820s, when the book is set. But the book suffered the same fate as some of Fenimore Cooper's novels in that it was relegated to the "boys' adventure literature" category rather than taken as a serious work of art. (The critics are probably right.) The dialogue is especially weak. The cultural differences, though, encountered in the book are handled deftly by the authors, especially the Spanish ways of Seraphina as contrasted with Kemp's English background. Not considered to be one of Conrad's major achievements.

Even in this new era of Russian and American friendship
into which this film came, there are still atomic bombs on both sides.
Technically the handling of people in the bomb area in this film is very wrong : at the hospital and on the streets.
Everyone is taught that the ashes from the bomb are as deadly as the bomb itself. No one was doing decontaminations here.
The brinkmanship here was classic and the Jack Ryan as good as ever.
Tom Clancy is a very good spy/ suspense writer, he just doesn't seem to know that much about atomic bombs.

Other reviews already written go into specifics about the film. So let me just add my two cents. The movie is awful. It is not anywhere in the same league as the other Tom Clancy novel films. It's boring, poorly paced, not true to the book, cliche, and all together lacking any depth or originality. I never felt on the edge of my seat or worried about any of the characters. The actors are excellent in other films (esp. Morgan Freeman) but in this film cardboard cut outs. Don't waste your time.

I enjoyed the first hour or so of this film, but then it turned into a replay of War Games. The last 30-40 minutes jumped around and were so rushed that all that remained was the predictable outcome.

This film could have been a good one. It came out after 9/11 but before Iraq, at the time of Afghanistan. It is about the "final" confrontation between the USA and Russia. A nuclear terrorist attack is organized in Baltimore so that the USA may believe it comes from the Russians and may start the procedure leading to a full out nuclear war. From the very start the theory that is illustrated here is that terror in the world is organized by the Israeli secret services with the help of some western autonomous adventurers and with the complicity of the hard liners in the Russian and Ukrainian armies. Then the whole story is difficult to believe because of the total lack of real believable hard facts. The American president appears as quite manipulated by his own military personnel and his State and Defense Secretaries, without speaking of the CIA. The Russian president appears just as much manipulated but with maybe a little bit more nerve. The whole plot fails because a small CIA intellectual agent manages to speak to the Russian president directly via the red telephone and make him take the decision to halt his alert, a decision that the US president immediately imitates. How can we believe that. The Weapons of Mass Destruction are quoted in some remote small sentence somewhere unimportant but the propaganda is clear. The various actors of this plot are then eliminated one after the other in the most radical way possible. That's a shame in a way because the film is rather well made and acted but it is obvious war propaganda that supports the theory pretending the world is being manipulated if not controlled by the Israelis, a resurgence of sorts of the old hitlerian anti-semitism of old. I guess some believe that good old hate-theories can always be revived in a way or another, with a little bit of upgrading if necessary.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

Nobody writes military thrillers like Tom Clancy. A handful of the movies made from his novels are worthy of the original manuscript. "Hunt for Red October" is my key example.

If I had to sum up the problems for "The Sum of All Fears", I'd first mention acting. I really like Ben Affleck, but he simply doesn't define the role like either Alec Baldwin or Harrison Ford. Perhaps if he were cast in an earlier portion of Jack Ryan's life, he might have worked, but Affleck simply lacks the authority and competence inherent in Ford's manner--and being a MUCH younger man following Ford just seems out of sync.

This was also one of the rare roles where I saw Morgan Freeman as Morgan Freeman. Usually, he transports me to the place and time he's inhabiting in the character--not in this film.

The plot is interesting--but nowhere near as well done as the book. Just read the book. It's available here on Amazon and well worth the price.

Even in this new era of Russian and American friendship
into which this film came, there are still atomic bombs on both sides.
Technically the handling of people in the bomb area in this film is very wrong : at the hospital and on the streets.
Everyone is taught that the ashes from the bomb are as deadly as the bomb itself. No one was doing decontaminations here.
The brinkmanship here was classic and the Jack Ryan as good as ever.
Tom Clancy is a very good spy/ suspense writer, he just doesn't seem to know that much about atomic bombs.

Other reviews already written go into specifics about the film. So let me just add my two cents. The movie is awful. It is not anywhere in the same league as the other Tom Clancy novel films. It's boring, poorly paced, not true to the book, cliche, and all together lacking any depth or originality. I never felt on the edge of my seat or worried about any of the characters. The actors are excellent in other films (esp. Morgan Freeman) but in this film cardboard cut outs. Don't waste your time.

