Reading 1911: librarians explore the Centennial

What were we reading in 1911?

The William H. Hannon Library celebrates the LMU Centennial through books (we are after all librarians!).

What were people reading during this time when William H. Taft was our president?  When the US population was 93,863,000, there were 46 stars in our flag, the cost of a first-class stamp was only $0.02 and the U.S. was crossed by plane for the first time –and it only took 50 days! 

Each month one of our librarians will look at a notable book published during 1911, and give you a glimpse of what people were reading while Loyola Marymount University was just getting started. 

Our first contribution comes from Glenn Johnson-Grau, collection development librarian, who shares his perspective on this novel from a literary giant, Joseph Conrad.

 

 

 

Under Western Eyes 

Terrorism. Ideological extremism. Police surveillance. Political and social currents in a far off land that are alien and impenetrable to observers in the West. Joseph Conrad’s 1911 novel Under Western Eyes depicts the ripples of a violent act through society and individual lives. In the years after its publication it was seen as prescient concerning the start of World War I and the Russian Revolution; its continued relevance as an examination of the fallout from a fanatical act has been much noted in the post-9/11 era.

The novel came just past the midpoint in Conrad’s literary career, written after many of the works that now support his reputation as one of the great novelists in English and a precursor to literary modernism, but before he achieved commercial success. The son of Polish nationalists, Conrad fled his homeland for France to avoid conscription in the Russian army (Poland being ruled by the Russian Empire at the time). He joined first the French and then the British merchant navy; these travels took him to the locales depicted in his most famous works: South America in Nostromo, Malaysia in Lord Jim, and the Congo in Heart of Darkness. He retired as a ship’s captain in his late thirties for health reasons and to pursue a career as a writer; amazingly, English was his third language, after Polish and French.

Under Western Eyes is a political story but like its progenitor Crime and Punishment, it primarily focuses on the moral and psychological ramifications of a violent act. The story follows Razumov, a self-centered student who finds an acquaintance named Haldin in his apartment where Haldin confesses that he has just assassinated a government minister. Rasumov, inconvenienced by Haldin’s confession and by his political ardor, betrays Haldin and slowly becomes an agent for the Tsarist regime. Rasumov is sent as a secret agent to Geneva to infiltrate the revolutionary Russian expatriate community, who unknowingly embrace him as a hero. Rasumov’s guilt from his undeserved celebrity and the affection shown to him by Haldin’s sister Natalie send Rasumov’s life unraveling.

One of the most interesting facets of the novel is a framing device used by Conrad, where the narrator is an English teacher in Geneva recounting Rasumov’s story. This allows Conrad to tell the story of radical turmoil in the East from the perspective of an observer from the West, echoing Conrad’s own dual role as both a Pole and an English novelist incorporating topical events for an audience unaware of the perspective of the actors. In the years since 9/11, critics have noted the way that Conrad explores the psychology of extremism and the reactions that result from radicalism. As a twenty-first century reader, in addition to my enjoyment of a hundred year old psychologically complex political novel, considered one of Conrad’s greatest works, I was struck by Conrad’s point of the difficulty, perhaps the impossibility, for an outsider to truly understand the thinking and the cultural milieu behind far-away events.

— Glenn Johnson-Grau

For more views of life from the perspective of 1911 as seen through Hannon Library resources, please visit this LibGuide.

Photograph of 1911 first editions courtesy of Archives & Special Collections, William H. Hannon Library 

Photo: Melanie Hubbard

 

Comments

[Kristine Brancolini]

Thanks, Glenn! Excellent review. I haven't read this book, but it reminds me of another Conrad novel I have read, Secret Agent (1907). Kudos to the library's Programming Committee for highlighting books published in 1911. What a great idea! Next month I will be reviewing Jennie Gerhardt, by Theodore Dreiser. I hope that everyone will also visit the LibGuide linked above. Alexander Justice has done an outstanding job introducing us to the world of 1911 through other publications of the era.