The Secret Sharer

by Joseph Conrad, ed. by Daniel R. Schwarz

Unless you’re a student of turn-of-the-century British literature and/or of Joseph Conrad, there is absolutely no reason to read this book. “The Secret Sharer” is actually a short story about a newly-appointed captain on a British merchant ship who harbors (no pun intended) a supposed fugitive from a different ship. This edition includes a basic introduction to literary criticism, including a short biography of Joseph Conrad and a bit of history that allows the reader to place the story in historical context.

Of course I didn’t read any of that because the only reason I even picked this up in the first place is because, while watching the season 2 DVDs of E.R., one episode was entitled “The Secret Sharer.” Several E.R. episode titles have literary allusions, most of which I’m familiar with, but not this one. Brian said we own the short story and suggested I read it, and I agreed. Well, I watched that episode in, oh, September? I started reading the book shortly thereafter and only decided the other day to give up on it.

One of the types of literary criticism the editor discusses is reader-response, which is fairly self-explanatory: it focuses on the reader’s experience of the text in question, in this case, Conrad’s “The Secret Sharer.” While I am not using reader-response theory to write this, let’s just say that my experience was arduous. I couldn’t get into the story, which isn’t all that long, and had to start over at least 3 times. For some reason, I couldn’t get past imagining the arrangement of the captain’s L-shaped cabin based on Conrad’s description. I kept wondering what happened that the captain suddenly was promoted and had a crew to whom he was a stranger. As I finally made my way through the story, I began to wonder if Leggatt, the alleged fugitive, was really only a figment of the captain’s imagination and thinking that if that were the case, I’d feel incredibly gypped for the time I spent reading the stupid thing. I swore to myself that I’d read the story only.

Imagine my surprise when, after finally finishing the story, I went back and read the biographical and historical intro, found it interesting, and proceeded to read the intro to various critical theories, each of which is demonstrated by an essay analyzing “The Secret Sharer” in each of the types of criticism mentioned. I even decided to watch that episode of E.R. again to compare what I had read about the story as well as the story itself, to the episode.

Then I came to my senses and realized that what I was doing was homework. And since I’m no longer a student and no longer teach, I decided that I was done with the book. But I discovered that the scholar in me, however infinitesimal that part of me might now be, still exists.