I enjoyed the first hour or so of this film, but then it turned into a replay of War Games. The last 30-40 minutes jumped around and were so rushed that all that remained was the predictable outcome.

This film could have been a good one. It came out after 9/11 but before Iraq, at the time of Afghanistan. It is about the "final" confrontation between the USA and Russia. A nuclear terrorist attack is organized in Baltimore so that the USA may believe it comes from the Russians and may start the procedure leading to a full out nuclear war. From the very start the theory that is illustrated here is that terror in the world is organized by the Israeli secret services with the help of some western autonomous adventurers and with the complicity of the hard liners in the Russian and Ukrainian armies. Then the whole story is difficult to believe because of the total lack of real believable hard facts. The American president appears as quite manipulated by his own military personnel and his State and Defense Secretaries, without speaking of the CIA. The Russian president appears just as much manipulated but with maybe a little bit more nerve. The whole plot fails because a small CIA intellectual agent manages to speak to the Russian president directly via the red telephone and make him take the decision to halt his alert, a decision that the US president immediately imitates. How can we believe that. The Weapons of Mass Destruction are quoted in some remote small sentence somewhere unimportant but the propaganda is clear. The various actors of this plot are then eliminated one after the other in the most radical way possible. That's a shame in a way because the film is rather well made and acted but it is obvious war propaganda that supports the theory pretending the world is being manipulated if not controlled by the Israelis, a resurgence of sorts of the old hitlerian anti-semitism of old. I guess some believe that good old hate-theories can always be revived in a way or another, with a little bit of upgrading if necessary.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

Nobody writes military thrillers like Tom Clancy. A handful of the movies made from his novels are worthy of the original manuscript. "Hunt for Red October" is my key example.

If I had to sum up the problems for "The Sum of All Fears", I'd first mention acting. I really like Ben Affleck, but he simply doesn't define the role like either Alec Baldwin or Harrison Ford. Perhaps if he were cast in an earlier portion of Jack Ryan's life, he might have worked, but Affleck simply lacks the authority and competence inherent in Ford's manner--and being a MUCH younger man following Ford just seems out of sync.

This was also one of the rare roles where I saw Morgan Freeman as Morgan Freeman. Usually, he transports me to the place and time he's inhabiting in the character--not in this film.

The plot is interesting--but nowhere near as well done as the book. Just read the book. It's available here on Amazon and well worth the price.

Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski
lived as a child amongst revolutionaries in Poland,
but read about the sea and dreamt of wild adventures.
He watched his mother die in exile in Siberia
and his father follow her to the grave soon thereafter.

Seasons of the mind can be taught to rule the heart.

Joseph Conrad survived a life of tedium and hair breadth escapes at sea,
but dreamt of understanding what drives and saddles men's souls.
He is rumored to have killed a man in a barroom brawl

and then escaped to England to take on a new identity.

There is very little time for true understanding.

Father and author Conrad lived quietly in a London suburb
and wrote in epic stretches that left him sleeping on the floor.
One day he emerged from his writing studio
and did not recognize his own son in the hallway.

Life stumbles on through fields of crowded emotion.
There is no loss of honor in fearing life's many deaths.

Mark Twain once said, "Analyzing humor is a lot like dissecting a frog. It's an interested process, but it kills the frog!" The same can be said for analyzing literature, which is mostly what Mr. Karl did in his book.

For my own self, I very much enjoy biographies and have read a lot of them. Literature being a special interest, I have read a fair number of biographies on writers. Peter Ackroyd's book on Dickens and Jackson J. Benson's book on Steinbeck are nice door-stopper size books (the kind I favor), but unlike Mr. Karl, Acrkroyd and Benson wrote fascinating books. Mr. Karl spent the most of his 900 plus pages of text in trying to determine where Conrad got his ideas. And accomplished nothing!

I cannot tell you how many tedious discussions this book had attempting to determine where Conrad got his inspiration for one book or another. And the bulk of these discussions had the same tagline: "But this is all speculation." THEN WHY BRING IT UP!!!!

I really don't know why I waded through the entire book, but if you try it and find that it's a bit tedious, stop! It does NOT get better!

