This is the book that I most frequently recommend to others.

It achieves a near-perfect equilibrium of character, plot, and theme, which is extremely difficult to discover and is truly powerful.

What I also find inspiring is that English was Joseph Conrad's third language, yet he was able to pen exceptional and elegant prose.

Joseph Conrad's books about sailing are among his most captivating, as they draw on his personal experiences.

Even someone like me, who grew up in a very landlocked area, can sense every detail vividly.

My high school English teacher used to encourage us to read this book, but I didn't do so until years later.

I was going through a major health issue at that time, and I had a copy that my grandfather had passed down to me.

"Lord Jim" was so engrossing that one of my two pre-surgery backup goals was to complete it. (The other was to finish editing my own novel.)

Joseph Conrad's story came to life completely, and finding out what happened to Jim became extremely important and personal to me.

The language of the text is intricately woven. This is an incredibly well-written book and an all-time classic piece of literature.

I don't know if there has ever been an exhaustive study of Conrad's influence on T.S. Eliot. However, while reading Lord Jim, I couldn't help but sense that the influence extends far beyond a mere footnote. The most renowned example is, of course, Eliot's epigram from Heart of Darkness (“Mistah Kurtz -- he dead.”).

Lesser known is another Heart of Darkness epigram that, before Pound dismissed it, set things in motion for “The Wasteland.” But buried deeper within “The Hollow Men” are the lines “Between the idea / And the Reality…/ Falls the Shadow.” These lines, which could potentially have multiple sources given Eliot's vast knowledge, are so central to Lord Jim and are stated so prominently that I'm convinced Eliot had a copy stashed away somewhere.

Jim is a romantic, much like Conrad想必也曾是, with dreams of the sea and heroic notions about himself. The “realities” he encounters will soon shatter these fixed assumptions, yet Jim never abandons or adjusts his ideas regarding duty and obligation. No one is more critical of Jim than Jim himself. This moral dilemma is quintessentially Conradian, the kind of thing one encounters in numerous of his stories and novels. Jim, in many ways, might be the perfect embodiment, within a character, of this dilemma (although an argument could be made for the darker Nostromo). Jim is Conrad's flawed angel of light, his Billy Budd. It's evident that Conrad has a great deal invested in him, to the extent that plot mechanics seem secondary to the character. In fact, in my edition, before the start of the novel, Conrad states that, while believing an author should not favor (in public at least) one book over another, he is not “grieved and annoyed by the preference some people give to my Lord Jim.” This is probably because Jim is as close as we'll get to Conrad (who, as a young man, attempted suicide) himself. Jim is not a suicide, but he does wish to lose himself after the shame of abandoning a ship full of pilgrims. This shame, this failure, creates an unbridgeable chasm within Jim. The resulting trial catches the eye of Marlow, who narrates Jim's story.

But to say “narrates” is an oversimplification. The storytelling weaves in and out, not following a linear path. Events are concealed or only partially revealed to the reader, as Marlow retraces his steps, remembers, speculates, and so on. All of this can be quite irritating – if you let it. For me, Conrad is a writer who should be read aloud. He casts a spell, and at his best (and I would rank Lord Jim among Conrad's finest works), it's a spell that endures. Small moments, such as a conversation with a French Lieutenant regarding Jim, struck me as modernist writing at its absolute best, rich with meaning, dense in both image and word, like a poem. And yet, for all the hazy musings, Conrad can be a writer of action. There are few writers I know who can so successfully muse over the tragic nature of man and then write about shotgun duels on the beach. If you appreciate that kind of range in your reading, Conrad is the author for you.

**Postimpressionism or Premodernism? Simply a Masterpiece Straddling Two Eras**

By a strange coincidence, I found myself reading three English literature books in sequence, published within a rather short time span between 1886 and 1912. Besides the small volume containing three stories by Mary Cholmondeley, before "Lord Jim", I tackled "The Lost World" by Arthur Conan Doyle. All three books contain stories that might seem of a certain "genre": stories of adventures, travels to exotic and unknown countries, or horror stories. All were originally published in widely circulated magazines, although the Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, on which "Lord Jim" appeared in installments between 1899 and 1900 (rarely were dates more symbolic), was an illustrious magazine that had hosted authors of the caliber of Shelley, Coleridge, and Wordsworth, and thus cannot be compared to the "popular" magazines on which Cholmondeley and Doyle published.

