Book Review: The Duel, by Joseph Conrad (1908)

The Duel, by Joseph Conrad. Originally published in 1908, this Melville House Publishing edition was published in 2011. (Photo by Mark C. Taylor)

Joseph Conrad’s novella The Duel was originally serialized in The Pall Mall Magazine in 1908. Melville House Publishing released The Duel as part of their series “the Art of the Novella” in 2011. At just 115 pages, The Duel is a quick little read, and I enjoyed it.  

The Duel is the story of two French officers who fight a series of duels during the Napoleonic Era. The first duel starts for the most ridiculous reason: Lieutenant D’Hubert informs Lieutenant Feraud that the general wants Feraud kept under house arrest because Feraud fought a duel against a civilian earlier that day. Feraud takes exception to this and promptly challenges D’Hubert to a duel. They duel with swords, and D’Hubert wounds Feraud. But the dueling doesn’t end there.  

The story then follows D’Hubert and Feraud as they fight battles, and each other, across the European continent. If you read The Duel, it’s helpful if you have some knowledge of the Napoleonic Era, and the rising and falling fortunes of the French Army during this period. The Melville House edition doesn’t include any explanatory notes, so you’ll have to do your own research on the battles if you’re so inclined. I’ve read a couple of biographies of Napoleon, which served me well as background knowledge here.  

Joseph Conrad was fascinated by the Napoleonic Era, and the literary critic Jocelyn Baines wrote that “His library contained more books connected with this subject than with any other.” This is an interest that Conrad shared with F. Scott Fitzgerald, who was also obsessed with the Napoleonic Era.  

The Duel was made into a movie in 1977 as The Duellists. Starring Harvey Keitel and Keith Carradine, who might seem to be unlikely choices to play French Napoleonic officers, it was the debut movie of director Ridley Scott. The Duellists also featured Albert Finney and Edward Fox in supporting roles.  

The Duel struck me as a satire of militarism. Conrad highlights the vain militarism by having the duels start for such a ridiculous reason. And the duels continue because, well, they just continue, much as the wars of the Napoleonic Era just dragged on and on. You can blame Napoleon Bonaparte for the endless wars, but you can also blame all of heredity monarchies of every other country in Europe, who hated Napoleon’s belief in meritocracy.  

Conrad’s wonderful writing style made The Duel very enjoyable to read. One of my favorite descriptions was of an old army surgeon: “Amusing was his favorite word; but the expression of his face when he pronounced it never matched.” (p.24)  

D’Hubert finally meets a young woman who charms him, and Conrad has this to say about his relationship: “The charming girl...had conquered him in the thorough manner in which a young girl by merely existing in his sight can make a man of forty her own.” (p.67) 

Midwesterners will appreciate Conrad’s description of D’Hubert’s mixed feelings about Feraud: “He felt an irrational tenderness towards his old adversary and appreciated emotionally the murderous absurdity their encounter had introduced into his life. It was an additional pinch of spice in a hot dish.” (p.68) Although most Midwesterners don’t like having any spice in their hot dish.  

Feraud is only suited for battle and is unhappy when the wars seem to be over: “The passing away of the state of war, the only condition of society he had ever known, the horrible view of a world at peace, frightened him.” (p.76) 

There are some beautiful lines at the beginning of Chapter 4 of the story: “No man succeeds in everything he undertakes. In that sense we are all failures. The great point is not to fail in ordering and sustaining the effort of our life.” (p.81)  

Conrad’s depiction of a lovestruck D’Hubert is marvelous: “always feeling a special intensity of existence, that elation common to artists, poets, and lovers—to men haunted by a great passion, a noble thought, or a new vision of plastic beauty.” (p.84)  

The Duel is an excellent example of Joseph Conrad’s beautiful writing style, and it’s an evocative story. It’s hard to believe that it was written 116 years ago.  

Robyn Hitchcock and Emma Swift: Sweet Home Quarantine Week 8

Robyn Hitchcock and Emma Swift.

Week 8 of Robyn Hitchcock and Emma Swift’s “Sweet Home Quarantine” shows happened on May 6, 2020. You can watch Robyn and Emma on the Stageit website. Week 8 was another dig through the back catalogue of Robyn Hitchcock.

The show opened with “If You Were a Priest,” the opening track from Element of Light, Robyn’s 1986 album with his band the Egyptians. This was followed by “A Skull, a Suitcase, and a Long Red Bottle of Wine,” an early 1980’s outtake that first appeared on the 1986 compilation Invisible Hitchcock. It’s since been added as a bonus track to the Yep Roc reissue of Robyn’s first solo album, Black Snake Diamond Role. It doesn’t do much for me as a song.

Robyn sang a lovely version of “Mr. Kennedy,” a song from the Soft Boys reunion album, 2002’s Nextdoorland. It made me think I should revisit that album, since I haven’t listened to it in a long time. After the song, Robyn had some very humorous banter with Emma, as Robyn did a Beatle voice and was wondering how Paul and Ringo stay so thin. He said, “They probably have personal trainers.” Emma replied, “You could have a personal trainer too, but you just spend your money on cheese.” This made Robyn laugh. It always cracks me up when Emma makes Robyn laugh, because you can tell it’s genuine. For all his reputation as a “quirky surrealist” or whatever term you want to use to describe him, Robyn seems like a serious fellow, so when he laughs, I think he’s genuinely amused by something.

Concert staple “I’m Only You” was next, and as usual, featured a superb guitar solo from Robyn. In concert, this is almost always the song where Robyn shows off his guitar chops. I don’t know why he doesn’t play more guitar solos because he’s a terrific guitar player. Emma got her solo spot, singing her original song “How to be Small.” It was lovely, and hopefully she’ll record more in the future.

