Joseph Conrad, as compared with Bram Stoker, may with even more justification be placed amongst the masters of fiction. In the front rank beside wordsmiths, his narrative is never far from a compelling word. “What greatness had not floated on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown earth!…The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealths, the germs of empires” (Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness.) This passage is an example of what I call the ‘existential aesthetic.’ Here the author is attempting, through superlative speech, to connect the reader with something higher than himself. By linking nature to splendiferous phrasing, the author hopes to confer an unearthly experience. By the use of word and world together, he reaches for something beyond both. His highest aim is to bestow an impression that will be a ‘moment’ or some sort of psychological launch for the reader. Conrad’s use of imagery, Gary Geddes tells us, ‘reflects his view of art as a sacred trust, a religious commitment’ (Gary Geddes, The Art of Short Fiction, p. 78.) This, I think, is true. In a footnote to a recently written though already forgotten book about Byron’s physician, John Polidori, I came upon the following thought: “The Romantic quest for origins is profoundly connected with the Romantic quest for originality.” The book, then, that I found this cryptic footnote in is called, Poor Polidori, authored by D. L. Macdonald; the footnote is on page 285. The origin of the quote is Paul A. Cantor’s Creature and Creator: Myth-making and English Romanticism; and Cantor may have gotten it from someone else. Regardless, whoever coined this thought is responsible for identifying the mission of avant-garde novelists. “The Romantic quest for origins is profoundly connected with the Romantic quest for originality.” What can be meant by this, more particularly? The context (p. 224 of Poor Polidori) reveals that the quest which is spoken of is the search for a different option for what unfolds in the first pages of Genesis, which prologue has to do with creation and responsibility: man becoming a sinner against his Creator, and passing that sin nature down through posterity, along with both guilt and curse. These florid passages in classic fiction, then, that attempt to disengage from the chains of a fallen world do so in response to the moral predicament that their authors do not want the proffered solution for; which solution: fear of, and faith in, God, runs through the whole of the Bible.
The diction in that extract from Conrad’s story does not insinuate a theistic worldview, but a world undiscovered or a history not yet told. It alludes to the hazy, arcane philosophy of existence that the stories of Conrad evoke. Even the presence of words like ‘faith’ and ‘hope’ in classic fiction, moreover, should not fool us into assuming that a Christian, or even theistic, philosophy is being hinted at. Redemption, to secular writers, is nothing more than what a materialistic or evolutionary worldview allows. Their highest end is to provide some alternative to literal redemption. This is done because while they eschew the biblical redemption and hold the materialistic worldview, the craving for redemption remains. The materialistic worldview will not bear a real redemption, only a blind leap into an uncharted firmament. But, in the words of a Puritan: “Is salvation per saltum (obtained with a leap)?” (Thomas Watson, The Doctrine of Repentance, p. 100.) The biblical redemption involves the holy making contact with sin: Jesus taking on sin, what the Bible calls Jesus ‘becoming sin’ to save sinners. Faith in this is that which saves. The blind leap, contrariwise, is made by persons who would rather take a chance trusting in something less convicting, which something is always undiscoverable; the existential leap is attempted when the closed universe of atheism becomes intolerable. The authentic redemption is convicting because it reminds a sinner about the cross where sin was paid for with the blood of a sinless Saviour who, though born of a woman, is nevertheless from heaven. Even if the impenitent author has gotten only a vague impression of this through his acquaintance with the word, or account, of redemption, it may be enough convicting information to put him off. So he is careful to compose an alternative form that will be something less than an allegory, or even reminder, of the authentic historical redemption. This is what Conrad commonly does. Here, in contradistinction, is a specimen of sublime composition which does not reach up into a void: “Before the first morning of creation dawned, ere ever eternal silence was broken by the angel’s song, or primeval ether had been fanned by the seraph’s pinion, God was the supremely Blessed One; and this blessedness of His nature, by the Beatific Vision, He will impart unto His children” (James Killen, The Inhabitants of Heaven, pp. 54, 55.) Unlike the high-flown prose of Joseph Conrad and Ralph Waldo Emerson, Killen’s exalted utterance is grounded in biblical divinity, and thus, eternity. Objective truth has influenced his message. The tone is Psalm-like; the content, even without context, makes us suspect that its author’s thoughts are tethered to the cross—to where the only bona fide redemption has taken place; and the style is as luxurious as, if not more luxurious than, anything that Conrad was able to compose. When classic fiction is read, it is well to keep in mind that the mysterious worlds that we are led into by it are often varieties of never-never lands that do not parallel the metaphysical reality that Christians believe in. It is not wrong to write a narrative like that if it is made clear that a biblical worldview stands apart from it as the standard by which everything is judged. The fiction of Joseph Conrad is instructive, especially for atmosphere and style, or tone and eloquence; but its worldview is mystical in a dangerous way. His kind of fiction contains gins and snares that we are apt to step into.