However, the similarities between these three books end here. Elsewhere, I have already noted the formal and substantial distance that exists between Doyle's novel and Cholmondeley's stories. Even more can be found between the works of these two authors and Conrad's novel, testifying to the extraordinary wealth and variety of British literature at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, of which this trio of authors represents only a tiny part. This distance can be expressed with a qualitative formulation, which I think is advisable to specify immediately: while "The Lost World" rises above the "genre" novel only formally, and solely thanks to the author's "technical" ability, and while Cholmondeley's stories surely represent works of a very good literary level, in the case of "Lord Jim", we are faced with a true masterpiece, one of the (fortunately, in my opinion, many) landmarks of literature of all time.
"Lord Jim" is a masterpiece because it has a narrative stratification that allows for multiple interpretive levels, because each reader can find their own story in it, because it poses questions that we have all asked ourselves at some point (or will ask, if we are very young), because it speaks of a man ("one of us", according to the famous annotation in the introduction to the novel written by Conrad in 1917) but also of a world that, by analogy, could be "our world", and finally (last but not least) because it is written wonderfully. The language of "Lord Jim", perhaps also because for Conrad English was his third language, is extremely evocative, rich in colors, I would dare to say postimpressionist; in my opinion, it owes a great deal to Robert L. Stevenson, who can be considered Conrad's great master (even if Conrad had difficulty recognizing this influence), and perhaps finds its counterparts in the paintings of Paul Gaugin (also for the commonality of themes) and in the music of Claude Debussy. A language that roots itself in the 19th century to serve a story that, as we will see, anticipates the 20th century, that is, a novel that is both postimpressionist and premodernist: this is what I consider one of the reasons for the undoubted charm of this book.
However, I realize that I have lied by stating that each reader can find their own story in "Lord Jim": in reality, as the scathing reviews and abandonments found on the internet testify, there are readers who are negatively disoriented by this novel. These are those who, attracted by the exotic setting, believe they are facing an adventure novel written by a sort of English Salgari (English?). Their hopes, I dare to venture, remain rather firm for the first four chapters, even if the beginning is not exactly the thrilling one they expected: it is too prosaic that the hero of the book is presented as a skilled gambler, and the description of Jim's first failure as a young apprentice seaman in a stormy night is too "confused". The story of the Patna, immediately after, seems to promise well: there is a renegade German captain from New South Wales, and the rest of the crew is also composed of few good people. However, suddenly, after it is not even clear what has happened, there is a sudden time jump forward, and we find ourselves in the middle of an investigation against Jim: the narrative confusion seems to be at its peak, but the will is still to go on to see "how it will end". All in all, there is still one certainty, and it is represented by one of the beacons to rely on in such cases: the omniscient narrator, who, if at the beginning has created a bit of fog with his jumpy progress, will surely also be able to bring the ship of the story to the safe port of sequentiality and action. But here, starting from the fifth chapter, even this last certainty is lost: the omniscient narrator is replaced by Marlow, an older seaman than young Jim, whom he meets during the trial that Jim undergoes for the bad business of the Patna, becomes his friend, and from this moment on will speak of Jim both by recounting his encounters and conversations with him and by reporting what he has learned about his life from other people. Marlow will tell Jim's stories “… in the following, many times, in distant parts of the world… Perhaps a dozen years later, on a veranda adorned with immobile foliage and crowned with flowers, in the darkness of the dusk punctuated by the burning tips of cigars.” Marlow shatters the remaining certainties or hopes of our readers: he is indeed an even more "confusing" narrator than the first, because he does not write but speaks, and speaking obviously jumps from one thing to another, anticipates facts that he has to return to, tells other stories within the story, and rambles on in personal considerations. In addition, Marlow, not being omniscient, does not know the whole story but only some pieces, and even those are filtered through his experience and his way of seeing things. In short, our readers in search of adventures feel betrayed: the story "does not take off", because for something to happen, it is necessary to endure page after page of elucubrations, and when something finally happens, it is rarely the action that dominates. The result is the abandonment of the book or, upon reaching the end, its classification as "boring" or "confusing", up to the utterance of the supreme anathema: a "slow" novel (on slowness in literature - and not only - as a disadvantage, a fruitful socio-philosophical debate could be opened).
