The New York river is the Hudson, unquestionably. The East River is not really a river but an estuary, and it doesn't go anywhere. In any case, they both come out in the same place.
No, "400 years ago" is not out. Though settlement didn't begin until the early 17th century, European exploration of the immediate area dates to the 1520s.
Don't ask me how well it works. I don't really find Conrad a very comprehensible author, and little more so here. But McAvoy's accent seems OK in the opening minutes, particularly his first sentences which capture a mid-American drawl very well (it's not a specifically New York accent, but those are mostly an outer-borough working-class phenomenon, in the same way that only some Londoners speak Cockney).
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No, "400 years ago" is not out. Though settlement didn't begin until the early 17th century, European exploration of the immediate area dates to the 1520s.
Don't ask me how well it works. I don't really find Conrad a very comprehensible author, and little more so here. But McAvoy's accent seems OK in the opening minutes, particularly his first sentences which capture a mid-American drawl very well (it's not a specifically New York accent, but those are mostly an outer-borough working-class phenomenon, in the same way that only some Londoners speak Cockney).