Nigger of the Narcissus

This is the story of a voyage of a merchant sailing ship from Bombay to England, set in the very late 19th century. “It was a bad winter off the Cape that year.” From Wikipedia: “The novel is seen as an allegory about isolation and solidarity, the ship's company serving as a microcosm of a social group.” As to the title, one can only ask, “What WERE you thinking?” (Introduction by Tom Crawford) (6 hr 20 min)

Chapters

Preface	16:02	Read by Tom Crawford
Chap 1 Part 1	22:57	Read by Tom Crawford
Chap 1 Part 2	26:57	Read by Tom Crawford
Chap 2 Part 1	25:06	Read by Tom Crawford
Chap 2 Part 2	18:03	Read by Tom Crawford
Chap 3 Part 1	29:25	Read by Tom Crawford
Chap 3 Part 2	36:20	Read by Tom Crawford
Chap 3 Part 3	23:15	Read by Tom Crawford
Chap 4 Part 1	31:37	Read by Tom Crawford
Chap 4 Part 2	33:53	Read by Tom Crawford
Chap 4 Part 3	38:04	Read by Tom Crawford
Chap 5 Part 1	20:07	Read by Tom Crawford
Chap 5 Part 2	33:29	Read by Tom Crawford
Chap 5 Part 3	25:44	Read by Tom Crawford

Reviews

(3 stars)

dws, winnipeg

The subdued ('monotonic') voice of this narrator is not entirely a bad thing..the prose is already so purple that we do not need him to add any extra drama of his own. The mispronunciations are not as bad or numerous as the other reviewer indicates , so this is by no means hard to follow. ( but landlocked listeners may find the deluge of nautical terms a bit hard to navigate ) .I am more inclined to thank this volunteer reader for the effort.

A very enjoyable listening experience

(5 stars)

Donald R Miller

This was my initial impression: "I'd probably give this volunteer effort three stars--which of course means that the reader did "a good job"--but the previous reviewer made such an unfair review that I feel compelled to compensate. Volunteering to read a book and following through on it is not easy, and most people don't bother doing it. While it's true that Librivox is fortunate enough to have theater-level volunteers, it's also true that that is just our good luck. Most volunteers are expected to be as this reader--someone interested in reading the book and of doing a competent job of it." My New Impression: I rather like Tom Crawford's reading, because his voice and manner give the rendering an authenticity that someone with a "polished voice" could not achieve. While I wouldn't think that this is Conrad reading his story, I can easily believe it is a shipmate of his. Totally disagree with the unmerited and extremely harsh comments by the previous reviewer.