Conrad’s Malayan novels: problems of authenticity

Abstract

Conrad was in the Far East between 1883 and 1888, but the actual time he spent there was no more than a year. Moreover, his Eastern experiences were gained as second mate of the Palestine, first mate of the Vidar, and master of the Otago As an active seaman, he spent little time ashore.¹ Thus, his first-hand experience of Eastern countries and peoples was slight. Indeed, Norman Sherry estimates that Conrad spent altogether only about twelve days (three days each during the four times the Vidar called) at Tandjong Redeb,² which he transmutes into Sambir and Patusan in his fiction. Given his extremely slight experience of the Malay Archipelago, it is in a way a logical consequence that the authenticity of his Eastern fictive world should be called in question. But is it as false as it has been often made out (by writers like Hugh Clifford and F. R. Leavis)?³

And, behold, here was a writer, of whose very existence I had not previously heard, at work in the same field and displaying withal a degree of finish, a maturity and originality of style, a sureness of touch and a magical power of conveying to his readers the very atmosphere of the Malayan environments, which to me was so familiar, yet whose knowledge of the people, about whom he wrote with such extraordinary skill, was superficial and inaccurate in an infuriating degree.

Hugh Clifford, ‘Concerning Conrad and his work’.