“Gaspar Ruiz”: A Vitagraph of Desire

Abstract

A SET OF SIX, regarded as Conrad's most varied collection of short serves in several ways as a bridge between Nostromo and the later novels. It can be located as a "suspension" in view of the quality of the stories that move towards yet unwritten, longer, far more complex novels. "The Informer" and "An Anarchist" are separate yet complementary nuclei to be reworked and incorporated in The Secret Agent, as "The Duel" and "II Conde" will be in Under Western Eyes and Victory. In Robert Penn Warren's words, from his introduction to the Modern Library Edition of Nostromo, these later novels are "by and large, specializations and elabora tions of elements that had been in suspension in that work" (cited in Guerard 1957: 216). At first sight, however, the forward thrust binding these stories together seems missing in "Gaspar Ruiz," which reaches backwards to the material of Nostromo. The short story with which the collection opens seems to unhinge itself from the stories that follow, and the "failure" of Conrad's plan to write another cycle of South American novels, similar to the Malay Lingard trilogy, centred on Gaspar Ruiz (or Benavides according to the story's literary source) does hint at the short story's resistance to be reworked as another piece of prose.