He's most famous for his work "Heart of Darkness", which was an excellent look at the darkness in the human soul. But he captured me before I read that novella, with his short autobiographical story "Youth". The first two sentences did the trick:
"This could have occurred nowhere but in England, where men and sea interpenetrate, so to speak--the sea entering into the life of most men, and the men knowing something or everything about the sea, in the way of amusement, of travel, or of breadwinning.
We were sitting around a mahogany table that reflected the bottle, the claret-glasses, and our faces as we leaned on our elbows."
Awright, let's have a little fun with words and look at the first sentence. It's a quintessential example of the way they wrote at the turn of the century--a long sentence that at once sets the scene and the time. It's also a masterly opening: "This could have occurred". That raises the prompt question "What?" Conrad doesn't answer the question till the following page, but you don't mind the wait. The scene: the broad, broad ocean and the English sailors upon her. The time: back when the ocean was England's great thoroughfare. Conrad makes reference to steamers as well as sailing ships, so the turn of the century is a safe guess for time. But we don't need an exact year; with Conrad, the general time is enough.
The second sentence is my personal favorite. It's such a well-crafted scene, with such economy of words and such a vivid picture. With that one sentence, we know they must be in a well-to-do setting--mahogany and claret are not for the lower classes! And it's well-kept, for the table is polished brightly enough to serve as a mirror. And that is also why I love this sentence: simply by mentioning the reflection, Conrad tells us what's on the table, what's going on, and who is around the table. He is non-specific as yet, and still clear enough that we understand.
The mention of the claret glasses and the men leaning on their elbows--it must be after dinner, and these men are meeting together to talk, either to discuss business or to visit. Visiting seems more likely, given the casual pose of leaning on the table, and further in the paragraph, we learn we're right. They're visiting with each other, and one man has a particular story to tell of an incident in his youth. But for now, they are meeting. That's all we need to know.
The rest of the story is interesting: a coal barque's trials in attempting to get the cargo to Bangkok, and the disaster that ultimately befalls the ill-fated ship. But those first two sentences--those are genius.
