One of the unifying themes that runs through Joseph Conrad's work is the problem of perception: two people can witness the same event and come away with completely diverging impressions of what occurred. Given his preoccupation with perception, it comes as no surprise that Some Reminiscences, the closest thing to a memoir that Conrad ever published, is a loosely interconnected series of observations, essays, and vignettes, rather than a traditional, linear "e;life story."e;