Audiobook · read by volunteers
Youth, a Narrative
Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)
Read by Chris Hughes · 3 chapters · 1 h 16
About the book
Youth is the story of a young man's first voyage to the East, told many years afterwards by Charles Marlow, the seafarer who would later narrate Heart of Darkness. Marlow remembers himself as a second mate on an old, unlucky ship, setting out with all the confidence of twenty. The journey does not go as planned. The vessel is battered, delayed and tested again and again, and the young officer meets each trouble with an eager, almost joyful stubbornness. Joseph Conrad lets the older man's reflections run alongside the memory, so that the narrative is both an adventure at sea and a meditation on what it means to look back at the person you once were. In three parts, read by a single voice over about an hour and a quarter, the story is a fine way into Conrad's sea fiction and his gift for atmosphere.
Introduction
Joseph Conrad, born in 1857 and died in 1924, was a Polish-born writer who spent years in the merchant navy before becoming one of the great English-language novelists. His seafaring experience colours much of his fiction. Youth was written in 1898 and appeared in 1902 in a volume titled Youth, a Narrative, and Two Other Stories.
That volume also contains Heart of Darkness and The End of the Tether. Conrad is said to have thought of the three works as concerned with different stages of life: youth, maturity and old age. In Youth, as in Heart of Darkness, the narrator is Charles Marlow, who tells his tale to a circle of listeners. The device lets Conrad examine memory and the gap between experience and recollection.
The recording is divided into three parts and lasts a little over an hour, read by LibriVox volunteer Chris Hughes. It is short enough to enjoy in one sitting. For readers who know Conrad mainly through his darker, more difficult novels, this story is a lively and often humorous introduction, and for those who already love him it offers a chance to hear Marlow in a more buoyant mood. Whether you come to it for the weather at sea, the portrait of a young man's confidence or the shadow of age falling across the telling, Youth rewards a second listening. Its closing pages in particular show how Conrad could turn a simple memory into something larger without raising his voice.
Public domain
Joseph Conrad died in 1924: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text