For those who, on the other hand, are not looking for an "adventure" novel but for a work in which this is constituted by the narrator's ability to make one reflect, to pose essential questions, to speak of a world that, even if distant in time and space, can be perceived as extremely current, Jim's life through the eyes of Marlow, sometimes benevolent, sometimes irritated, sometimes disappointed, sometimes moved, constitutes one of the most fascinating elements of the novel, as well as being one of the features that project it heavily towards 20th-century literature. Marlow's is not a true "stream of consciousness", but something very similar to it; I would define it as a "stream of chats" that extends practically uninterrupted for a full 41 chapters and represents, as Domenico Starnone very well says in his precious preface, the "great invention of Conrad", the expedient through which he delivers to us an enigmatic and multifaceted story in which, as said, each of us can find our own story without being forced to accept the "truth" that the omniscient narrator fixes by definition. It is no coincidence that in another of his absolute masterpieces, "Heart of Darkness", written almost contemporaneously with "Lord Jim", the story will again be told by Marlow, who also appears in some other novels by Conrad.
But what are the questions posed by this great and disturbing novel? The first, and perhaps the central one, concerns what will be one of the great themes of 20th-century literature: the inadequacy of the individual with respect to his moral and social duties. Jim from the beginning imagines himself capable of performing great deeds, “… saving people from sinking ships, cutting the rigging during a hurricane, swimming in the foam of the waves with a lifeboat…”, but already at the first "true" test, the rescue of some sailors at sea after a collision, he "will arrive late". Subsequently, there will be the bad business of the "Patna", one of the central episodes of the novel and undoubtedly the one that will mark Jim's life. He pays his debt to society for his inadequate behavior (unlike his comrades), but this is of no importance to him: he must redeem himself, he must have another chance, and until this arrives, he will be forced to flee, pursued by his inner ghosts. The opportunity presents itself thanks to Marlow's affection and Stein's trust, and he seizes it, becoming Tuan Jim, the lord of the indigenous community of Patusan, wise and decisive: there he also finds love, and it seems that his ghosts have now disappeared, until the river is ascended by Brown's ship. Many of us, I believe, find ourselves in Jim, in his fears, his stammers, and his dreams: the distance between what we believe we are and what we really are is a common experience for anyone who has at least once tried to analyze their own behavior frankly, and it has happened to all of us to arrive "too late" or to abandon a sinking ship, then trying to redeem ourselves.
However, to push us a little beyond this "individualistic" understanding of Jim's story, we can add an observation: Jim is not a coward (he proves this many times, especially at the end), he is not cunning: he is "inadequate" because the "things", the circumstances, are damnably complicated, and he cannot make the right decision. Jim is not in tune with the world, or rather the world in which he lives functions according to logics that are foreign to him: the logics of business, exploitation, subjugation. His decisions, at least in Patusan (incidentally, how many similarities between this remote settlement and Kurtz's base), are dictated by a deep sense of justice and also of trust in others, but they will prove inadequate with respect to the "rules" of society, generating in those who have built their small power within the framework of these rules the silent rancor that will lead to the denouement of the story.
By expanding our view a little more, we can ask ourselves: who is Jim, specifically who does he represent? Conrad tells us that he is "one of us", but who are "we"? I fully embrace Starnone's thesis, according to which "we" are all the "people of good feelings, beautiful souls of the West" who still believe in the fairy tale of superior civilization, of democracy to export, of the values of our roots opposed to those of others, and do not see how the world in which we live really functions. Let us reread some passages of the book in this light, and in particular the part of the story that takes place in Patusan: as said, Jim becomes "Tuan Jim" because he frees the indigenous people from the raids of Sherif Ali and the oppression of Tunku Allang, who were contending for the predominance of trade by exploiting the population, and exhausts the corrupt Portuguese Cornelius. The arrival of Brown will mark the inevitable end of the democratization of Patusan, because Brown represents the true soul of the colonial enterprise, the black soul, that of the plundering of raw materials, of violence, of slavery: Jim does not recognize this soul and believes that Brown, being white, acts on the basis of a moral code similar to his: for this reason, he allows him to leave. But Brown and Cornelius know how the world functions, and for them, it will be very easy to push Jim back into the abyss of his inadequacy, which now will give him only one way out.
I have omitted so many things about this splendid book: the stories of the "minor" characters, Jim's love for Jewel, the vivid descriptions of ports, islands, seas, and forests: I have tried to say as little as possible about the plot, at the cost of being cryptic, because this is a book that must be read firsthand, savoring it page by page, because it can leave a lot, something, or perhaps only the awareness of being a damnably "slow" book to everyone.

