Conradiana

ABSTRACT:

Joseph Conrad studiously introduced the living, unmediated, stammering, wheezing, and grunting voice into the written text. But how do you record the living voice in verbal format? Reading across the entirety of Conrad's fiction, I attempt the first systematic analysis of all of Conrad's seemingly unsystematic interjections and non-lexical expressions, such as the Brrroum, Pinnnng and Phooooo. The aim is to show that these prolific and seemingly trivial noise-effects are signature markers of Conrad's idiolect, and that they play a significant role in characterization, and the development of direct speech and interior monologues.