CONRAD THE NOVELIST, by Albert J. Guerard. Harvard University Press, 315 pp. $5.50

Mr. Guerard's book is not quite so sweeping as the title would indicate, which is just as well. There is very little biographical detail, and he is willing to deal with his favorite novels at great length, while others are dismissed with a few pages, or none. Partisans of Victory and Chance may complain that they are worth more than a half-dozen pages apiece, but Guerard's rejection of them is persuasive.

He has concentrated, then, on the three short novels and five longer ones which are most congenial to his critical methods: "The Secret Sharer," "The Shadow Line," "Heart of Darkness," The Nigger of the Narcissus, Lord Jim, Nostromo, The Secret Agent and Under Western Eyes. The method involves three great concerns--for prose style, for narrative technique and for the psycho-mythical element. The combination is not as confining as it sounds; a closely argued and integrated discussion of the first five novels cited above on these three bases covers them with commendable through-ness. Indeed, the chapters on Nigger and Lord Jim are truly exciting, as only the very best of criticism can be. He says of them:

"They [the chapters] proceed from my feeling that the greatest novels (as compared with the greatest poems or plays) seldom receive the full technical analysis they deserve, and the full, not casual rendering of theme. My aim is to talk as rigorously and fully as some critics talk about poems."

. . . which is a commendable notion, and well carried out. Even when Guerard's interpretations are arguable--as any interpretation of Nigger, at least, must be--he is thorough and persuasive. He is at his best in the discussions of technique.

The chapter on the short novels is not as impressive as the treatment of Lord Jim and Nigger, mostly because it is more one-sided. Guerard sees each of the three short novels as a dramatization of the "night journey," a descent into the unconscious to meet one's dark and criminal double--one's Kurtz or Leggat. Obviously, Conrad did not know enough Jung and Fraser to understand the "dramatization," and the core of the interpretation--and of much of the book--is the assumption that Conrad wrote more than he knew. Guerard explains in a footnote:

"A great intuitive novelist is by definition capable of dramatizing the descent into the unconscious with some 'geographical' accuracy and even without realizing precisely what he is doing."

But I don't think Guerard justifies the whole of his interpretation here. For one thing, he is inconsistent; he speaks at one point of the "dreaming of Lord Jim"--when someone else might say "composing" and then goes on to detail the elaborate pains Conrad took over each phrase to insure total control of the material and of the reader. Guerard's combination of reverie and manipulation is difficult to accept; to be sure, Marlowe sometimes mentions--and conveys--the dreamlike quality of his tales, but we must attribute the dream to him, not to Conrad, for Guerard himself has taught us not to confuse the two of them. These efforts at psycho-mythical interpretation often contain real insights; what is lacking is reticence. Occasionally this sort of criticism seems forced and far-fetched.

The second to last section of Conrad the Novelist deals with the three political novels: Nostromo, The Secret Agent, and Under Western Eyes. It is not, I think, an impressive as the first two hundred pages; there are excellent passages, particularly in the Nostromo chapter, but Guerard does not always reach the high level he maintains in treating the other novels.

Conrad has a pronounced socio-political ideology. It is never absent from the novels, but it is stronger in these three than elsewhere. Guerard, despite "my sympathy with the political vision" of Nostromo seems less interested in ideology than in the other components of novels. This is a great pity much of Conrad's ideology, for that brand of illiberalism is not going to find many commentators sympathetic enough to do it justice.

Finally, the book has two general merits which are worth special mention, especially since it is difficult to cite most the merits of a book of this kind except with an empty summary. Guerard writes well; this is a rare quality in a book of detailed criticism, and I hope it sets an example that will be widely followed. Second, he is occasionally willing to summarize; this is an even rare and more useful quality, since it requires more courage than the average academician can muster.