I do now know the details of Conrad's life, and found that part of things most interesting (hence the one star), but this is not the biography I would recommend for those who want to read about Conrad. I really hate the idea of writing a review that slams a book, but ye gods!

This is the worst type of Spanish "easy-learn" books. It is nothing more than a list of nouns, adjectives and verbs. There are "charts" which are simply more lists. This is like studying a bunch of rules that mean nothing because they are never connected to anything real. Languages are not a series of interchangeable parts. A good review book gives you plenty of exercises using real questions, answers, and ways to help you actually know the material. Buy something like Amsco book 1,2, or 3 with the answer keys if you want a good practice workbook. Don't waste your money on this one!!

I have been studying Spanish for 5 years now, and am currently teaching Spanish at the high school level. Although I am married to a native-speaker of Spanish and speak only Spanish in the home, I remained unsure of my usage, especially concerning certain verb tenses such as the conditional and the subjunctive.

I already own and have read a wide collection of Spanish grammar and reference books. Unlike the large, comprehensive volumes the serious language learner inevitably acquires, this book provides short, concise explanations which one is unlikely to forget.

Being relatively new to the teaching profession, Schaum's Easy Outline for Spanish has also helped me enormously in the classroom.

As the publishers promise, the reader does "get the essence the easy way".

Conrad's mundane tale of the human condition is an example of literary impressionism at it's most infuriating peak. The author consciously avoids the statement of fact, only hinting at events that transpire. It requires a great deal of focus to read and leaves one feeling unsatisfied, as nothing is told, outright, to the reader. It's also a very difficult book to be tested on; the "tale within a tale" format makes it tough to comprehend who is actually narrating.

That's difficult finding Amy Foster and A Personal Record together, and they're so interesting. But the book has no introduction, index or table of contents. In addition it hasn't the author's not to A Personal Record. Anyway you should read that if you like Conrad. You'll understand better his oeuvre.

I ordered the book because I believed it to take place on the island of Malta. I found that the island referred to is "Malata", somewhere in the South Pacific.

I doubt that the story was originally published with "Malta" in it's title. Publisher, please correct.

(It is, however, an enjoyable novella.)

An interesting if unspectacular foreword which bespoke an entire cast of two characters-an added attraction was the demure innunendo thrown in that the lady did not think or speak much.

The introduction by Colm Toibin mentions that Conrad was fascinated by the literary style( before he went into oblivion) of Henry James and this be the closest resemblance that JC could have to HJ.

The story is of a successful businessman , endowed with looks, brains and a socially attractive wife who comes in home on evening to find that his absent spousewife has left him an epistle , begging for forgiveness as she says she's leaving for another man. This causes Alvan Hervey to go into paroxysms of shock and awe, anguish and turmoil, bewilderment and disillusionment in that order..

Very descriptive writing as his emotional gears are set against his looking out into the evening streets below his home through his metaphoric window.

He is more upset by the fact that his wife has shown her wont in a bout of unseemly demonstration even as he has gone through his five year marriage with her thinking that he has been a caring and affectionate husband who has traded his love and status for his wife's quest for stability and acceptability. That she has walked out on him is itself not distasteful to him , but her obeying what best is a raw emotional chord unsettles him terribly.

Of course, he is consumed with thoughts of her undisclosed lover and her antics behind his back etc.

Into this labyrinth of incomplete thought walks back the wife, and archly announces that she has changed her mind. This happens after both seethe silently with their respective furies--he with his feeling of being let down by her display of lack of reserve and restraint, she with his inability to understand her action in that light.

She glibly speaks of her intent and speaks of returning to him and forgetting the act in entirety.He clings by his articlukation of his beliefs that Self Restraint is everything in Life, the Noblest beliefs demand adherence, rectitude, morality and duty.

He is still flabbergasted that she has not risen above what he sees as preternatural sentiments. He stalls her idea of continuing with their lives and a short while later, walks out his house himself, never to return.

The passages brim with colour and vibrancy. The sounds on the streets below capture and match his thoughts throughout the tale. In that sense, it could lend itself for a theatre adaptation with felicity.

I have an axe to grind with the language. Can say with certitude that English was not his linguistic choice. Conrad uses some words ad nauseam and in a short novel, hardly a hundred pages, that may seem culpable. I can remember decorous, annihilation offhand and they detract markedly from the wan plot.

Not a smooth read, can hardly say that words segued into each other and all that quasi-poetical embellishments.


A 6.5 on 10 !