" In
their main outlines they are not unlike the fundamental assumptions of
Joseph Conrad. Both novelists see human existence as a seeking without a
finding; both reject the prevailing interpretations of its meaning and
mechanism; both take refuge in "I do not know." Put "A Hoosier Holiday"
beside Conrad's "A Personal Record," and you will come upon parallels
from end to end. Or better still, put it beside Hugh Walpole's "Joseph
Conrad," in which the Conradean metaphysic is condensed from the novels
even better than Conrad has done it himself: at once you will see how
the two novelists, each a worker in the elemental emotions, each a rebel
against the current assurance and superficiality, each an alien to his
place and time, touch each other in a hundred ways.
"Conrad," says Walpole, "is of the firm and resolute conviction that
life is too strong, too clever and too remorseless for the sons of
men." And then, in amplification: "It is as though, from some high
window, looking down, he were able to watch some shore, from whose
security men were forever launching little cockleshell boats upon a
limitless and angry sea.
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