Jim, a young man with no other name but the rather pretentious one of Lord that he acquires later. He is the son of an English clergyman and has a thirst for adventure, especially at sea. At the age of 23, he becomes the first mate of the rusty, old, local steamer Patna, which sails from port to port, mostly in the western Pacific.

However, everything changes when the Patna is taking 800 pilgrims to Mecca. Something hits the ship underneath, causing a major leak. Jim opens a hatch and sees water flooding the ship. He reports to the obese German captain, and the officers, who are not very brave, agree with him that the ship will soon sink. They decide that there is little time left before the vessel goes under, and without warning, they take the only lifeboat left after a vigorous struggle, leaving one man dead who collapses of a heart attack. Jim, after some wavering, finally jumps into the sea to save himself.

Strangely, the Patna doesn't disappear under the waves, and everyone is rescued by a French gunboat. Of course, all the officers' careers are over as nobody would hire such cowards. Jim testifies at the naval inquiry, but all the officers lose their papers. Later, Jim travels from Asian harbor to harbor, getting supplies for ships in need but always sneaking off when his true identity is discovered. He meets Captain Marlow, an old friend, and his fortune improves when he is given a job by Mr. Stein, a rich European trader with a fabulous butterfly collection, in an Indonesian island jungle. He quickly defeats a local warlord and earns the name Lord Jim for his efforts. He has power and finds love with a mixed race girl, but will he ever cleanse his soul of his demons? Enemies are lurking around, trying to bring down his jungle kingdom. This is the story of a man who seeks redemption and a place under the sun to live happily, fully, and not be condemned for his past indiscretions, one of Joseph Conrad's greatest novels.

Honour, once lost...

As a youth, Jim dreamed of glory, certain that one day a challenge would come his way, presenting him with the opportunity to prove his honour to the world. But when that moment arrived, an act of cowardice consigned him to the outer darkness, despised by his peers and, most painfully, by himself. Hounded from place to place, with his story forever dogging his heels, Jim was eventually offered a position in Patusan, a small country on a remote Indonesian island. Here, among natives who neither knew nor cared about his past, he hoped to start afresh. But despite the admiration and even love he won there, Jim remained burdened by his disgrace and guilt.

The long first section introduces Jim and provides some background on his upbringing as the son of a clergyman, trained to be an officer in the merchant fleet. It then tells the story of his fateful voyage aboard the Patna, a rather dilapidated vessel carrying hundreds of pilgrims across the Arabian Sea en route to Mecca. Marlow, our narrator, first encounters Jim during the official inquiry into this voyage, so we know from the outset that something went horribly wrong. Jim alone of the ship’s officers has remained to face the inquiry, and Marlow becomes captivated by this young man, whose actions seem so at odds with his appearance.

  “...all the time I had before me these blue, boyish eyes looking straight into mine, this young face, these capable shoulders, the open bronzed forehead with a white line under the roots of clustering fair hair, this appearance appealing at sight to all my sympathies: this frank aspect, the artless smile, the youthful seriousness. He was of the right sort; he was one of us.”

As in Heart of Darkness, Conrad is exploring the effects of colonialism, not on the colonised, but on the colonisers. Through Jim, he shows how the Empire has transformed the British conception of the rank of “gentleman”. No longer simply a title denoting the land-owning class, it has now come to represent a set of virtues – courage, moral rectitude, fairness, chivalry, patriotism, and honour. Despite the book’s title, Jim is not a member of the aristocracy; he is one of the new middle-class breed of gentlemen, educated in these virtues and dispatched to carry British values throughout the vast reaches of the Empire. So his disgrace is not merely a personal matter; it undermines the image the British project as a validation of their right to rule. Where an aristocrat with family power and wealth behind him might fall and be forgiven, these new gentlemen have only their virtues to justify their rank, and to fail in them is to lose that status – to be no longer “one of us”.