Robyn sang “No, I Don’t Remember Guildford,” the tune he sang over the closing credits of the 1998 concert film Storefront Hitchcock. It’s a very pretty song, with great harmonies from Emma. Robyn sang one of my favorite songs, “I Often Dream of Trains,” played on the very same Fender Telecaster that he originally recorded it on. I’ve always loved the lyrics of “I Often Dream of Trains.” The last songs of the night were “1970 in Aspic,” from Robyn’s 2017 self-titled album, and “Cynthia Mask,” from 1990’s Eye. The lyrics of “Cynthia Mask” have always intrigued me, with their references to Napoleon and Neville Chamberlain. From reading a biography, I learned that Napoleon really did eat a lot of chicken, as he apparently instructed his chefs to always have one roasting, so he could have one whenever he felt hungry. The perks of being First Consul. The night ended with a minute or so of the truly odd “Antwoman.”

Book Review: Napoleon: A Biography, by Frank McLynn (1997)

Book cover of Napoleon: A Biography, by Frank McLynn, 1997. The painting is Napoleon Crossing the Alps, by Napoleon's favorite painter, Jacques-Louis David.

While I was reading Andrew Roberts’ excellent 2014 biography of Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon: A Life, I was also reading Frank McLynn’s 1997 book Napoleon: A Biography on my Kindle. So I’ve been a little immersed in the Napoleonic era as of late, and I might be suffering from Napoleon overload. McLynn’s book isn’t as good as Roberts’, but it’s still an excellent treatment of a fascinating figure.

McLynn is a psychological biographer who published a biography of Carl Jung the same year Napoleon: A Biography came out. McLynn’s constant psychoanalyzing of Napoleon became tiring as the book went on, and I could have used a little less psychoanalytic theory. The book starts slowly, as McLynn spends a lot of time on Napoleon’s childhood. But the pace picks up once Napoleon’s life becomes more interesting. McLynn is not as strong a military historian as Roberts, but McLynn focuses more on Spain and the Peninsular War, and those chapters are excellent. McLynn sees the “Spanish ulcer” as being the moment when things began to go wrong for Napoleon. I agree with McLynn, Napoleon’s invasion of Spain in 1808 was a classic example of overreaching. Napoleon should have realized that just because you can do something doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea. Spain had a weak monarch, and it was easy for Napoleon to invade and claim Spain for his own, but it proved to be a foolish idea, as the Spanish began a fierce guerilla war that sapped money and soldiers from France at the same time that Russia was rearming and preparing to fight Napoleon again.

The strongest part of the book might be the chapters about Napoleon’s slow downfall. McLynn writes of Napoleon in 1807, “Until Eylau Napoleon had rarely put a foot wrong on a battlefield. After it, with some rare and brilliant exceptions, his touch was much less sure.” The 1812 Russian campaign was a slow descent into hell, and it is clear that Napoleon did not adequately plan for anything going wrong. McLynn writes, “But the worst mistake was the failure to think through logistical problems, admittedly almost insurmountable in an army of 600,000. Everything was underestimated: the speed at which armies could march, the amount of food that could be obtained en route, the poor state of the roads.” Incredibly, the French lost more men on the way to Moscow than on the retreat. 

Napoleon’s time in exile on St. Helena is covered in detail, and those passages show us a man who still had his dignity, although everything else had been taken from him. Napoleon was peevish over the insistence of the British that he be addressed in exile as “General Bonaparte,” rather than “Emperor.” He once said, “They may as well call me Archbishop, for I was head of the Church as well as the army.” McLynn has some excellent quotes from Napoleon on St. Helena. Napoleon once said to one of his retinue, “Don’t you think that when I wake in the night I don’t have dark moments, when I remember what I was and what I am now?” When he was suffering from his final illness, showing his usual stoicism, he said, “I am quite happy not to have religion. I do not suffer from chimerical fears.” Although the official explanation for Napoleon’s death was stomach cancer, many historians have argued with this over the years. McLynn puts forward a theory that Napoleon was slowly poisoned by arsenic. 

McLynn ably defends Bonaparte from charges of being a dictator, as he writes, “His sensibility was light years away from that of a Hitler or a Stalin, and indeed he can be faulted for not being ruthless enough at times. His indulgence of his worthless family and his repeated pardoning of the treacherous Bernadotte, the duplicitous Talleyrand and the treasonable Fouché are only the most obvious examples. Napoleon had the temperament of an old-style autocrat but not that of a modern totalitarian dictator.” 

Napoleon: A Biography is full of insightful quotes and anecdotes. Three of my favorite quotes from the book are the following: (I don’t have page numbers because my Kindle only tells me what location I’m on in the book, and it seems somewhat silly to write, “Location 10245 of 15527.”)

When Jean-Andoche Junot’s father asked him, “Who is this unknown General Bonaparte?” Junot had replied: “He is the sort of man of whom Nature is sparing and who only appears on earth at intervals of centuries.”

“He was clearly the most extraordinary man I ever saw, and I believe the most extraordinary that has lived in our age, or for many ages.”-Charles Maurice Talleyrand, who ironically enough, was one of the most duplicitous members of Napoleon’s government.

Describing Emperor Francis of Austria, Napoleon’s future father-in-law, McLynn writes, “The Emperor Francis was a pathetic figure who spent his time making toffee or endlessly stamping blank sheets of parchment with specimens from his huge collection of seals.” Reading this quote really makes me want to learn more about Francis.

If you’re looking for a good one-volume cradle to grave study of the life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon: A Biography, is a very good place to start.