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UNDER WESTERN EYES is a 1911 novel by JOSEPH CONRAD first published in the US by HARPER & BROTHERS in 1911. The novel takes place in St. Petersburg, Russia, and Geneva, Switzerland, and is viewed as Conrad's response to the themes explored in Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment; Conrad was reputed to have detested Dostoevsky. It has also been interpreted as Conrad's response to his own early life; his father was a Polish independence activist and would-be revolutionary imprisoned by the Russians, but, instead of following in his father's footsteps, at the age of sixteen Conrad left his native land, only to return briefly decades later. Indeed, while writing Under Western Eyes, Conrad suffered a weeks-long breakdown during which he conversed with the novel's characters in Polish.
This novel is considered to be one of Conrad's major works and is close in subject matter to The Secret Agent. It is full of cynicism and conflict about the historical failures of revolutionary movements and ideals.
The novel was adapted into a film in 1936; and into a full-length opera in 1969. It was also adapted into a stage play that premiered at Teatr Polski in Warsaw on June 8, 2018.
UNDER WESTERN EYES
$12.75