The story of the Patna is masterfully told. Marlow takes his time in revealing the ship’s fate, digressing frequently to build a fascinating picture of the transient world of the merchant seamen who serviced the trade routes of the various colonial powers. As he finally reaches the incident that irrevocably changes Jim’s life and its aftermath, Conrad employs some wonderful horror imagery, again more related to the imagined than the real. Imagination seems central to his theme – Jim’s imagination of how he would respond in a crisis compared to the reality, the imagined virtues of the gentleman, the imagined role of the colonisers as just and paternalistic, if stern, guardians of their colonised “natives”. Even the fate of the Patna is more imagined than real, demonstrating that honour and its loss depend on intent rather than effect.

The second section of the book is not quite as successful. When Marlow visits Jim in Patusan some years later, Jim tells him of his life there, how he has found a measure of peace in this isolated place, among natives who have bestowed upon him the honorific title of “Lord” as a reward for bringing peace and prosperity where there had previously been only strife. Even allowing for the imagined fable-like quality of the story, Jim’s rise to prominence in this society smacks a little too much of white superiority to be entirely comfortable reading, and his love affair with the woman he calls Jewel (white, of course, but not English, and therefore not his equal) is filled with high melodrama and exalted suffering. However, the knowledge that he can never reclaim his place in the world of the white man festers, while his terror persists that his new-found respect could be lost if his story becomes known or, worse, if he faces another test of character and fails again. After a rather too lengthy slog through this part of the story, the pace and quality pick up once more, with the final section possessing all the depth and power of the earlier Patna segment.

The quality of the writing and imagery is excellent, although I found the structure Conrad uses to tell the story makes it a more challenging read than it perhaps needs to be and requires some suspension of disbelief. Jim’s story is relayed to us as a first-person account within a third-person frame, as our narrator, Marlow, relates Jim’s story to a group of colonial friends after dinner one evening. This device means that the bulk of the book is presented within quotation marks, which can become rather confusing when Marlow is reporting conversations, especially those at second-hand between third parties. The repeated use of nested punctuation marks like “‘“...”’” can make the modern reader (this one, at any rate) wince, and I found myself frequently having to re-read paragraphs more than once to be certain of who had said what to whom. The idea of Marlow telling around 75% of the story in one long after-dinner tale is also rather clumsy – the audiobook lasts 16 hours, so I can only assume Marlow’s friends were willing to sit listening not just until dawn but roughly until lunchtime the following day.

These quibbles aside, the book is a wonderful study of the British gentleman who, as a class, ruled the Empire – a character who appears in simpler forms in everything from Rider Haggard’s African adventure stories to Agatha Christie’s retired colonials. Conrad shows how this type was imagined into being and how crucial it was to the British sense of their own identity abroad and their justification for their right to rule. If we are more virtuous than everyone else, is it not natural that we should be their lords? And having imagined ourselves in this way, what is left of us, as individuals and as cogs in the Imperial machine, if we stumble, weaken, and fail?

An excellent book, both in terms of the extraordinary story of Jim’s life and for its depth and insight into the Victorian Imperial mindset. Highly recommended. 4½ stars for me, so rounded up.

NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Oxford World’s Classics. As usual, the knowledgeable introduction and notes, this time by Jacques Berthoud, were of great assistance in situating the book within its literary and historical context and in giving me food for thought, thus helping to inform my review.

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I don't know why, but 'Lord Jim' by Joseph Conrad somehow echoes Star Wars. They share the same mythic quality, the same romantic dreaming of quest hopefulness and the testing of one's mettle. However, until something really bad happens, and naive inexperience gives way to heartrending reality, their paths diverge. Star Wars evolves into a space opera, while 'Lord Jim' focuses more on the singular destiny of a man.

Star Wars lacks moral uncertainties, but 'Lord Jim' accurately reflects the real-life play of moral decisions made on the fly. These decisions can destroy or uplift a person in the eyes of society after the fact. Lord Jim cannot be a hero or villain in his own eyes until society makes the call. Yet, Jim has a peculiar internal moral guide that is a more difficult master to satisfy. A terrifying lack of self-forgiveness sets Jim on a unique adventure of finding redemption on a literal clean slate. It's as if he is given a reinvented do-over that completely wipes out the previous universe where he messed up so badly.

