Nostromo is a 1904 novel by Joseph Conrad, set in the fictitious South
American republic of "Costaguana". It was originally published serially in two
volumes of T.P.'s Weekly. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked
Nostromo 47th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th
century. F. Scott Fitzgerald said, "I'd rather have written Nostromo than any
other novel." Nostromo is often regarded as Conrad's best novel.
Background Conrad set his novel in the mining town
of Sulaco, an imaginary port in the western region of the imaginary country
of Costaguana. The book has more fully developed characters than any other of
his novels, but two characters dominate the narrative: Señor Gould and the
eponymous anti-hero, the "incorruptible" Nostromo.
In his "Author’s Note" to early editions of Nostromo, Joseph Conrad provides a
rather detailed explanation of the inspirational origins of his novel.
There he relates how, as a young man of about seventeen, while serving aboard a
ship in the Gulf of Mexico, he heard the story of a man who had stolen,
single-handedly, "a whole lighter-full of silver". As Conrad goes on to relate,
he forgot about the story until some twenty-five years later when he came
across a travelogue in a used bookshop in which the author related how he
worked for years aboard a schooner whose master claimed to be that very thief who
had stolen the silver. Plot summary
Nostromo is set in the South American country of Costaguana, and more
specifically in that country's Occidental Province and its port city of
Sulaco. Though Costaguana is a fictional nation, its geography as described in
the book resembles real-life Colombia. Costaguana has a long history of
tyranny, revolution and warfare, but has recently experienced a period of
stability under the dictator Ribiera. Charles Gould is a native Costaguanero
of English descent who owns an important silver-mining concession near the key
port of Sulaco. He is tired of the political instability in Costaguana and
its concomitant corruption, and uses his wealth to support Ribiera's government,
which he believes will finally bring stability to the country after years of
misrule and tyranny by self-serving dictators. Instead, Gould's refurbished
silver mine and the wealth it has generated inspires a new round of
revolutions and self-proclaimed warlords, plunging Costaguana into
chaos. Among others, the forces of the revolutionary General Montero invade
Sulaco after securing the inland capital; Gould, adamant that his silver
should not become spoil for his enemies, orders Nostromo, the trusted "capataz de
los cargadores" of Sulaco, to take it offshore so it can be sold into
international markets. Nostromo is an Italian expatriate who
has risen to his position through his bravery and daring exploits. Nostromo's
real name is Giovanni Battista Fidanza—Fidanza meaning "trust" in
archaic Italian. Nostromo is a commanding figure in
Sulaco, respected by the wealthy Europeans and seemingly limitless in his
abilities to command power among the local population. He is, however, never
admitted to become a part of upper-class society, but is instead viewed by the
rich as their useful tool. He is believed by Charles Gould and his own
employers to be incorruptible, and it is for this reason that Nostromo is
entrusted with removing the silver from Sulaco to keep it from the
revolutionaries. Accompanied by the young journalist Martin Decoud, Nostromo
sets off to smuggle the silver out of Sulaco. However, the lighter on which
the silver is being transported is struck at night in the waters off Sulaco
by a transport carrying the invading revolutionary forces under the command
of Colonel Sotillo. Nostromo and Decoud manage to save the silver by
transporting it to a smaller lifeboat. Decoud and the silver are deposited on
the deserted island of Great Isabel in the expansive bay off Sulaco, while
Nostromo manages to swim back to shore. Back in Sulaco, Nostromo's power and
fame continues to grow as he daringly rides over the mountains to summon the
army which ultimately saves Sulaco's powerful leaders from the
revolutionaries and ushers in the independent state of Sulaco. In the
meantime, left alone on the deserted island, Decoud eventually loses his
mind. He takes the small lifeboat out to sea and there shoots himself, after
first weighing his body down with some of the silver ingots so that he would
sink into the sea. His exploits during the revolution do
not bring Nostromo the fame he had hoped for, and he feels slighted and used.
Feeling that he has risked his life for nothing, he is consumed by resentment,
which leads to his corruption and ultimate destruction, for he has kept
secret the true fate of the silver after all others believed it lost at sea. He
finds himself becoming a slave of the silver and its secret, even as he slowly
recovers it ingot by ingot during nighttime trips to Great Isabel. The
fate of Decoud is a mystery to Nostromo, which combined with the fact of the
missing silver ingots only adds to his paranoia. Eventually a lighthouse is
constructed on the Great Isabel threatening Nostromo's ability to
recover the treasure in secret, but the ever resourceful Nostromo manages to
have a close acquaintance, the widower Giorgio Viola, named as its keeper.
