FROM NARRATOR TO NARRATEE AND FROM AUTHOR TO READER: CONRAD AND HIS AUDIENCE

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Conrad was acutely aware of his audience. He knew that as readers we often misread and misunderstand; he was also possessed of the knowledge that, seen from his perspective as a writer, the narrative communication between author and reader is unstable and fragile. Moreover, Conrad of course also knew, and accepted, that readers read differently, and that there is no such thing as a “master reading.” In this essay I want to argue that, partly because of his recognition of the diffi culties and challenges pertaining to written and oral communication, partly because of the intrinsic complexity of what the wanted to say, Conrad sought to develop narrative strategies in ways which could enhance the possibility of meaningful communicative contact. By “meaningful” I mean a form of reading that responds, however imperfectly and incompletely, to the fi ctional work’s “textual intention” (Chatman 1990, 104; cf. Lothe 2000, 19), that is the intention which the reader can extrapolate from the verb

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