Under Western Eyes (version 2)

"But it is a vain enterprise for sophisticated Europe to try and understand these doings." Set in St Petersburg and Geneva, this austere and claustrophobic psycho-political tragedy focusses on the terrible plight of Razumov, a bright young student without family ties whose chance to live his own life is snatched from him the moment a fellow student takes refuge in his room after helping assassinate a Russian statesman. Razumov's profound sense of grief and bitterness at the cruel logic of his predicament may well reflect Conrad's own reaction to having his childhood and early teen years stolen from him, cruelly subsumed by the disastrous consequences of his Polish parents' resistance to Russian brutality and domination. (Summary by Peter Dann)