A Political Genealogy of Joseph Conrad [Paperback]

In A Political Genealogy of Joseph Conrad, Ruppel proposes a much-needed critical intervention into Conrads complicated and ambivalent engagement with political discourse and ideology, particularly in the major novels. Surveying the criticism surrounding Conradian politics, Ruppel finds that previous critics unjustly pigeonholed Conrad as a profoundly conservative, even reactionary, writer. Arguing vigorously against this time-honored truism, Ruppel contends that the ?migr? polyglots political ideas and leanings were 'radically contingent,' particularly in relation to the audience he envisioned for himself. In tightly structured arguments in successive chapters on the major works, Ruppel reveals Conrad as politically protean rather than staunchly conservative. Far from a hindrance or an impediment to his aesthetic designs, his political mutability allowed him to throw into question grand narratives that underlie and structure political relations. This necessary, useful volume offers a fresh and engaging approach to the writers complex novelistic expressions of the political. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.Ruppel provides a substantial analysis that nicely weaves historical texts and figures with Conrad's fiction and nonfiction.... Ultimately, A Political Genealogy of Joseph Conrad offers an insightful overview of not only Conrad's works, but also the varying factors that influenced Conrad throughout his writing career, and it adeptly supplements interpretations of Conrad's shifting and ambiguous political temperaments.A Political Genealogy of Joseph Conrad is direct, clearly written, and stylistically effective. . . .This is a work well worth reading and one with which Conrad scholars in particular will want to be familiar.A very intelligent, insightful analysis of the contradictions of Conrads politics that refuse to be contained by a single grand narrative. Gracefully written, cogently argued, and well-researched, this blÓ"