The usual fear of death in all human beings underlies Jim's destiny, yet it is never overt. Conrad repeatedly mentions how much Jim's physical appearance affects how people perceive his behavior. His youth is crucial to the story, yet like death, it is only hinted at periodically as a logical excuse for him, which no one allows, especially himself.

The act of defining oneself within the imposed standards and limits of society, any society in the world, is a tough and deadly serious business if one is a friendless outsider. The soundness of a man can be the key to it all. At least, that seems to be one of the main interesting themes Conrad explores in 'Lord Jim'.

I think I read Lord Jim sometime in 2010. However, it wasn't until 2011, when I joined Goodreads (GR), that I might have marked it as "Read". Anyway, it has now popped up in my feed again, reminding me of the special sentimental value it holds for me. It's so special that back in 2010, I even wrote a poem about it. Coincidentally, it happens to be one of my very first published poems. Although the magazine in which it was published is now discontinued, the poem still lingers online in its original form:

Camroc Press Review: I Remember This Book

Rather than writing a detailed review, I'll simply put the poem here.

(I couldn't resist making a few minor corrections to the punctuation and such. But hey, it's my poem, and it's been ages since 2010, when I first started writing. I can correct my poem to my heart's content. At least it's one of the pieces I'm still not ashamed of many years later.;))

I Remember This Book

I remember this book,
It stood with Nostromo and Typhoon,
Lord Jim in white letters
On its grayish spine.

I remember it in my father's hands,
He's lying on a couch,
Slowly turning the pages,
Entranced by Joseph Conrad.

How come I'm forty and
I still have not read it?

I'm reading it now, better late than never,
Pull it out of my dusty bookshelf,
From a cluster of Conrad's titles.

That's all that is left from my father—
My brother, I and a bunch of soft covers,
All still in a good condition.

I'm reading Lord Jim,
It captivates me by its exquisite sound,
Talks to me from its solemn pages,
Mixing grief with ironic sparkles.

All the time I see my father
With the same book on a couch.
If only I could ask him... tell him...
Perhaps he's reading over my shoulder
Smiling with satisfaction.

Sure, I don't believe it,
I know he quit reading forever.
Still, he's here with me
Between the Lord Jim lines.

Sara Bakewell, in her book "At the Existentialist Café", quotes a sentence from the article "How I am Guilty" by Karl Jaspers that immediately reminds me of Lord Jim: "If something has happened and I was present and in a place where others have been killed and I have come out alive, a voice within me cries out: I am guilty because I am still alive." In my opinion, Lord Jim expresses this voice.

Lord Jim's story is a complex exploration of guilt and responsibility. His actions during a critical moment at sea lead to a sense of profound guilt that haunts him throughout his life. The incident forces him to confront his own mortality and the choices he has made.

Bakewell's reference to Jaspers' idea of guilt adds another layer of depth to the understanding of Lord Jim's character. It shows how the concept of guilt can be internalized and how it can shape a person's identity and actions.

Overall, the connection between Bakewell's quote and Lord Jim highlights the universal theme of guilt and the human struggle to come to terms with our past mistakes and actions.

My desire to reread this novel emerged after reading a review here on Goodreads. It was said that "Lord Jim" is the twin brother of the story Heart of Darkness. After all, they were written at the same time. More precisely, Conrad took a break from writing "Lord Jim", wrote "Heart of Darkness" - and then returned to "Lord Jim".

Well, I said to myself, the comparison seems a bit far-fetched, because Kurtz and Jim are completely different characters. Jim is a romantic person, and Kurtz... But why not reread it?

And it turned out that there are indeed similarities and parallels between these works. In particular, the scene where the white colonizer sails upstream along the river to the village of tubercular patients lost in the jungle... It is identical in both works. But Kurtz sails along the elephant's tusk, and Jim - along honor. Well, both are "brothers" in a way, because both are inspired by an idea. But Kurtz is inspired by the colonial idea: he realized the true meaning of the colonization of Africa, although it was masked by the ideology of enlightenment. And Jim is inspired by a romantic idea. But both perceive the tubercular patients - as a means. Unfortunately, the noble Jim does not value the Malays. They are just a means for him to show that he is not as bad as he seems.