Nostromo is in love with Giorgio's younger daughter, but ultimately becomes
engaged to his elder daughter Linda. One night, in attempting to recover more of
the silver for himself, Nostromo is shot and killed, mistaken for a trespasser by
old Giorgio. Major characters
Nostromo – a charismatic Italian seaman who has settled in Sulaco and
established a reputation for leadership and daring; as an employee of the
Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, he earns the unofficial title of the
Capataz de Cargadores, or "head longshoreman"
Charles "don Carlos" Gould, a.k.a. "King of Sulaco" – an Englishman by ancestry
and temperament, he is nevertheless a third generation Costaguanero; owner of
the San Tomé Silver Mine, a bequest from his late father who was forced into
ownership of the then derelict mine as repayment for many forced loans made to
the corrupt government of Guzman Bento; the mine becomes his single-minded
obsession Mrs. "dona Emilia" Gould – the
English-born wife of Charles Gould; an altruistic and refined woman of strong
will but who ultimately finds herself second to the mine in her husband’s
attentions Dr. Monygham – a misanthropic and
taciturn English doctor and long-time resident of Costaguana; rumors swirl
about him regarding his past involvement in political plots
Martin Decoud – a Costaguanero who has spent much of his time in Paris and
considers himself a European by temperament if not birth; he returns to
Costaguana and becomes an outspoken journalist and editor of the progressive
newspaper Porvenir; initially a cynic, he becomes the intellectual force behind
the idea of independence for the Occidental Province of Costaguana; he is
also in love with Antonia Avellanos Don José Avellanos – the patriarch of
one of the most prominent families of Sulaco and a close confident of Charles
Gould; he suffered greatly under the dictatorship of Guzman Bento and now has
complete allegiance to Gould Antonia Avellanos – a highly educated
and cosmopolitan daughter of Don José; held in awe by the other young women of
Sulaco Giorgio Viola – an exiled Italian
revolutionary who once fought alongside Garibaldi but who is now a shopkeeper in
Sulaco and the father of two daughters Teresa Viola – the wife of Giorgio Viola
Linda Viola – the eldest daughter of Teresa and Giorgio; she is in love with
Nostromo Giselle Viola – the youngest daughter of
Teresa and Giorgio Captain Joseph "Fussy Joe" Mitchell –
the English Superintendent of the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company’s
offices in Sulaco and supervisor of Nostromo
President don Vincente Ribiera – Costaguana’s first civilian head of
state, who takes over after the overthrow of the tyrannical Guzman
Bento; a member of the landed aristocracy; corpulent to the point of
infirmity; highly respected abroad and full of good intentions, and many of the
characters, including Charles Gould, place their hopes in his ability to
bring democracy and stability to Costaguana
Guzman Bento – a former dictator of Costaguana whose death some years before
the novel opens had ushered in a renewed period of political and economic
instability; the period of his rule was a dark and bloody chapter in the history
of Costaguana General Montero – an early supporter of
Ribiera; a self-made man from peasant stock; he manages to muster an army of
supporters to eventually overthrow Ribiera
Pedro Montero – the younger brother of General Montero
Senor Hirsch – a Jewish fur trader who finds himself in Sulaco at the time of
the political upheavals that comprise most of the novel
Colonel Sotillo – the commander of a military unit in Esmeralda, up the coast
from Sulaco; he abandons the Ribiera regime and joins the uprising of General
Montero and is the first to arrive in Sulaco after the fall of the Ribiera
government; his loyalties, however, are soon consumed by a mad desire to get
hold of the silver of the San Tomé Mine Don Pepe – the manager of the San Tomé
Silver Mine under Charles Gould; under Gould’s orders, he is prepared to blow
up the mine rather than let if fall into the hands of the Montero forces
Film, TV or theatrical adaptations In 1991, British director David Lean was
to film the story of Nostromo, with Steven Spielberg producing it for Warner
Bros., but Lean died a few weeks before the principal photography was to begin.
Marlon Brando, Paul Scofield, Peter O'Toole, Isabella Rossellini,
Christopher Lambert, and Dennis Quaid had all been set to star in this
adaptation. In 1996, a television adaptation
Nostromo was produced. It was adapted by John Hale and directed by Alastair Reid
for the BBC, Radiotelevisione Italiana, Televisión Española, and WGBH Boston. It
starred Claudio Amendola as Nostromo, and Colin Firth as Señor Gould.
References in other works Andrew M. Greeley's 1985 novel Virgin
and Martyr has much of the story set in the fictional country of Costaguana.
Many of the place names are borrowed from Conrad's novel.
In Ridley Scott's Alien the spacecraft is named the Nostromo; the escape vessel
is also named Narcissus, an allusion to another of Conrad's works, The Nigger of
the Narcissus. In James Cameron's sequel, Aliens, the Marine transport
vessel is named Sulaco. In Dean Koontz's Fear Nothing the
protagonist Christopher Snow visits a man named Roosevelt Frost, who lives
aboard a boat named Nostromo". In the Warhammer 40000 science-fiction
Space Opera franchise, "Nostramo" is a corruption-ridden world rich in
minerals, eventually liberated by a brutal tyrant named Konrad Kurze.
Colombian writer Juan Gabriel Vásquez's novel The Secret History of Costaguana
narrates the secession of Panamá from Colombia as the background story that
served as Conrad's inspiration for Nostromo.
See also Politics in fiction
References = Notes =
= Bibliography = Thomas L. Jeffers, "The Logic of
Material Interests in Conrad’s Nostromo", Raritan, p. 80–111.
External links Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard at
Project Gutenberg Nostromo public domain audiobook at
LibriVox Essays and annotated text for Nostromo
at Nostromo Online Nostromo at Google Books
Analysis and commentary at Modernism Lab Essays
Nostromo map