Under Western Eyes cover art

Under Western Eyes

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Under Western Eyes

By: Joseph Conrad
Narrated by: Geoffrey Howard
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

 Under Western Eyes, Joseph Conrad's novel of political treachery and oppression, of betrayal, guilt, and intrigue, begins with a bomb that kills its intended target, a hated Russian minister of police, along with a number of innocent bystanders. A young student named Razumov hides the perpetrator, then betrays him and becomes a spy among his exiled comrades. He faces a moral dilemma from which there is no escape.

Conrad professed that he intended to render "the psychology of Russia", a country being driven by a Czarist despotism into anarchy by revolutionaries, "unable to see that all they can effect is merely a change of names". This masterwork, published six years before the Russian Revolution, is a chillingly accurate prophecy of what was to come.

(P)1997 Blackstone Audio Inc. Classics Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Imperialism

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Nostromo cover art
Within the Tides cover art
Chance: A Tale in Two Parts cover art
Heart of Darkness (Unabridged) cover art
Youth and Heart of Darkness cover art
Typhoon cover art
Dead Souls cover art
Victory cover art
Lord Jim cover art
The Secret Agent cover art
Heart of Darkness: A Signature Performance by Kenneth Branagh cover art
Silence cover art
A Hero of Our Time cover art
The Ultimate Gothic Horror Collection: Novels and Stories from Edgar Allan Poe; Bram Stoker, Henry James, Mary Shelley, Oscar Wilde; and More cover art
Edgar Allan Poe - The Complete Stories and Poems cover art
Speak Memory cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
Joseph Conrad provides a beautifully told story through the insights and words (mostly) of a British journalist covering Russia at the turn of the Century. Taking place in St Petersburg and Switzerland we gain insights into revolutionaries, terrorism, plots, state police, betrayal, love, trust, bravery and lots more. The story is told through a range of characters whose lives and relationships connect - some happily, some tensely, some tragically. Beautifully written and narrated it is filled with tension, suspicion and suspense, although elements become more predictable as the story unfolds. There's a neat twist on what is it that makes 'character' and whether the villain himself displays more than some of the other 'revolutionists'. Interesting and enjoyable classic.

Suspicion, suspense and story-telling

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
From early on I noticed strong parallels with Dostoyevsky's 'Crime and Punishment' - and was then surprised to discover that Conrad had little regard for Dostoyevsky. The theme is similar: a young, emotionally rootless student commits a crime; in this case the betrayal to death of a Revolutionary fellow student, only to find an intuitive need for personal redemption.
The structure of the novel makes it difficult to follow at times, but I found that the synopsis of the plot on Wikipedia helped me to navigate the shifts in time and place without giving away what was to come next (because both the novel and the synopsis are written in four distinct parts). This difficulty was, in part, due to a rather wooden narration, with limited tone, and not much attempt to characterize the different protagonists. However, I managed to acclimatise myself to this reasonably quickly.
I found Conrad's portrayal of the diehard revolutionaries as ' dazzled by the base glitter of mixed motives, everlastingly betrayed by short sighted wisdom' had a convincing psychological authenticity to it. Would I recommend this novel? Yes, I would.

A multifaceted study of the psychology of betrayal

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A gripping spy thriller that should be better known. Written before the Russian Revolution; but its world of spies, terrorists, secret police, idealists and cynics, and everyone stuck in between their machinations has stayed completely relevant for a hundred years.

A jarring framing device that interrupts the story at intervals, is probably what keeps this out of the top of the Conrad canon. But I find it more enjoyable than The Secret Agent, maybe because of the more relatable protagonist-- the reluctant double-agent Razumov, full of bitter contempt for both sides, tormented by his conscience, and hopelessly between a rock and a hard place.

As for the audio-- the reader makes no attempt to dramatise or provide individual voices for the characters, but reads in a clear, consistent, slightly clinical tone that works well with Conrad's prose but less well with the scenes of high drama and emotion. In the absence of a really great performance this a decent version, neither adding nor detracting from the book.

Gripping spy thriller

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.