And this impressed me in "Lord Jim". There are other anti-colonial thoughts in the text, but the image of Jim himself is very ambiguous. Apparently noble white man, who civilizes the aborigines - isn't this an apology for colonialism? But Conrad gradually leads to the idea: Jim wants to rule, assert himself, rather than take care of the local people. Of course, there are other parallels with Kurtz. For example, both of them were idolized by the natives - in the literal sense of the word. But Kurtz still sends a message to the Motherland - both letters and last words. And Jim remains silent. And during the reading process, there was constantly a feeling that Conrad deliberately left such a riddle: why are Jim and Kurtz two sides of the same coin? And now, reading both works, you are looking for the answer. But like Kurtz, Jim is doomed to remain a mystery.

Well, "Lord Jim" seems to me the most ambitious work of Conrad. Firstly, there are several layers in it. There is a subplot line, an anti-colonial one, and a romantic one (in terms of the formation of personality). In "Heart of Darkness" everything is simpler, as in "Nostromo". But "Jim" is immediately in several genres. Although, yes, the romantic component prevails in it. And therefore, if you are looking for an anti-colonial Conrad, then "Jim" will rather be a disappointment than an interesting work. However, as a supplement to other works of Conrad - he is very interesting.

Secondly, this is a very complex work in terms of structure. It begins with a story from Jim's perspective, and then suddenly - without explanations and transitions! - it turns into a story by Marlow (who, by the way, is also the narrator in "Heart of Darkness"). But Marlow's story is not at all simple. Here there are both Marlow's stories and Marlow's retelling of other people's stories. And all these stories do not go in chronological order. Sometimes Marlow tells stories that explain later events in Jim's life. Having finished with them, Marlow says: but let's go back, because I got ahead a little. And such meandering back and forth in the text happens several times. Especially rich in this is the first half of the novel. In the second half, Marlow is already more linear. But that's not all. Marlow digresses into various stories that are not related to the plot. For example, Stein invites Jim to work in Patusan - then chapter two will be dedicated to the story of Stein himself. And so constantly, when someone tells a story to Marlow - he gets a short story about himself. And sometimes Marlow just digresses into philosophical reflections. And thus the text turns into a labyrinth. But it is enchanting - with the detail of the descriptions, the plausibility of the characters. And the last chapters - this is a letter from Marlow. Again, a new way to present information.

As for me, this novel by Conrad is the most complex in terms of structure. This is its strong point, although it also throws you off balance.

And regarding the plot, I do not consider this novel romantic. And I do not consider Jim a worthy person. Unfortunately, as Conrad shows, Jim remained what he was at the beginning of the novel. And this was very skillfully done by Conrad. Because at the end, Jim - at first glance! - does the opposite of what he did at the beginning. He does not run away from death, does not grab for the salvation of his life. But it is clearly felt how Conrad sighs: Jim did not understand what responsibility is. And for him, honor is just pride and boastfulness. Conrad does not write about this directly. And I assume that it is precisely because of this that "Lord Jim" was published in 1985 in the "Molod" publishing house - as a work for teenagers. Because "externally" Jim did completely differently than at the beginning. He washed away the shame of cowardice from himself. And this external difference hides the fact that the situation remained the same as at the beginning of the novel. But this is not always noticed. To not be too mysterious, but also not to spoil, I will explain what happened at the beginning. A steamer with several hundred pilgrims starts to sink: the bow of the ship was pierced, but the problem is that the watertight partition in the hull can burst at any moment - and in a few minutes the entire ship will sink. But the crew learns about this in the middle of a stupid night. And since the lifeboat is not enough for everyone, the captain and the crew members decide to escape on their own, and leave the pilgrims to sink. Jim objects to this, he refuses to help the crew members in their attempts to quietly and inconspicuously lower the lifeboat into the water. But at the last moment, he still jumps off the ship - and is saved. Why does he do this? We never get a clear explanation. But, unfortunately for the crew and fortunately for the passengers, the ship does not have time to sink - and all the passengers are picked up by another ship. A judicial investigation begins. And here Jim shows that this is a terrible shame for him: he wanted to be a hero, but he did like a coward, who trembles for his skin. And here half of the novel - this is the story of the ship and the judicial process. And the second half of the novel - the story of Jim as the ruler in Patusan, an invented country in Indonesia. It is in the second half that Jim seems to correct the mistakes of the past, becomes a new personality... But in my opinion, no - he is still the same Jim as at the beginning. He just escapes from responsibility more ingeniously.

