7 h 1 minAudiobook9 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · 172 pagesHardcover · 6 × 9 in · 172 pagesAbout this book
What happens when a settled life meets a fear that will not let it rest?
In Tales of Unrest, Joseph Conrad brings together five dark stories of people whose sense of order begins to crack. A chief cannot escape his past. Two clerks trust the habits of civilization at a remote African trading station. A prosperous London man discovers how little his comfortable home protects him from inner turmoil.
The stories move from the Malay islands and African interior to Brittany and London. Karain carries a secret fear, Jean-Pierre Bacadou longs for an heir, and Arsat tells a traveler about the choice that brings him to a lonely lagoon. Across these different lives, Conrad explores guilt, empire, grief, and the strain beneath a calm face.
What you’ll discover
- Karain: A Memory Meet a proud chief whose power offers no shelter from the fear that follows him.
- The Idiots Enter rural Brittany, where a farmer’s hopes for his land collide with family tragedy.
- An Outpost of Progress Watch two clerks cling to their assumptions as colonial trade exposes their moral emptiness.
- The Return Step inside Alvan Hervey’s respectable home, where polite phrases cannot contain the strain of marriage.
- The Lagoon Follow a boat through the forest toward Arsat’s haunting story of loyalty, loss, and regret.
Is it for you?
This book suits readers who like short, dark fiction about guilt, empire and the cracks in respectable lives, and those who want a way into Conrad before his long novels. It may be less suited to anyone who wants brisk plots and cheerful endings.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A chief is haunted by his past
- Two idiots and a farm in Brittany
- Two clerks at a lonely station
- A respectable marriage under strain in London
- A night by a still lagoon
- What binds the five tales together
Who’s who
- KarainA proud chief of a small Malay state, he rules with a bodyguard at his side and carries a secret fear he cannot shake.
- HollisA dry, skeptical trader and friend of the narrator, he sells guns in the islands and doubts the ghostly tale he hears.
- Jean-Pierre BacadouA Breton farmer who wants a son to inherit his land and cannot accept the children that his wife bears him.
- KayertsA mediocre company clerk sent to run a station in the African interior, he relies on habit and the comfort of civilization.
- CarlierKayerts's partner at the station, he is idle and boastful, and believes in progress without doing any of its work.
- MakolaThe African clerk who keeps the station running, he manages its trade and goes his own way beside the two white men.
- Alvan HerveyA prosperous London man who trusts his comfortable home and polite phrases, and is forced to face something he cannot manage.
- ArsatA man living alone by a dark lagoon who tells a visiting white traveler the story of the choice that brought him there.
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- Large print hardcover
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Tales of Unrest
by Joseph Conrad· 1898
Five stories follow lives unsettled by guilt, grief, and greed.
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Language: Français
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1 of 6
A chief is haunted by his past
Karain: A Memory is told by a young Englishman who sails the islands of the Malay archipelago with a few friends, selling guns. Their best customer is Karain, ruler of a small coastal state. He is a proud man, splendid in dress and always attended by a silent warrior at his shoulder. The narrator describes the village, the crowds on the beach, and the long evening talks on the deck of the ship.
The white traders see Karain as a figure of power, but they slowly learn that he is afraid. He is never without his companion, an old man who serves as his guard and his adviser. His people believe that Karain is protected by a magic that keeps their small world safe. Yet his own face shows a fear that no gunpowder can cure.
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The author
Joseph Conrad
1857–1924 · Polish-British novelist
Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) was a Polish-British writer born in Berdychiv, then in the Russian Empire and now in Ukraine. He worked at sea before settling in England. He wrote in English. His works include Heart of Darkness (1899), Lord Jim (1900), Nostromo (1904), and The Secret Agent (1907).
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What is Tales of Unrest about?
It is a collection of five short stories by Joseph Conrad. Each shows a person whose calm is broken by guilt, love, greed or fear, in settings such as a Malay island, an African station, Brittany and London.
Which stories are in Tales of Unrest?
The collection holds Karain: A Memory, The Idiots, An Outpost of Progress, The Return and The Lagoon. They were published together in 1898, and some had appeared earlier in magazines.
Is An Outpost of Progress linked to Heart of Darkness?
Many readers see it as an early sketch for Heart of Darkness. Both draw on Conrad's own time in the Congo in 1890 and show Europeans losing their moral footing in a remote trading post.
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