Whew, this one was a slog. This was due in part to my schedule at the time that I was reading it, but even so, I don't think this warrants Fitzgerald's comment, "I'd rather have written Nostromo than any other novel." The character of Nostromo is fascinating--but we get so, so little of him in the book. While I could recognize Conrad's talent in this work, I could not bring myself to rate it higher than three stars due to the laborious, dead-horse-beating nature of the book. I strongly preferred Lord Jim (or even Heart of Darkness).