This is a masterpiece of Conrad. And I'm not surprised that it was published in Ukrainian twice - in 1985 and 2011 (in the collection Do or Die. Sea Stories. But it's a pity that this novel is overlooked when they talk about the "political" or "anti-colonial" Conrad. This is a pair to "Heart of Darkness", which shows another image of colonialism. At first glance, noble, but in fact - just as rotten as Kurtz's.

P.S. I found out that after the first reading of "Lord Jim", a comparison with Kurtz arose in me: "On the last pages, Jim begins to resemble Kurtz, because we hear little of his words, but only the stories of others. We never find out what Jim thought in the last days. He remains a mystery, as at the beginning". Funny how I forgot my own impressions of this novel. Although I wrote these words back in 2014. After 6 years, the impressions turned out to be similar.

Joseph Conrad is a favorite author of mine.

His proficiency in shaping the English language, which was his second language as he was Polish, remains remarkable to this day.

Nobody seems to have a completely clear understanding of the difference between fiction and literature, if there is any at all. However, this book appears to straddle both categories.

Regarding stars on Goodreads, there seem to be two schools of thought. One is simply "did I personally like the book?" The other is "regardless of my liking, is this a good book?"

Most voting seems to follow the first line of thought, which is understandable but not really complete. The point is that a reader may not "like" a calculus book, but their personal opinion of calculus has no bearing on the value of the book in a more objective sense. It could be a great calculus book, but if the reader is poor at math, they might rate it one star.

Nobody can ignore the first perspective, but please, for the love of Pete, also consider the second perspective.

OK, this book rates five stars in both aspects.

Paul

The stylistic brilliance of Conrad is truly on full display within these pages. The captivating story of Patna and Marlow's nonlinear account of it add a layer of complexity and intrigue that makes the first half of the book significantly stronger than what follows. Conrad's masterful use of language and his ability to paint vivid pictures in the reader's mind are evident throughout.

The nonlinear narrative keeps the reader on the edge of their seat, constantly wondering what will happen next and how the various pieces of the story will fit together. It is a testament to Conrad's skill as a writer that he is able to create such a compelling and engaging story using this unconventional structure.

While the second half of the book may not quite match the intensity and excitement of the first, it still offers many interesting insights and themes. I look forward to delving deeper into the text and perhaps writing a more comprehensive review at a later date.

Apparently, Joseph Conrad is not my guy.

I've read two of his novels and thought both were just okay. Something about his writing doesn't work for me. It's such that I struggle to pay attention and quickly lose grasp of what is going on.

In this novel, we have an interesting starting point. Jim, a brave man with strong beliefs about the importance of bravery, a man who once had dreams of being a hero, has done something cowardly. He regrets it terribly and, as a consequence, is living as “a seaman in exile from the sea.” One part of the novel deals with the cowardly act itself, the other with its aftermath and Jim's subsequent life.

Despite my waning interest in Conrad's novels, I think I will wait a few years before trying another one. However, his ability to turn a phrase is undeniable.

“The danger, when not seen, has the imperfect vagueness of human thought. The fear grows shadowy; and Imagination, the enemy of men, the father of all terrors, unstimulated, sinks to rest in the dullness of exhausted emotion.”

MEMORABLE QUOTES:

“A single word had stripped him of his discretion—of that discretion which is more necessary to the decencies of our inner being than clothing is to the decorum of our body.”

“It is when we try to grapple with another man’s intimate need that we perceive how incomprehensible, wavering, and misty are the beings that share with us the sight of the stars and the warmth of the sun.”

“A certain readiness to perish is not so very rare, but it is seldom that you meet men whose souls, steeled in the impenetrable armor of resolution, are ready to fight a losing battle to the last; the desire of peace waxes stronger as hope declines, till at last it conquers the very desire of life … Those striving with unreasonable forces know it well—the shipwrecked castaways in boats, wanderers lost in a desert, men battling against the unthinking might of nature, or the stupid brutality of crowds.”

“A clean slate, did he say? As if the initial word of each of our destinies were not graven in imperishable characters upon the face of a rock!”