TYPHOON……. by Joseph Conrad
“the sudden smashing of a vial of wrath”

By JOHN ANDREW SNYDER

Polish-born seaman Joseph Conrad is a giant of English literature for several reasons -- he was an excellent story-teller; he knew whereof he spoke, namely ships, sailors, the hazards to be encountered on the bounding main and in far-off, romantic corners of the world; he was insightful and universal, and his descriptions display his love and enthusiasm for the dignity of the English language, his adoptive tongue that he mastered like few native speakers have been able to do.
Conrad wrote two kinds of novels, long sea tales and shorter ones. His best-known longer works are Lord Jim, Nostromo, and The Secret Agent, while Heart of Darkness, Almayer’s Folly, Typhoon, and The Secret Sharer are three of his brilliant shorter pieces.
Many critics and Conradophiles regard Typhoon as the author’s best shorter effort.
It is the story of an ordeal at sea experienced by Captain McWhirr -- what a perfect name for the captain of a steamship caught in a spinning storm!
Captain McWhirr is depicted as a seagoing Everyman, at first: “Captain McWhirr had sailed over the surface of the oceans as some men go skimming over the years of existence to sink gently into a passive grave, ignorant of life to the last, without ever having been made to see all it may contain of perfidy, of violence, and of terror.” Throughout the story the sea is a metaphor for life itself, which ends up testing everyone’s mettle by placing them in challenging situations.
Although he had spent many years at sea, Captain McWhirr was as yet unfamiliar with radical situations that tried a captain’s character and abilities to the utmost. And since “he had no idea of cataclysms,” the typhoon through which he had to navigate the steamship Nan Shan proved to be the crucible of his ultimate worthiness.
The storm’s ominous approach and untrammeled fury provide Conrad the opportunity to give free rein to his considerable powers of description and his talent for mood-setting: “A faint burst of lightning quivered all round, as if flashed into a cavern -- into a black and secret chamber of the sea, with a floor of foaming crests.” Soon, “the whole black universe seemed to reel
together with the ship.”
The storm managed to wreak havoc with the captain, the crew, and the Chinese coolie passengers, as it practically dismantled the vessel as it battered it at will. But the Nan Shan held up and Captain McWhirr skillfully kept the ship afloat and all its human cargo alive and aboard throughout the desperate ordeal. Everyman turned out to be a quite extraordinary person.