100 Years of Joseph Conrad's Absence...नव्या नगाऱ्याच्या आवाजात फार दुर्लक्षित झाले आहेत

 जी ए कुलकर्णी, मे १७ १९८०:

"...Conrad किंवा Hardy सारखे लेखक नव्या नगाऱ्याच्या आवाजात फार दुर्लक्षित झाले आहेत. विशेषतः Conrad मला फार श्रेष्ठ लेखक वाटतो. कारण त्याचे कथानक एक metaphor असतो, तर विषय जीवनातील साक्षात्कार किंवा भ्रमनिरास किंवा anguish चे असतात..."

 

(पृष्ठ: १९४, 'जी.एं.ची निवडक पत्रे: खंड १', १९९५)

 

Jacob Epstein, "Let There Be Sculpture", 1940:

 

"...A sculptor had previously made a bust of him which represented him as an open-necked, romantic, out-of-door type of person. In appearance he was the very opposite. His clothes were immaculately conventional, and his collar enclosed his neck like an Iron Maiden’s vice or a garroter’s grip. He was worried if his hair and beard were not trim and neat as became a sea captain. There was nothing shaggy or Bohemian about him. His glance was keen despite the drooping of one eyelid. He was the sea captain, the officer, and in our talks he emphasized the word “responsibility.” Responsibility weighed on him, weighed him down. He used the word again and again, and one immediately thought of Lord Jim—the conscience suffering at the evasion of duty. It may have been because I met him late in life that Conrad gave me a feeling of defeat; but defeat met with courage...

 

....He was a good sitter, always strictly punctual, and he stuck to the stand, giving me plenty of opportunity for work and study. I was with him for twenty-one days. Once, while posing, he had a heart attack, and he felt faint. His manservant brought him a stiff whisky, and he insisted on renewing the sitting. I had no hesitations while at work, owing to his very sympathetic attitude. A doubtful or critical attitude of the sitter will sometimes hang like a dark cloud over the work and retard it. Conrad’s sympathy and good will were manifest. He would beam at me with a pleased expression and forget his rheumatism and the tree outside the window at which he railed. The tree was large and beautiful, but to Conrad it was a source of misery." 

 

  Bust of Joseph Conrad, by Jacob Epstein, 1924 at National Portrait Gallery, London