12 h 41 minAudiobook14 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 happens when a stranger trusts you with his life, and all you want is to protect your own?
Kirylo Razumov wants a medal for his essay and a quiet career. With no family or friends, he builds his future on staying out of trouble. Then Victor Haldin arrives at his room in St Petersburg with a dangerous secret. Suddenly, another man's trust threatens everything Razumov hopes to keep.
In Joseph Conrad's Under Western Eyes, the pressure reaches from snowy streets to the Russian exile community in Geneva. An elderly English teacher tells Razumov's story through a written record, but his understanding has limits. Spies, police officials and revolutionaries surround a young man whose deepest struggle takes place within his own conscience.
What you’ll discover
- A future under threat Follow a lonely student whose careful ambitions collide with another man's desperate need.
- Power behind quiet words Meet Councillor Mikulin, a soft-spoken police official who knows how to use people.
- Revolution far from home Enter Geneva's exile circles, where hopes for Russia meet vanity, suspicion and control.
- A conscience under pressure Feel the slow strain of choosing personal safety over the trust of another.
- The limits of understanding Look beyond an English narrator's careful account to the lives he struggles to understand.
Who will love it
For readers who love intense novels about guilt and conscience, and anyone curious about Russian politics before 1917. Fans of spy fiction will find spies, exiles and political intrigue woven into a psychological drama.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A student with no family but ambition
- A stranger comes to the door
- Razumov makes his terrible choice
- The police draw him into their game
- Geneva and the old teacher's eyes
- The exiles and their strange leaders
- A lie that grows harder to live
- East and West, autocracy and revolution
- How the story is told
Who’s who
- Kirylo RazumovA lonely, ambitious student in St Petersburg who wants a quiet career and is pulled into politics against his will.
- Victor HaldinA fellow student and idealist who comes to Razumov's room one night, trusting him with a dangerous secret.
- Natalia HaldinVictor's sister, a brave and serious young woman who believes in a free and generous Russia.
- The English teacherAn elderly teacher of languages in Geneva who tells the story and tries, with limited success, to understand the Russians.
- Peter IvanovitchA famous exiled revolutionary writer, vain and domineering, who leads a circle of followers in Geneva.
- Councillor MikulinA soft-spoken police official who knows how to use people and sends Razumov abroad as a spy.
- Sophia AntonovnaA shrewd, hardened revolutionary who watches newcomers closely and does not trust easily.
- TeklaA gentle follower of the exiles' cause who devotes herself to helping the poor and the hunted.
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- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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Under Western Eyes
by Joseph Conrad · 1911
A stranger brings a dangerous secret to Razumov's room, putting the student's safe future against another man's trust.
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From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1 of 9
A student with no family but ambition
The novel opens in St Petersburg, in the last years of the autocracy of the tsars. Kirylo Razumov is a student of philosophy at the university. He is the son of a man he has never been able to claim, and he has no relatives, no home town and no one to turn to. Because he is alone, he has learned to rely only on his own effort. His teachers and fellow students see him as clever, serious and rather silent.
Razumov has one great hope. He is working on an essay that he believes will win a silver medal from the university. The prize would lead to a government post, and a government post would give him a quiet, respectable life. He does not want to be a rebel, and he does not want to be a hero. He wants to be left alone to build something solid out of his own work.
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What is Under Western Eyes about?
It follows Razumov, a Russian student who betrays a revolutionary that trusted him, then is sent to Geneva to spy on exiles. The book studies guilt, loyalty and the pressure of lies in a world torn between autocracy and revolution.
When was Under Western Eyes written and is it a true story?
Conrad published it in 1911. It is fiction, but it draws on real Russian politics of the time, including assassinations, police informers and the exile communities in Switzerland, which Conrad studied with care.
Who is the narrator of Under Western Eyes?
The narrator is an elderly English teacher of languages living in Geneva. He did not see most events himself, so he relies on Razumov's diary and his talks with Natalia Haldin, and he often admits he cannot understand Russians fully.
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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