3 h 32 minAudiobook8 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What does courage look like when a captain has almost no imagination and a typhoon stands in his path?
Captain MacWhirr commands the Nan-Shan with plain words, steady habits and little patience for imagined fears. His young chief mate, Jukes, wants to avoid the coming storm. In Joseph Conrad’s Typhoon, their differences become urgent as the steamer sails toward a test neither man can treat as routine.
Below deck, two hundred Chinese labourers travel home with years of savings, dependent on a crew they cannot speak to. Chief engineer Solomon Rout keeps the engines going. As the storm strikes and chests break loose in the hold, survival demands more than seamanship: it tests the captain’s duty toward everyone aboard.
What you’ll discover
- An unlikely kind of courage Meet a captain whose literal mind makes the question of bravery unexpectedly difficult.
- Two men under pressure Watch MacWhirr’s stubborn steadiness clash with Jukes’s restless imagination as danger draws near.
- Lives below deck Follow the danger facing men whose savings and safety depend on strangers above them.
- Calm before the storm Move from patient, gently comic portraits into the fierce struggle of a ship in danger.
- The weight of duty Explore what ordinary people owe one another when fear leaves little room for thought.
Is it for you?
This book suits readers who like sea stories, short and intense fiction, and character studies about duty and nerve. It also rewards anyone curious about Conrad before tackling his longer novels. Readers who want a fast plot full of surprises may find it slow at the start.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A captain with no imagination
- The Nan-Shan and her human cargo
- Jukes and the falling glass
- The storm arrives
- Chaos below deck
- What the storm is really about
Who’s who
- Captain MacWhirrThe steady, literal-minded master of the Nan-Shan, who trusts facts over fears and refuses to be hurried or turned aside from his duty.
- JukesThe young chief mate, talkative and imaginative, who thinks his captain slow and wants to avoid the storm.
- Solomon RoutThe chief engineer, a calm and capable man who keeps the engines going and writes cheerful letters to his wife.
- Mrs MacWhirrThe captain's wife at home, who receives his plain, unromantic letters and knows little of the dangers he faces.
- The Chinese labourersTwo hundred men returning home with years of savings, who travel below deck and depend on a crew they cannot speak to.
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- 15-minute summary
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- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1 of 6
A captain with no imagination
Conrad begins with a portrait. Captain MacWhirr of the steamer Nan-Shan is a man of ordinary looks and an ordinary mind. He is honest, steady and strikingly literal. He takes every remark at face value and sees no reason to dress up a plain fact with a clever word.
Conrad is gently amused by him, and so are the men who serve under him. MacWhirr has never had a shipwreck or a disaster. He has spent his career in routine, and he has come to feel that the sea is a place of routine. His mind holds the facts of the day and little else, and he has no gift for picturing dangers that have not yet arrived.
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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 Typhoon by Joseph Conrad about?
It follows the steamship Nan-Shan and her captain, MacWhirr, as she sails into a violent storm in the China seas with two hundred Chinese labourers aboard. It is a study of duty, courage and command.
Who is Captain MacWhirr?
He is the British master of the Nan-Shan, a literal-minded, unimaginative and steady man. Conrad uses him to ask whether a lack of imagination can be a kind of strength.
Is Typhoon based on a true story?
It is fiction, published in 1902, but Conrad drew on his own years at sea and on the real world of steamship trade in the China seas. Some details are thought to come from real incidents.
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